Plaza Orange Concrete rebuilds driveways, walks and patios in La Mirada, up the 5 from Orange. The parkway tree decides most of the job here. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Roots, not soil. The ground under La Mirada is flat, well drained alluvium that carries a slab, and the slabs that fail here fail beside a tree, along the walk and across the first panel of the drive.
A parkway tree planted in 1955 has spent 70 years looking for water, and the easiest water on a tract lot is under the concrete, where the soil stays damp because nothing evaporates through a slab. The roots run in under the walk and the apron, thicken, and lift the panel an inch at a time. The panel tips toward the tree, the joint opens into a step, and the rain that ran to the gutter stands at the crack. That is why a drive patched at the street end lifts again within a few years.
So a slab beside a tree is built to live with it. We cut roots back only as far as the City of La Mirada Public Works Department allows, because the parkway tree is the city's and a tree cut too hard is a tree that falls, and we set a root barrier along the parkway edge so new growth goes down rather than under. The panel nearest the tree is poured thicker with number 4 steel, and the joints are placed so that if a root lifts it again, one panel moves and the rest stays put.
La Mirada was planted with street trees as the houses went up in the 1950s, and those trees are now 70 years old with roots the width of the parkway. Most of the concrete we replace here was lifted by one, so every job starts at the tree.
A La Mirada driveway lifts at the street end, where the parkway tree's roots have run under the apron. We take out the lifted panels, cut and barrier the roots where the city allows, and pour 4 inches on compacted base, the apron under a Public Works encroachment permit.
Patios in La Mirada go behind a 1950s ranch house whose back yard has been lawn for 70 years, so the top of the ground is soft and full of roots. We strip it to firm soil, compact 4 inches of base, and pour 4 inches jointed on a 10 foot grid and doweled to the house slab.
Stamped concrete in La Mirada goes on the walk and the porch, the part of the lot the street sees, and it is laid clear of the parkway so no root lifts a patterned panel out of line. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab and seal it in 2 coats against a front yard in full sun.
The public walk in La Mirada is the panel the tree lifts first, and it is the city's to fix or yours to replace under a permit. We saw the lifted panel, cut the root where Public Works allows, set a barrier, and pour it level with the panels either side so the trip lip is gone.
A 1950s garage floor in La Mirada is thin, cracked at the door line and, on a lot with a big front tree, lifted at the corner nearest it. We break it out, dig any root that has come in under the footing, lay 4 inches of base, and pour a new 4 inch floor troweled flat to coat.
Exposed aggregate is on many La Mirada walks and porches from the 1960s, and a replacement should sit beside the old unnoticed. We match the pebble and the color of the matrix, wash the stone proud the same afternoon, and seal it once cured, with the joints cut on the old lines.
Walls in La Mirada are low, since the city is flat, and they mostly hold a raised bed against a neighbor's grade or a planter along a drive. We footing them below the topsoil into firm ground, drain behind the stem, and keep them clear of the parkway tree's root zone.
Inside a La Mirada garage conversion or the backyard unit the state now allows on a tract lot, the slab is a floor someone lives on. We pour it over a vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat for the flooring going down, and cut the joints where a wall will stand on them.
We reach La Mirada on the Santa Ana Freeway, north through Anaheim and Buena Park to the Valley View Avenue exit, about half an hour from our yard in Orange with the mixer behind us. The permit for anything on the lot comes from the Community Development Department at City of La Mirada City Hall on La Mirada Boulevard, and the parkway, the apron and the tree in front of them belong to the city's Public Works Department, which has to agree before a root is cut.
The tract streets between Imperial Highway and Rosecrans Avenue, either side of Santa Gertrudes Avenue and La Mirada Boulevard, are the ranch houses of the 1950s with the garage forward and a walk that runs past the tree to the porch. Off Biola Avenue and around La Mirada Regional Park the houses are a decade newer and the trees a decade younger, so the walks there are lifting now. Along Valley View Avenue there is less parkway, and a drive is more often worn out than lifted.
La Mirada is the one town we cover on the Los Angeles County side of the line, and it shows at the counter rather than in the ground. La Habra and Buena Park sit across the county line on the city's east and south edges, so the same walk on the far side of the line is a different city and a different form. The soil does not know the difference. It is flat and sandy on both sides, holds a grade, and drains toward the channel through Creek Park, and we pour on it all year.
Four stages and one figure, written on the lot before a date is held. The extra stage a La Mirada job carries is the tree, and it goes first, because what the city allows at the roots decides how the drive is built.
Curtis Ballard measures the drive and the walk, probes along the parkway to find where the roots run, and writes the figure before he leaves.
We file with the Community Development Department for the lot and ask Public Works about the roots and the apron, then wait for both answers.
The lifted panels are sawn and hauled, roots are cut only where allowed, a barrier goes in along the parkway, and 4 inches of base is compacted.
The pour takes a morning and the joints are cut the same day. Walk on it after 24 hours, drive on it after 7 days, and the tree stays.
Call or send the form and we call back within 1 business day with a time. The measure costs nothing and the figure is written before we leave, and if the tree in your parkway is why you are calling, say so and we look at the roots first.
Reviews
Our reviews are left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across central and north Orange County and over the county line, La Mirada among them, about the drives and walks this page describes.
“Our drive goes right down the lot to a garage on the alley, and it had broken into about nine pieces. They took out 540 square feet, put five inches back and got the joints in before they left that evening. Curtis was here at seven for the pour.”
“Three of the pepper trees out front had lifted the walk into a trip hazard and the city had already been round. Seventy feet of panel came out, a barrier went in against each root plate, and the new walk has stayed flat through two winters.”
“The back of our lot falls away hard and the old patio had cracked right across the middle. They stepped the new one down in two levels, 380 square feet of it, and formed a drain along the low edge. Nothing has stood on it since, even in February.”
What people in La Mirada ask before booking, on what a lifted walk costs to put right, whether the city tree can be cut, how far we travel, the ground, how long the drive is closed, and the towns next door.
Because of what is under it. A cracked panel is sawn, lifted and replaced on fresh base in a day. A lifted panel has a root under it, and the root has to be found, cut where the city allows and kept out with a barrier before the base goes down, a second day on the same few feet of walk. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the root work is its own line on the sheet so you see what the tree costs.
Only with the City of La Mirada Public Works Department's agreement, because the parkway tree is the city's and not yours. We ask before we cut, and the answer is usually yes to roots under the walk and no to anything close to the trunk. Where a root cannot be cut we bridge it, pouring the panel thicker over a bed of base that lets the root live under it without lifting it again.
About half an hour on the Santa Ana Freeway, north past Anaheim and Buena Park to Valley View Avenue, and the mixer comes the same way. We book La Mirada as a full day rather than a half, so the crew that sets the forms is the crew that pours and the joints are cut before it drives home. A job here is planned on one visit, with the figure written at the curb.
Yes. It is flat, sandy alluvium that drains and holds a grade, and a slab on it lasts as long as anything in the county if nothing disturbs it from below. What disturbs it is a root or a leaking irrigation line, so the base under a new slab is carried a foot past the edge and the sprinklers along it are moved back before we pour. Where a yard has been lawn for 60 years, the soft top of it comes out first.
Eight days, from the break out to the first car. The old drive comes out and the base goes in on the first day, the pour is on the second, and the slab then needs 7 days before a vehicle goes on it. You walk on it after 24 hours. Park on the street for the week, and if the apron is in the job the city's inspector sees the forms before the pour, which is fitted into the same days.
Buena Park, La Habra and La Habra Heights across the county line, and Cypress and La Palma south of them, each with its own page here. Whittier, Santa Fe Springs and Cerritos on the Los Angeles County side are not towns we reach. If your street runs along the line with La Habra or Buena Park, the page for your side names your permit desk, since the counter changes at the line even where the tract does not.
La Mirada meets La Habra, La Habra Heights and Buena Park at the county line, and Cypress and La Palma sit just south, all covered from the same yard in Orange. If your block sits on a city line, the page for your side names your permit counter.
Open the Orange Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day. The figure is written on your lot and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.