Plaza Orange Concrete replaces the drives, walks and patios Los Alamitos was built with, from a yard in Orange 14 miles up the 22. Every estimate is measured and written on site at no charge.
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Los Alamitos was built in about a decade, so its concrete ages in step. The drives, walks and patios that went in with the houses are now past the age a plain unreinforced slab is expected to reach.
The tracts either side of Los Alamitos Boulevard went up on former farmland that was graded flat and built on quickly, and the flatwork was poured the way the trade did it then, thin, on the native ground, with no base and no steel. Sixty years of cars, of irrigation softening the edges, and of root growth from the parkway trees have done what they do. So the same failures show up street after street, a drive mapped into plates, an apron dropped at the gutter, a walk lifted at the tree.
So a job in Los Alamitos starts with what comes out rather than what goes in. We break out the whole run rather than patching the worst panel, because a new panel doweled to a sixty-year-old one moves with it. The ground is dug to firm material, 4 inches of base is compacted, steel runs through the slab, and the pour is graded to shed toward the street or a drain, since the lots here are too flat to shed water on their own. A shared apron is matched to the neighbor's line and level.
Los Alamitos was laid out and built in one push around its incorporation in 1960, so the concrete on most lots is original and all of it is reaching the end of its life in the same few years. The work here is replacement, one lot at a time.
A Los Alamitos driveway from the 1960s is usually 3 or 4 inches of plain concrete on the native ground with no steel in it, which is why it maps and sinks at the curb. We break it out, dig to firm material, compact 4 inches of base and pour the new drive with steel through it.
The patios behind the original tract houses are small squares poured at the sliding door, and owners now want a slab the width of the house. We dowel the new pour to the old slab rather than butting it, and grade the whole thing away from the house to the side yard drain.
Stamped work in Los Alamitos tends to be a front entry or a courtyard, because the lots are small and the street sees it. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab, color the release to match brick already on the house, and seal it twice so the texture holds up to the coastal damp.
Walks in Los Alamitos are lifted by the street trees planted when the tracts were built, now 60 years old. We cut out the raised panels, prune roots under the city's direction, set a root barrier where the tree allows it, and pour the panel back level with its neighbors.
A 1960s garage slab in Los Alamitos has been parked on for sixty years and often carries the same cracks as the drive in front of it. Where it is sound we grind and seal it. Where it is broken we take it out and pour a new slab over a vapor barrier, ready for a coating.
Exposed aggregate suits the low, wide front yards here because it reads as texture rather than a pattern from the street. We seed the surface with washed stone, band the edges smooth, and cut the joints on a grid that lines up with the walk, so the front looks planned.
Los Alamitos is flat, so a retaining wall here is nearly always a raised planter or a step between a drive and a lawn rather than a hillside wall. We pour a footing into firm ground below the topsoil, drain behind the wall to daylight, and cap it level so it doubles as a seat.
Interior floors come up when a Los Alamitos garage is converted or a room is added over the old patio. We pour over a vapor barrier, since the water table here sits close under the ground, trowel the slab flat enough for tile, and cut the joints on a grid that follows the room.
The 22 runs from our side of Orange to its last exit at Valley View Street, and Katella Avenue carries a crew the rest of the way into Los Alamitos, about 14 miles and half an hour on a weekday morning. City permits come from the Community Development Department at Los Alamitos City Hall on Katella Avenue, and work on the parkway or the drive approach needs an encroachment permit from Public Works as well. We file both and meet the inspector.
Not every Los Alamitos address is in the city. Rossmoor, on the west side of Los Alamitos Boulevard, uses the Los Alamitos post office but is unincorporated, so a permit for a lot there goes to Orange County rather than to City Hall, and we check the parcel before anything is filed. The Joint Forces Training Base takes up the southern half of the city, which is why the residential streets are packed into the northern half between Katella Avenue and Cerritos Avenue.
The ground is flat and low, twenty-odd feet above the sea, with Coyote Creek along the county line to the west. Water that lands on a lot has to be carried off it, because there is no fall to speak of, so every slab we pour here is graded to a drain or the gutter rather than simply made level. Winter jobs wait a day longer after rain than they would inland, because the subgrade holds water, and summer pours start early, before the coastal overcast burns off.
One crew from break-out to broom, and the figure written before the first hammer. The visit decides what comes out and what replaces it, so nothing is renegotiated once the old slab is on the truck.
Curtis Ballard measures the old slab, checks how the apron meets the gutter and the walk meets the tree, and writes the estimate on site.
The old concrete is broken, loaded and hauled the same day. Tree roots under the walk are cut back only as far as the city allows.
We file with Community Development at City Hall, and with Public Works if the apron or walk is involved. You never visit the counter.
Base is compacted, steel is set, the pour is graded to shed water. Walk on it after a day, drive on it after a week.
Ring or send the form and we will answer within 1 business day with a time for the visit. The old slab is measured on your own lot, the figure is written there, and nothing is owed for either.
Reviews
Left on Google and Facebook by the people whose drives and walks we replaced, across the towns we reach from Orange. Los Alamitos is one of them, and the jobs above are the ones behind the words.
“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 owners of the original tract houses ask before a replacement, covering what drives the cost, which permit a job needs, the county line through Rossmoor, the trees and how long a drive is out of use.
Break-out and haul, before any new concrete is counted. Nearly every job in Los Alamitos starts with an original slab coming out, and the volume of that, plus whether the apron and walk go with it, is most of the difference between one drive and the next. Access matters less here because the lots are flat and open straight onto the street. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and that is the figure.
Not for the part inside your property line, replaced like for like. The approach between the sidewalk and the gutter is public right-of-way and needs an encroachment permit from Public Works, and a wall over 4 feet or a slab that will carry a roof needs a building permit from the Community Development Department at City Hall on Katella Avenue. We file whichever applies and meet the inspector.
Check the parcel, because Rossmoor is not. Rossmoor lies on the west side of Los Alamitos Boulevard, carries a Los Alamitos mailing address and is unincorporated, so its building permits come from Orange County and its street trees and parkways belong to the county too. We confirm which side of the line a lot is on at the visit so the application goes to the right counter the first time.
Usually, yes. The trees along the older Los Alamitos streets were planted with the tracts and their roots run under the walk and often under the first panels of the drive. We cut the raised panels out, prune the roots only as far as the city's tree rules allow, fit a root barrier on the house side where there is room, and pour the panel back level with its neighbors. The tree stays unless the city says so.
About 9 days from the first break-out to the first car. The old slab is out on the first day, base and steel go in on the second, and the pour is usually the third. Concrete carries foot traffic after 24 hours and a vehicle after 7 days, and the street parking in Los Alamitos is easy enough that a week at the curb is rarely a hardship.
Cypress, yes, from the same crew on the same drive out. It shares the Katella Avenue and Valley View Street corridors with Los Alamitos and the same 1960s tract housing. Seal Beach is not on our list, since it is the far side of the base and the 405 from us, and we would rather say so than stretch a crew. Where the line between Cypress and Los Alamitos crosses a street, either page applies.
Los Alamitos sits against Cypress to the north and east, with Rossmoor and the base to the south and west. We cover Cypress, Stanton, Westminster and Buena Park from the same yard, and the page for each carries its own ground and its own counter.
Open the Orange Office in Google Maps Use the form and we will answer within 1 business day to fix a time for the measure. The estimate is written on your lot at no charge, and the new concrete carries a written guarantee.