Plaza Orange Concrete pours drives, patios and garage slabs across Tustin, from the bungalows of Old Town to the new streets on the old air station. The figure is measured on your lot.
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The concrete on a Tustin lot is as old as the street it faces. Old Town poured its walks before the war, the tracts between the 5 and the 55 poured theirs in the 1960s, and Tustin Legacy pours now.
That matters because each age fails its own way. A walk in Old Town has a pepper tree or a camphor beside it that has been lifting panels for decades, so the fix is a root barrier and a walk that steps around the trunk, not another panel over the same root. A driveway in Tustin Meadows was poured 3 inches thick with no steel on ground that was a grove the year before, and at 60 years it has broken into pieces that rock when a car turns onto it. Patching either holds for a season.
On the new streets the trouble is the opposite. The lots on the old air station were graded flat by machine, and the builder poured the drive and a strip at the back door and left the rest as dirt. A patio there is a first pour rather than a replacement, and it is built to the same rule as the others. The soft ground comes out, 4 inches of base go in and are compacted, steel runs through a 4 inch slab, and the joints are cut the same day so the cracks land in straight lines.
Tustin was laid out three times, and each laying asks for something different. Old Town wants its walks and porches kept in character, the 1960s tracts want their first slabs replaced, and Tustin Legacy wants the yard the builder never finished.
A Tustin driveway replaced today was poured in the 1960s at 3 inches with no steel, on ground that was a grove the year before. We break it out, compact 4 inches of base, run steel through a 4 inch slab and cut the joints the same day, so the new one outlives the old by decades.
Patios are the first pour on Tustin Legacy, where the builder left a strip at the door and dirt beyond it. We dowel the new slab into that strip so the two move as one, pitch it a quarter inch to the foot away from the house, and joint it every 10 feet so it cracks on a line.
Stamped concrete in Tustin Ranch has to pass the association before it passes the inspector, so we bring the pattern and color samples to the review. The slab is 4 inches over compacted base, the stamp is worked in before the set, and 2 coats of sealer close it against the sun.
A walk in Old Town Tustin faces the public sidewalk and a tree older than the house. We deal with the root, run a barrier along the line, and pour panels that match the old scoring, because the Cultural Resource District looks at what shows from the street before it is built.
Tustin garages north of the 5 were poured with the house in the 1960s and carry a crack where the ground settled. A floor that is going to be coated is ground flat, tested for moisture and only then sealed, because old orchard soil can push water up through an epoxy after rain.
Exposed aggregate suits the mid-century streets of Tustin Meadows, where the houses were built with pebbled paths to begin with. We pour a slab with the stone in the mix, wash the paste off the top at the right hour to show it, and seal it, so the new path reads as the first did.
The rise north of Irvine Boulevard toward Peters Canyon gives Tustin its walls. On a cut and fill pad the wall is footed into firm material below the fill, drained behind the stem with a perforated pipe to daylight, and anything over 4 feet is drawn and checked by the city first.
An interior floor in Tustin is most often a converted garage or a new casita, and it has to be flat enough to live on. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel it to a tile tolerance and cut the joints on a grid that follows the walls of the room.
Tustin is the next city south of ours, so a crew leaves Orange on the 55, comes off at Irvine Boulevard and is on an Old Town street in a quarter of an hour. Permits are issued by the Building Division of the City of Tustin at City Hall on Centennial Way. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs none. A wall over 4 feet, a footing under a cover and work in the parkway or the public walk are checked, and a street-facing change in Old Town answers to the Cultural Resource District too.
North of Irvine Boulevard the ground starts to rise toward Red Hill and Peters Canyon, and Tustin Ranch was built up there in the 1980s and 1990s on cut and fill pads, each under an association that reviews what shows from the street. A patio at the back of one of those lots often ends at the top of a graded slope, so the slab is pitched to a drain and out to the street, never over the edge. The association's approval goes in before the permit does, and we prepare both.
Tustin Legacy is the newest ground in the city. The Marine Corps air station closed in 1999, and its runways and aprons were broken out before the streets went in, so the fill under a new yard there was placed by a grader and is firm in the middle of a pad and looser near its edge. We probe it before we set a form. The lots are narrow, and most concrete goes in by barrow through a side gate rather than by chute from a mixer, which is a day the wider streets do not need.
Four stages and one crew, with the figure written before the first stage is booked. Tustin jobs are measured on the lot, because a walk in Old Town and a patio on Tustin Legacy are not the same job at the same size.
Curtis Ballard measures the area, checks which way the ground falls and looks at the tree, the gate and the slab that is there now.
We file with the City of Tustin Building Division where the work needs it, and with the association on a Tustin Ranch lot. No counter for you.
The old slab is broken out and hauled, soft ground is dug to firm material, and 4 inches of base is laid and compacted before any steel goes in.
Most Tustin jobs take 2 to 3 days on site. Joints are cut the same day, you walk on it after 24 hours and drive on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will reply within 1 business day to fix the visit. Nothing is priced from a photograph. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the number on that page is the number on the invoice.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover, Tustin among them. Each one is about a job measured and built the way the page above 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 Tustin homeowners ask before they book, from the permit counter and the trees in Old Town to how long a driveway in Tustin Meadows is out of use and whether we cover the streets next door.
Tear-out first. A 1960s driveway that has to be broken out and hauled is more crew hours than the same drive poured on bare ground at Tustin Legacy. Access is next, since a barrowed side yard costs time a chuted one does not. Thickness, steel and finish follow. Every estimate is measured and written on site, which is where those hours are counted rather than guessed.
The Building Division of the City of Tustin, at City Hall on Centennial Way. A driveway, patio or walk at grade on your own lot needs no permit. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing that carries a roof, and any work on the public walk or in the parkway do, and the last of those runs through Public Works as an encroachment permit. We file it and meet the inspector.
Inside 20 minutes. Orange and Tustin sit on the same freeway, the 55, and Old Town is about 5 miles from the Plaza. We call back within 1 business day to fix the visit, and a Tustin job is usually booked into a week when we already have a crew on that side of the 55, so the truck is loaded once for two lots.
Not if the root is dealt with rather than covered. The street trees in Old Town are as old as the houses, and their roots run under every walk on the block. We cut the offending root where an arborist agrees it can be cut, set a root barrier along the walk line, and where the trunk is too close we step the walk around it. A panel poured back over a live root is the same walk lifting again.
About 10 days from the first break to the first car. Tear-out and base take a day, the pour a second, and the joints are cut that afternoon. The slab takes foot traffic after 24 hours and a vehicle after 7 days, so the car lives on the street for one week and a bit. We tell you both dates before the tear-out begins, and the walk to the door stays open throughout.
Yes, in who has to agree to it. Tustin Ranch lots sit under an association that reviews anything visible from the street, and the pads up there are cut and fill, so a patio is probed and pitched toward a drain. Old Town lots answer to the Cultural Resource District for what shows from the sidewalk, and the ground is old orchard soil that settled a century ago and gives little trouble once the roots are handled.
Tustin sits between our own city of Orange and the coast, and the same crew covers Villa Park to the north, Lake Forest and Laguna Woods to the southeast and Newport Beach at the water. If your street is on a city line, the page next door may read closer.
Open the Orange Office in Google Maps Send the form and we will call back within 1 business day to set the measure. The estimate is free and written on the lot, and the work carries a written guarantee.