Plaza Orange Concrete replaces the driveways, walks and patios of Westminster, where nearly every slab is the one the tract builder poured and is now past 60. The figure is written on the lot.
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Westminster has 3,520 people to the square mile, the densest town we cover, and it got that way in about 15 years. The lots are small, the houses sit on slabs, and the concrete is the builder's.
A slab poured in 1962 was 3 inches thick with no steel in it and no base under it, because that was the tract standard and the ground was flat farmland that seemed to need nothing. Sixty years on it has cracked into panels that rock, dropped where the water line was trenched across the drive, and lifted where a liquidambar went in beside the walk. Patching it holds for a season. The job that lasts takes the whole slab out, because a new panel doweled into a rocking old one moves with it.
Replacement on a tract lot is about what is around the slab. The drive sits between the neighbor's fence and the house wall, the walk runs past the water meter and the gas line, and the side yard is a gate wide. So we mark the services before the saw starts, break out by hand at the walls, dig to firm ground and lay 4 inches of compacted base where there was none, and pour 4 inches with steel through it and joints cut the same day. Nothing old is buried under the new.
Westminster was built out in one push between the mid 1950s and 1970, so almost every lot already has its concrete and all of it is the same age. The work here is tear-out and replacement on a tight lot, in the order the house was built.
A Westminster driveway is the builder's 1960s slab, 3 inches with no steel, broken into panels that rock. We saw it at the house, break it out, lay 4 inches of compacted base where there was none, and pour 4 inches with steel through it, jointed to line up with the walk.
The builder left Westminster back yards in dirt behind a 10 foot slab at the door, and the side yard is one gate wide. We barrow the concrete through, dowel the new slab into the old one at the door, and pitch it away from the house, since the yard is the low point of the lot.
Stamped concrete on a Westminster lot is usually the front entry, where a small yard wants something more than a broom finish. We stamp a 4 inch slab in a running bond or ashlar, run a plain band at the walk, and seal it in 2 coats so it holds its color under the summer sun.
A Westminster walk is two walks. The public one along the street belongs to the city and needs an encroachment permit to touch, and your own runs from the drive to the door. We replace both in matching panels, with the tree root beside the public one cut and barriered first.
Westminster garages were poured with the house and carry the crack a slab with no steel gets at 60. A floor that will be coated is ground flat, the crack is routed and filled, and the slab is tested for moisture, since water near the coast pushes up through it.
Exposed aggregate suits a Westminster entry, where the same broom finish runs on every drive on the block. We pour with the stone in the mix, wash the top at the right hour to show it, and seal it, so the front of the house reads as its own and not as one more on the tract.
Westminster is flat, so a wall here is not holding a hill. It is a raised bed, a planter at the front door, or the step to a neighbor's lot a foot higher. We pour it on a footing below the topsoil with weep holes through the stem, and few reach the 4 feet the city checks.
An interior floor in Westminster is most often a garage conversion, the state ADU law having turned the front garage into a bedroom on many tracts. We pour a new slab over a vapor barrier, trowel it flat for tile or vinyl, and cut the joints where the walls will stand on it.
A crew leaves Orange on the 22, comes off at Beach Boulevard and turns south into Westminster, about 10 miles and 25 minutes without a second freeway. The city incorporated in 1957 and its permits come from the Building Division of the City of Westminster at City Hall on Westminster Boulevard. A driveway, walk or patio at grade on your own lot needs none. The approach, the curb cut and anything in the public walk go to Public Works for an encroachment permit, and we file that too.
The tracts either side of Westminster Boulevard and along Bolsa Avenue went up in the same few years, and they share a plan. Garage forward, a short drive to the public walk, a side yard one gate wide, and a back yard the builder left in dirt. That plan sets the method. Anything at the back is barrowed through the gate, so a patio is a two day job where the same slab at the front is one, and the drive is broken out with the neighbor's drive a fence away and the meter in the parkway.
Bolsa Avenue and the streets around it are Little Saigon, and the strip centers there give Westminster a second kind of job, the small commercial lot. A parking apron, a path from the stalls to the door, a set of steps, a dumpster pad. Those pours are 6 inches rather than 4 because of what parks on them, and the path is graded to the state accessibility standard. Midway City, the county pocket in the middle of the city, is permitted by Orange County, and we file there.
Four stages, one crew and one figure written on the lot. A Westminster job is a tear-out before it is a pour, so the services under the old slab are found before the number is.
Curtis Ballard measures the slab, marks the water and gas lines that cross it, checks the gate width and writes the figure on the spot.
An approach or a curb cut goes to Public Works, a wall or a footing to the Building Division, and we file both. Grade work needs none.
The old slab is sawn at the house, broken out and hauled, and the ground under it is dug to firm material and topped with 4 inches of base.
A Westminster driveway is poured in one morning and its joints cut by evening. Walk on it after 24 hours, park on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will answer within 1 business day to fix the visit. A tear-out cannot be priced from the street, because what is under the slab decides the hours. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners in the towns we cover, Westminster among them. The drives and patios in them were replaced the way this page describes, whole and on base.
“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 Westminster homeowners ask before a tear-out, from what the old slab hides and which counter the approach goes to, to how long the car is on the street and whether Midway City is treated the same.
What is under the old slab. A drive poured over a trenched water line or a root has soft ground beneath it that is dug out and replaced with base, hours the tape does not show. The width of the side gate moves a back yard job the same way, since a barrowed pour takes longer than a chuted one. The size of the slab comes last. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and that is where it is found.
Two, depending on where the slab is. Work on your own lot at grade needs no permit. A wall over 4 feet or a footing under a cover goes to the Building Division of the City of Westminster at City Hall on Westminster Boulevard. The drive approach, the curb and the public walk belong to the city and go to Public Works for an encroachment permit. Midway City addresses go to Orange County instead. We file all of it.
About 10 miles, straight down the 22. A crew is at a Westminster curb in 25 minutes and the drive is made once for the job, since a tear-out and a pour run on consecutive days. We call back within 1 business day to set the visit, and Westminster jobs are booked in with Fountain Valley and Stanton so a crew is on that side of the county most weeks.
Not for long. A 1960s slab with no steel and no base has already broken into panels that rock, and a patch poured into one of them is tied to a piece that is still moving. It opens along the same line within a winter or two. A whole replacement costs more on the day and is the last time the drive is touched, which is why we recommend it and write the figure for that.
About 9 days. The old drive comes out on the first day and the new one is poured on the second, and concrete takes a car after 7 days of cure. The walk to the door is usable after 24 hours, so the house is never cut off. We tell you the two dates before the saw arrives, and the street is swept behind us on the day the old slab is hauled.
Only at the counter. Midway City is county land in the middle of Westminster, so a wall or a footing there is permitted by Orange County rather than the city, and the inspector comes from the county. The ground, the houses and the tract plan are the same as the streets around it, and the work is the same tear-out and pour. The address tells us which office, and you go to neither.
Westminster shares its lines with Fountain Valley to the south and Stanton to the north, and Los Alamitos and Cypress sit a few minutes further west. We cover all four from Orange, and each has a page of its own written for its own streets and counter.
Open the Orange Office in Google Maps Send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to set the measure. The figure is free and written on the lot, and the new slab carries a written guarantee.