Plaza Orange Concrete pours patios, pool decks and drives in Yorba Linda, the far corner of our patch, where the flat part of a lot is the part a grader made. The figure is written on the pad.
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A Yorba Linda pad was made by a grader, cut on the uphill side and filled on the downhill side, and the fill is the softer half. A patio poured to the back edge sits on fill, and that edge drops.
The hillside tracts, from the 1970s streets off Yorba Linda Boulevard to Bryant Ranch and East Lake Village in the 1980s and 1990s, were graded the same way, and each pad carries a drainage plan that sends water to the street and never over the slope, because water over a fill slope is how a slope fails. The original rear patios were poured 3 inches thick and pitched toward the slope because that felt right, and they have dropped at the back edge and sent decades of runoff down the fill.
So a slab here is built to the pad and not to the eye. The fill under the back edge is probed and dug to firm material, 4 inches of base is compacted, and steel runs through the slab so the panel spans the soft ground rather than settling into it. The pitch is set to a drain at the low corner that runs to the street under the side yard, the slab stops short of the top of slope by the setback the hillside rules give, and a wall at the edge is footed below the fill and drained.
Most of a Yorba Linda yard is a pad, a flat cut into a hill, with a slope falling away behind it. The concrete is poured on the pad and stops short of the slope, and where the water goes at that edge is the question every job here answers.
A Yorba Linda driveway on the hill climbs from the street to the garage, so it is poured with a broom finish across the fall for grip and a trench drain at the garage door. On the flat streets it replaces the original 3 inch slab, poured 4 inches on base with steel through it.
A patio on a Yorba Linda pad stops short of the top of slope, sits on base where the fill was dug out, and is pitched to a drain at the low corner that runs to the street. A slab pitched toward the slope is how the slope gets wet, so the fall is set before the forms go in.
Stamped concrete is the common pool surround on the hill tracts, where the deck faces a view and the association has a say in its color. We bring the samples to the review, stamp a 4 inch slab with a plain coping band, and seal it in 2 coats so the color holds under the sun.
Yorba Linda walks are the public one along the street, city right of way that needs an encroachment permit to touch, and your own from the drive to the door. On a sloped lot the entry walk is often ramps and landings, poured with a broom finish and jointed flush so nothing trips.
Garage floors on the flat streets of Yorba Linda are the original slabs with a crack across them, and on the hill they are newer and sound. A floor that will be coated is ground flat, tested for moisture, then sealed, because a slab on a hillside pad draws water up from the fill.
Exposed aggregate suits a Yorba Linda entry, where a long walk from the street would otherwise be a strip of plain gray. We pour with the stone in the mix, wash the top at the right hour to bring it up, and seal it, with a smooth band along each edge so the path reads as one.
Walls are what hold a Yorba Linda pad together. The one at the top of the slope keeps the yard where the grader put it, and it is footed below the fill into firm ground, drained behind the stem to a pipe that reaches the street, and drawn for plan check at the city past 4 feet.
An interior floor in Yorba Linda is most often a casita or a converted garage on a lot with the room for one. We pour it over a vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat to a tile tolerance and cut the joints where the walls will stand, so any crack is a line under a wall.
From Orange the crew takes the 55 north to the 91, runs east and comes off at Imperial Highway, about 10 miles and half an hour, so Yorba Linda jobs are planned as a week and the drive is made once. Permits come from the Building Division of the City of Yorba Linda at City Hall on Casa Loma Avenue. Flatwork at grade needs none. A wall over 4 feet, a footing under a cover and anything cut into a graded slope go through plan check, and an association's approval goes in first.
The town has two halves and two ages. Along the river and Yorba Linda Boulevard the ground is flat and the houses date from the 1960s and 1970s, with the original 3 inch drives and patios now past 50 and cracked into panels. Up the hill to the north and east the tracts came in the 1980s and 1990s on graded pads, where the concrete is younger and the ground is the trouble. Which half a lot is in decides whether the job is a replacement or a first pour on fill.
The Freeway Complex Fire came over the hills into the east side of the city in November 2008 and took houses in the tracts above the 91. The rebuilds are the newest slabs in Yorba Linda and rarely need us. What the fire changed on every other lot up there is what sits against the house. State law asks for defensible space on the wildland edge, and a concrete apron keeps it without weeding, so the patio that once stopped at the door now runs the length of the wall.
Four stages and one written figure. A Yorba Linda pad is measured on the lot, because the fill line, the top of slope and where a drain can reach the street cannot be read from a photograph.
Curtis Ballard measures the pad, probes the fill along the back edge, finds the top of slope and the route for a drain, and writes the figure.
A wall over 4 feet, a footing or any cut into the slope goes to the City of Yorba Linda for plan check, and the association first.
Soft fill under the back edge is dug out to firm ground, 4 inches of base is compacted, and the drain line is trenched to the street first.
The slab is poured, pitched to the drain and cut the same day. Walk on it after 24 hours, load it after 7 days, and the slope stays dry.
Call or send the form and we will answer within 1 business day to book the visit. A hillside lot is priced by where the fill and the drain are, which is why nothing is quoted from a photograph. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
Reviews
Our reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover, Yorba Linda among them. The patios and walls behind them were built the way this page sets out.
“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 Yorba Linda homeowners ask before a pour on a pad, from what the fill does to the figure and which office checks a wall, to how far the crew comes and how the lower streets differ.
The fill and the drain. A pad's back edge is placed fill, and the soft part of it is dug out and replaced with base before a slab goes on, hours a flat lot in the older part of town never needs. Then the water has to reach the street by pipe rather than by running off the slope, and that trench is part of the job. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so both are counted on the lot rather than assumed.
The Building Division of the City of Yorba Linda, at City Hall on Casa Loma Avenue. A patio, drive or walk at grade needs no permit. A wall over 4 feet measured from the bottom of the footing, a footing under a patio cover and any cut into a graded slope go through plan check, and on many hillside tracts the association reviews the drawing before the city sees it. We file both and meet the inspector.
About 10 miles, up the 55 to the 91 and east to Imperial Highway, half an hour in the morning. Yorba Linda is the far northeast corner of what we cover, so a job here is planned as a block of days and the crew comes up once. We call back within 1 business day to set the visit, and Yorba Linda work is booked with Placentia and Brea so the run is shared.
No, and it should not want to. The last few feet of a pad are fill the grader placed, the softest ground on the lot, and a slab poured onto them settles at the back. The city's hillside rules also keep structures back from the top of slope. We stop the slab short, hold the edge with a low wall footed below the fill where the yard needs the room, and put the drain at that edge so water goes to the street.
About 10 days. The fill and the base take a day, the drain trench and the pour a second, and the joints are cut that afternoon. Foot traffic goes on it after 24 hours and a load after 7 days. A pool deck is poured in two halves so the pool stays reachable, and we walk the slope afterward to make sure nothing ran down it while the slab was wet.
No. Along Yorba Linda Boulevard and toward the river the lots are flat and the houses are from the 1960s and 1970s, so the job is breaking out an original 3 inch slab and pouring 4 inches on base, the same replacement as in any older town. There is no fill to probe and no slope to drain. Up in Bryant Ranch, East Lake Village and the streets above the 91, every job starts with the pad and the slope edge.
Yorba Linda shares its line with Placentia to the west and Brea beyond it, and Chino Hills and Diamond Bar lie over the ridge to the north and east. Villa Park sits back toward Orange. Each has its own page, written for its own ground.
Open the Orange Office in Google Maps Send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to walk the pad. The estimate is free and written there, and the work carries a written guarantee.