Plaza Orange Concrete pours a flight as one block on its own footing, risers split evenly from walk to threshold and held within 3/8 inch of each other. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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From the walk to the door
A flight of steps is one measurement divided into equal parts. The threshold fixes the top and the walk fixes the bottom, and the height between them is split so that no riser differs from the others by more than 3/8 inch, the limit the California Residential Code sets because a foot learns the first step and expects the rest to match it. Getting that division right on the day is easy. Keeping it right for thirty years is the job, and it is settled by what the bottom riser stands on.
Plaza Orange Concrete has been run by Curtis Ballard since 2018, after 18 years with central Orange County crews, and he sets the story pole on every flight himself. A stair loads a strip of ground a foot or two wide with the weight of the whole block, and on the wash under most of this city the walk at its foot settles while the house on its footing does not. The bottom riser grows, the top one shrinks, and a flight that was legal when poured is a trip twenty years on.
Steps are built to the California Residential Code under a CSLB C-8 concrete license, with liability insurance on every job. A flight of four risers or more takes a handrail, and a flight at a street-facing door on a listed block in Old Towne is worth a question to Building and Safety Services, which we put through the city's Civic Portal and print on the estimate. The finished flight carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Repair or rebuild
Measure the first riser off the walk and the last one at the door. If they differ by more than the width of a pencil, the walk has settled and taken the foot of the flight with it. Every visitor learns the wrong height on that first step, and it is the one missed in the dark.
A dark line between the top tread and the porch slab, wide enough to lose a key in, is the flight leaning away from the house. The block was poured against the porch rather than tied to it, and has rotated on soft ground at its toe. The gap takes water behind the steps every winter.
Water standing on a tread after rain means the flight has tipped back toward the door. New steps are pitched a quarter inch forward on each tread so they shed. Once they hold water they hold algae, and a green north-facing step in January is the slipperiest surface on the lot.
The front edge of a tread is the most loaded inch of the flight, and once it spalls the steel inside is rusting and pushing the concrete off. A patched nosing lasts a season. When two or more treads have lost their edge the flight is past patching, whatever the repair is named.
In every flight
Eight things go into every flight we pour and none of them is an extra. Each answers something a stair in this city has to survive. A walk that sinks on wash, a porch that does not, and a door whose height was fixed long before we arrived.
The old steps are broken up and hauled the same day, along with any hollow blockwork or fill found inside them, down to soil.
A hole is opened where the bottom riser will stand, because that strip carries the flight and it is the part that settles first.
The flight sits on its own footing dug beneath the level of the path, on compacted base, so the walk can settle without taking the steps with it.
The threshold height is measured, the count chosen, and every riser set to the same figure within 3/8 inch, marked on a story pole before forming.
Rebar runs through the block and is doweled into the porch slab, so the flight and the house move as one piece rather than two.
Each tread falls a quarter inch from back to front and is broomed across the line of travel, so rain leaves and a wet shoe still grips.
The front edge of every tread is rounded with an edging tool while the concrete is green, the detail that keeps a tread from spalling.
Where the flight has four risers or more the rail posts are set in the pour. We walk the steps against the estimate and hand over the guarantee.
Four ways to build it
Four flights this city asks for, set against the door they serve, the risers they carry and the steel inside them. The footing and the tread pitch are the same in all four, so the table is about the flight itself.
| Option | Suits | Risers | Steel in it | Back in use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broom-finished block | Most doors, any age of house | 2 to 7, all one height | Rebar grid doweled to porch | 3 days, rail at 7 |
| Brick treads on concrete | Old Towne porches with brick | 3 to 7, brick set to height | Rebar block under mortar bed | 10 days, mortar cures first |
| Two-riser stoop at a slab | 1960s tract doors near grade | 1 or 2, landing at the door | Mesh, doweled to the slab | 3 days for feet |
| Side flight on a hill lot | Hill pads with a terraced yard | Up to 12 with a landing | Rebar on a stepped footing | 7 days, rail at 7 |
A two-riser stoop costs least and a brick-faced flight most; the brick is a facing on the same poured block, so it adds days at the end rather than depth at the start
Doors and ground
A door in this city sits anywhere from one riser to seven above the path, and the path is on sand. Those are the two facts a flight here is built around, and the second is the one that undoes it.
Around the Plaza the houses went up between the 1900s and the 1920s on raised wood floors, so the front door stands three or four feet above the walk and the flight has five, six or seven risers with a porch at the top. The tracts that ring Old Towne were poured on slabs, and their doors sit one or two risers up. East of the 55 the hill tracts sit on pads, and the stair there is often in the side yard, dropping from a driveway to a terraced garden. The height is set by the era.
The ground is not. Under the flat of the city the walk sits on Santiago Creek wash, sand and rounded gravel that drains fast and compacts poorly, and a path poured on it in 1965 has been dropping ever since while the house beside it, on a footing, has not. Ours sits on its own footing below the path, doweled to the porch, so the heights set on the story pole are the ones a foot finds in twenty years. Where a flight climbs a bank the retaining wall shares its footing.
From the first visit to the rail
Five stages, one crew, and the person who measures the threshold is the person setting the forms. The flight is poured in one lift on one morning, and the walk it lands on is either kept or poured with it.
Curtis Ballard measures threshold to walk, checks the walk, and digs a hole where the bottom riser will stand. The figure is written there.
You choose broom, brick or a colored face and whether the walk is replaced with the flight, and a date is held. Any city question goes in first.
The old flight comes out, hollow or solid, and a footing is dug below the walk until the ground proves under a plate rather than under a boot.
Forms set to the story pole, rebar tied and doweled into the porch, the flight poured in one lift, treads pitched and nosings eased as it sets.
The block is kept damp for 3 days before it is walked on, the rail goes on at 7, and the guarantee is handed over on the walk-through.
Behind the figure
The number of risers starts the figure and what the flight lands on finishes it. Two doors at the same height can be a day apart in work once the toe is dug, so nothing is quoted from a photograph. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
One or two risers, a landing at the door and mesh through it. The figure moves on whether the walk in front is sound or is poured with it.
Five to seven risers, a rail, and a street-facing block on a listed street. Brick treads or a matching face add days, and each is its own line.
A long run down a slope needs a stepped footing and a landing, and the wall beside it is measured with the stair rather than after it.
A facing goes on after the block cures, so it adds a second visit and a mortar cure rather than concrete, and it is itemized separately.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and the call that books it comes within 1 business day. Measure the threshold height if you can. (657) 236-3410 or send us a message.
Send the form or call and someone rings back within 1 business day to fix a time. Curtis Ballard measures the threshold, checks the walk and writes the figure at the door, and there is no obligation to book once it is in your hand.
Flights we rebuilt
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a flight of steps rather than a walk or a patio, and each naming the riser count or the height that was rebuilt.
“Our 1912 porch had six steps and the bottom one had grown to nearly nine inches as the walk sank. They dug a footing under the whole flight, tied it into the porch and split the height so every riser is the same. My mother uses the rail now and has not caught a toe since.”
“The stoop at our front door was hollow underneath and had cracked through the middle. Curtis showed me the void when it came out, poured a solid two-step block doweled into the slab, and pitched it so it dries. It took a morning and we were using it on the third day.”
“We needed a flight down from the driveway to the lower garden on a hill lot, eleven steps with a landing. The footing was stepped down the slope and a rail set in the pour. It has been through two wet winters without a crack or a riser out of true, which the old timber steps never managed.”
Before you book
What moves the figure on a flight, how long the door is out of use, which flights need a rail or a permit, and what is guaranteed once the forms are off, answered for a house in this city.
Three things, and the riser count is only the first. The height from the walk to the threshold sets how many risers and how much concrete there is. What the toe hole turns up sets how deep the footing goes and whether the walk in front is replaced with the flight. The face sets the rest, since brick or stone is a second visit after the block has cured. All three are measured at the door and written down.
Four days for most flights, a week for a long one. The old steps come out and the footing is dug on the first day, the flight is formed and poured on the second, and the block is kept damp and unwalked for 3 days after that. A rail goes on at 7 days once the concrete will hold an anchor. If the front door is the only way in, say so at the visit and a temporary timber stair is set beside the forms for the week.
Yes. Breaking up the old flight, whether it is solid concrete or a shell of block over fill, and hauling it away is inside the figure, and so is the footing dug beneath the walk. What sits outside it is named at the visit rather than found later, such as a walk so settled it has to go too, a porch slab that is itself broken, or a rail in a style beyond the plain one we set. The figure you sign is the one billed.
Usually not for a flight replaced like for like at a private door, but two things change that. A flight of four risers or more takes a handrail under the California Residential Code, and a street-facing change at a house on a listed block in Old Towne can be a question for Building and Safety Services. We ask through the city's Civic Portal before the estimate is written, so the answer is on the sheet.
Rarely. Steps that have settled over decades on a sinking walk are treated as wear, which a policy leaves to the owner. A flight broken in one event is different, a vehicle that hit it, a water line that burst beneath it and washed the fill out, or a root that lifted it in a single season. If the damage arrived quickly, photograph the flight before anything is broken out and ask your carrier before you book us.
How the flight was built. The footing depth, the compacted base, the steel and its dowels into the porch, the riser heights within 3/8 inch of one another, the tread pitch and the finish, printed on the estimate before you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Wear on the nosings, staining and ground moving beyond what a footing controls sit outside it.
A 3,500 psi ready-mix poured as one solid block, never a shell of block filled with rubble, with number 3 rebar tied on a grid through the risers and doweled into the porch slab. The footing sits on compacted crushed base and the treads are broomed across the line of travel. Brick treads are laid on a mortar bed over the cured block. The mix and the steel are named on the estimate so what arrives can be checked.
Only for the measurement and the walk-through. Between them the crew needs water, a way to the door that is not the flight, and the walk kept clear on the pour morning for a barrow run from the truck. Pets and children are kept off for 3 days, longer than a fresh footprint takes to set. If a rail is going on, say at the visit which side you want it, since the posts are set in the pour and not drilled after.
Towns we pour in
The eight nearest towns on the list, with the straight-line distance from the office on N Tustin St beside each. Every flight is measured at the door before a figure is written, whichever town it is in.
Four jobs booked with new steps more often than not, since the flight lands on one of them or leads to another, and all of them go on the one written estimate.
The path the flight lands on, poured with it so the bottom riser stays the height it was set.
Where a flight climbs a bank, the wall beside it poured on the same footing.
The slab a back-door flight steps down onto, set a riser below the threshold.
The footing under a porch or a long flight, dug and poured before the steps go on.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say how many steps there are now and whether the bottom one feels taller than the rest, and the visit can be booked for a day inside the same week.