Plaza Orange Concrete pours exposed aggregate, seeded stone and salt finishes, which carry the mineral sprinklers leave and the sun a pigment fades in. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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How the finish is made
A decorative finish is the top eighth of an inch of the slab, and the ones that last here are the ones made of stone rather than of color. Exposed aggregate is a plain pour with a retarder sprayed on the surface, washed off the next morning to leave the pebble standing proud of the paste. Salt finish is rock salt pressed in and dissolved out, leaving pits. A stain or a tinted sealer is a color sitting on top, and what sits on top is what the sprinklers and the sun work on first.
Plaza Orange Concrete has poured decorative flatwork in this city since 2018, and the stone in the mix is chosen by Curtis Ballard on the lot, from samples laid wet on your own ground, after 18 years of finishing on central Orange County crews. He calls the wash himself on the morning after the pour, since an hour too early takes the stone out and an hour too late leaves the paste on. That timing is the finish, and it changes with the marine layer.
The C-8 classification is held with the California Contractors State License Board in his name, and the crew has liability insurance on every job. A court, path or patio inside your lot is exempt flatwork under the California Residential Code. Only an apron across the parkway is city work, on the permit Public Works signs, and only a slab the street sees in Old Towne goes to Planning. It has a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Redo or strip
A chalky arc across a dark stained or colored slab, matching the throw of the nearest head, is mineral left by hard water drying on the surface every night. An acid cleaner takes it off once. It comes back with the next watering, and each wash takes a little more color with it.
A strip of slab facing west with no shade going pale while the rest keeps its color is a pigment or a stain giving up to the sun. There is no restoring it. A tinted sealer covers it for a season, and the band comes back in the same place as the sealer wears, as the sun stays put.
Stones lifting out of an exposed aggregate walk and gathering along the edge mean the surface was washed too deep or the paste never held them. A loose stone is a trip and a mower will throw it. Once the top is that far gone the surface cannot be re-exposed and the slab is replaced.
An overlay or a thick coating lifting off in sheets, with dry gray concrete under it, is water that came up through the slab from the sandy ground and pushed the coating off from below. Patching it holds a month. Whatever goes on next has to breathe, or come off the same way.
In every decorative job
Eight things are in every exposed aggregate, seeded or salt-finished slab at no separate line, each there because of what lands on the surface in this city. Hard water comes off the sprinklers every night, and sun with no shade for most of a day.
A stone finish is never an overlay here. The old slab or coating is broken out and hauled, so the new surface is part of a slab, not stuck to one.
A test hole shows whether the lot is creek sand or the tighter ground east of El Modena, which sets how much comes out before base goes in.
4 inches of crushed base, plate-compacted in two lifts, because the rounded gravel under the flat lots rolls under a plate instead of locking.
The pebble is picked from samples hosed down on your own ground, since the color of a stone dry and a stone wet are two different stones.
The retarder is hosed off when the paste gives to a thumb and not by the clock, so the stone stands a third proud and no more.
Saw cuts go in at 8 to 10 feet as soon as the surface takes a blade, so the crack the slab is going to make lands in a line, not across the stone.
A penetrating sealer rather than a film, so water vapor from the ground passes through and the sun has no coating to yellow.
We walk the finished surface with you against the sample you chose, run a sprinkler on it, and hand over the written guarantee before we leave.
Four finishes
Four surfaces we finish most in this city, set against what the sprinklers and the sun do to each. The slab under all four is the same 4 inches on the same base, so the table is only about the top of it and how it wears.
| Option | Suits | Hard water | Afternoon sun | Underfoot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exposed aggregate | A front court, a walk or a rear patio | Mineral sits in the paste, unseen against stone | Stone does not fade | Grippy, rough on bare feet |
| Seeded river stone | A courtyard or an entry that is looked at | Rounded stone rinses clean | Stone does not fade | Smoother, the pebbles are rounded |
| Salt finish, gray | A pool deck or a 1960s patio matched | Pits hold a ring after each watering | Pale gray, nothing to fade | Fine grip, kind on wet feet |
| Integral color, broomed | A drive or a large plain area | Shows a crust inside a season | Pigment lightens on the sunny side | Broom grip, same as a plain slab |
Broomed integral color costs least to lay and shows the water first; seeded stone costs most and shows nothing. None of them can be changed once the paste has set.
Water and sun
Two things land on a decorative surface in this city every day, and neither is foot traffic. Hard water comes off the sprinklers each night, and a sun most yards have nothing to shade does the rest.
Much of the water in this city is pumped from wells in the Orange County groundwater basin, and it is hard. A sprinkler head throws it across the nearest slab every night from spring to October, and when the drops dry the mineral stays. On a stone surface the deposit sits down in the paste between pebbles and is never seen. On a smooth colored or acid-stained surface it sits on the color, and by the second summer the throw of every head is drawn on the slab in white.
The sun is the second thing. The tracts on the graded pads east of the 55 were planted after the concrete went down, so a yard there takes afternoon sun with nothing over it, and a pigment or an acid stain on that side is a shade lighter in a few summers while the shaded end holds. Stone does not fade, and the 1960s and 1970s tracts through the middle of the city were sold with exposed aggregate walks, so matching one is the job asked for most. A pattern instead is stamped concrete.
From call to wash
Five stages, and the person who lays the wet samples on your lawn is the one who calls the wash the morning after the pour. The pour is booked for a day with a clear morning after it, since the wash cannot wait on the marine layer.
Curtis Ballard opens a test hole, shoots the fall, and hoses down four stone samples on your lawn where the slab will sit. The figure is written.
You pick the stone and the finish from the wet samples and take a date. An apron across the parkway is filed with Public Works before it is held.
The old slab or coating leaves in a day, the ground is cut to the fall, and 4 inches of crushed base goes in and is plate-compacted in two lifts.
The truck arrives by seven. Stone is seeded and floated in where the finish asks for it, the retarder is sprayed on, and the slab is covered.
The paste is washed off next morning by eye, joints are cut the same day, the sealer goes on once the slab is dry, and you get the sheet.
Behind the number
The area starts the figure, the stone and the finish move it, and what the test hole finds settles it. A seeded pebble entry and a broomed color drive of the same size are two different days. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A single exposed aggregate court off the street is the plainest job here. What moves it is whether the old slab comes out or there was only lawn.
A shared pool deck in one of the condo complexes off Tustin or Chapman needs the HOA's sign-off, a salt or stone finish for wet feet, and a fence.
A seeded stone court in Orange Park Acres, with a walk to the door and a border, is poured in sections over a week, each washed on its own day.
A named pebble trucked in instead of the local mix, a smooth banded border round it, or two stones in one slab adds a seeding day and a wash.
The visit, the wet samples and the written figure cost nothing, and the call to arrange them comes within 1 business day. (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 opens the ground, hoses down the samples where the slab will sit and writes the figure at your house, and it is yours to keep either way.
Slabs we finished
Three reviews from Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a stone or salt finish rather than a plain slab, and each written a summer or more after the sprinklers started on it.
“Our stained patio in Olive went white in a fan shape under every sprinkler head. Curtis showed me why with a glass of tap water on a dark tile. We went to exposed aggregate in a brown pebble and two summers on there is nothing to see, it just rinses off.”
“The motor court in Orange Park Acres is seeded river stone with a smooth border, poured in four sections over a week. He washed each one himself the next morning and the stone stands the same height in every panel. Three winters and not one pebble has come loose.”
“We wanted the 1960s salt finish matched around the pool because the rest of the deck was original. The crew took a salt sample off the old slab, matched the pit size and the gray, and after a summer of wet feet and hard water I cannot tell where the new part starts.”
Before you book
What moves the figure, how long the stone takes to wash and cure, which finish stands up to the sprinklers, and what is guaranteed, answered for a slab on a lot in this city.
The stone, the seeding and what is under the old slab, once the area is measured. A pebble that arrives in the ready-mix costs less work than one seeded onto the surface by hand, and a named stone trucked in is a separate delivery. A slab that comes out over sand is a day; one over the tighter ground in the east is a day and a half. Each is looked at on your lot and written on the sheet, never guessed.
Three working days to the wash, then seven before a table goes on it. Day one breaks out and digs, day two builds base and forms, and day three pours, seeds and sprays the retarder. The wash happens early on the fourth morning, when the paste gives to a thumb, and the joints are cut that afternoon. Feet can go on after 48 hours. The sealer waits until the slab is dry through, which after a damp June adds days.
Yes, the penetrating sealer is in the figure, and so are the wash, the joint cuts and hauling the old slab away. A stone surface left unsealed takes up oil and the mineral from the water in its first summer, so it is not handed over bare. Named on the visit rather than added later: a drain run to the street, a fence panel out for the truck, a named stone from outside the county, and a resealing coat later on.
Not for the court itself. A patio, walk or entry slab inside your lot is exempt flatwork under the California Residential Code, and no inspector comes for it. Two pieces are different. A finish carried across the parkway to the gutter is right-of-way work, permitted by the Director of Public Works under O.M.C. 12.64, and a front court the street can see in Old Towne is exterior change under its design standards.
No. Mineral crust, a faded pigment and a peeling coating are wear, and a homeowner policy pays for sudden loss and not for wear. What a policy can pay for is a slab broken by something that happened on one day: a vehicle over the court, a burst main washing the base out, a tree down across the patio. Photograph the damage before a breaker touches it and ask your carrier before you book.
How it was built: the base, the depth, the stone named on the sheet, the wash depth, the joint spacing and the sealer, all printed on the estimate before you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Rust from a pyrite in the stone, a stain from a pot left standing, sealer wear and ground moving beyond what the joints control sit outside it.
A 3,500 psi mix with fiber through it, a washed pebble in the size and color you picked from the wet samples, either in the mix or seeded onto it, and a penetrating silane or siloxane sealer rather than an acrylic film. The stone, its source, the retarder and the sealer are named on the estimate so what arrives on the truck can be checked. No thin overlays here, as the ground breathes and an overlay does not.
Only for the samples at the start and the walk-through at the end. The wash itself happens early, usually before eight, and the crew needs a working hose bib, a gate that opens and the yard clear of pots and furniture, nothing more. If the slab is the only way to the front door, say so at the visit and it is poured in two halves so there is always a way in. The stone and the fall were settled on the sheet.
Towns we pour in
The eight nearest towns on the coverage list, with the straight-line distance from the yard on N Tustin St beside each. The samples are laid wet and the figure written at the property, whichever town it stands in.
Four jobs booked with a stone or salt finish or straight after it, on the same base and the same fall, by the same crew, and itemized on the one written estimate.
The other decorative route, a pattern pressed in rather than a stone washed out, on one fall.
A salt or stone finish around the water, chosen for bare wet feet and the splash of pool water.
The public walk in front, poured plain to the city's spec where the stone stops at the line.
A broomed drive with an exposed aggregate border or apron, the stone kept off where tires turn.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say which finish you have been looking at and where the sprinklers land, and the visit, with the wet samples, can be booked for a day inside the same week.