Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete replaces the drives, walks and garage floors of Baldwin Park, 3 miles east of our yard along Ramona Boulevard, where the slabs are as old as the tracts.
5.0 Stars How our customers score us · Facebook, Google and the BBB
Baldwin Park is on the San Gabriel River's own bed. The river ran across this ground before it was channeled and left sand and rounded gravel, the material the Irwindale pits next door still dig.
That gravel drains faster than anything else we pour on, so a Baldwin Park slab rarely fails from water. It fails because the tract builder poured 3 inches straight onto the graded lot with no base and no steel, and 60 years of cars and roots did the rest. A slab with nothing under it settles at the point of load, the wheel tracks on a drive and the porch step on a walk, while the panel between stays where it was. That is the dish and the lip on nearly every 1950s drive in the city.
So the whole slab comes out and the base goes in first. The builder's concrete is broken and hauled, the gravel underneath is proof-rolled and any old irrigation trench is dug out and refilled, 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and plate-compacted, and number 3 bar runs the slab on an 18 inch grid. Joints are cut every 10 feet within 12 hours. A drive built that way carries the third car without dishing, because the load goes into compacted base and not into loose gravel.
Baldwin Park was built out between the incorporation of the city in 1956 and the end of the 1960s, on lots that now hold more cars and more people than the tract drawings allowed for. The concrete under all that is the builder's.
A Baldwin Park driveway is widened as often as it is replaced, because a single-width drive from 1958 now parks 3 cars and the third sits on the lawn. We take the old slab out, widen toward the side yard, and pour 4 inches on compacted base with number 3 bar across the old edge.
Patios in Baldwin Park are poured for households that eat outside, and the ask is a slab from the back door to the fence rather than a square in the lawn. We grade it a quarter inch a foot away from the house, joint it into panels under 10 feet, and keep it below the weep screed.
Stamped work in Baldwin Park is a front courtyard behind a wrought iron fence more often than a back patio, so it is seen from the street every day. We stamp an ashlar or a cobble pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it in the mix, and seal it in 2 coats.
A front walk in Baldwin Park usually doubles as the path to the unit at the back, so it carries more feet than the tract drawing gave it. We pour it 4 feet wide on 2 inches of base, joint it every 4 feet so the panels stay square, and keep it clear of the meters.
Baldwin Park garages built in the 1950s have a slab level with the drive and a door that lets water in at every winter storm, so the floor is wet before the car is. We break out the old slab, pour 4 inches with a lip at the door and a fall to the opening, flat enough to coat.
Exposed aggregate suits Baldwin Park because the pebble in it is the same San Gabriel River stone the ground is made of, dug from the pits across the line in Irwindale. We seed it into the slab, wash the top the same afternoon, and seal it. It hides tire marks a gray drive shows.
Baldwin Park is flat, so a wall here holds a raised bed or the edge of a drive against a neighbor's lower lot rather than a hillside. We pour it on a footing 12 inches into the gravel, drain it behind, and hold it under 4 feet so a building permit covers it without an engineer.
The unit at the back of a Baldwin Park lot, a converted garage or a new ADU, needs a floor someone lives on. We pour it over a vapor barrier on compacted base, flat enough for tile or plank, and the city inspects the slab before a wall is framed on it, so it is poured to plan.
Ramona Boulevard runs east from our yard straight into Baldwin Park, and the city line is 3 miles away, so a crew is at the address in about 10 minutes and the mixer is never far behind. Permits go to the Building Division of the City of Baldwin Park at City Hall on East Pacific Avenue, and a drive apron or a parkway walk goes to the Engineering Division for an encroachment permit as well. We file both and meet the inspector at the base stage.
The city incorporated in 1956 and the tracts went up either side of that date, so the houses between Ramona Boulevard and Los Angeles Street, and the blocks off Maine Avenue and Baldwin Park Boulevard, are the same house repeated, on the same lot, with the same drive. That is useful. Once we have opened one we know what is under the others, and the estimate for a drive on Pacific Avenue is unlikely to surprise anyone, because the neighbor's was measured last month.
The 10 and the 605 cross in the south of the city, and the interchange is the reason a job near Francisquito Avenue is scheduled to start before 7 in the morning, while the truck can still get through. Big Dalton Wash and Walnut Creek Wash cross the city in concrete channels on their way to the river, and a lot that backs onto either has a channel easement the county holds, which we check on the tract map before a wall or a slab goes near that fence.
Four steps, the same for a drive or a walk, and the first one settles what the other three cost. Nothing is priced from the street, because what the builder left under the slab is only known once a corner of it is lifted.
Ismael Duarte tapes the slab, lifts a corner of the old concrete to see what it sits on, and checks where the rear path and the meters run.
Building permit to the City of Baldwin Park, encroachment permit to Engineering for the apron. We chase both and book the inspection.
The builder's slab is broken and hauled in a day, the gravel proof-rolled, and 4 inches of Class 2 base plate-compacted before the steel.
One pour, joints cut within 12 hours, walk on it at 24 hours and park on it after 7 days. The cars come back off the street then.
Ring or leave the form and someone calls you back within 1 business day to book the visit. Ismael Duarte measures the drive, the walk or the garage at the address and writes the figure there, so the number you compare with the neighbor's is yours.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners in the towns this site covers, Baldwin Park among them. Each one names the job it is about, and the jobs are the ones above.
“Our drive had sunk where the water line went in years ago and you could feel it in the car. They dug the soft fill right out, rolled clean base into it and put 540 square feet down at four inches. Ismael was here at seven in the morning and the saw went over it before he went home.”
“A ficus outside our place on Ramona had lifted two panels and we were getting complaints about it. They sawed out on the joints, cut the roots back behind a barrier, laid seventy feet of new walk and took care of the encroachment permit themselves. Nobody catches a foot on it now.”
“We use the garage as a workshop and the old floor was cracked right across, with the edges crumbling away wherever you swept. It came out, a heavy sheet went down over the sand, and five inches of new floor went on top. A year of trolley jacks and there is not a mark on it.”
The six things Baldwin Park owners ask before booking, from what widening a drive costs to which counter issues the permit, how far the yard is, what the gravel does and how long the cars sit on the street.
The width added and what the old edge is sitting on. Widening toward the side yard means the new strip is tied into the old slab or the whole drive comes out, and the second is the better job when the old drive has dished. The apron at the street is a separate line because it takes its own permit. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the width is taped at the gate.
The Building Division at City Hall on East Pacific Avenue issues the building permit, and the Engineering Division issues the encroachment permit for the apron, the curb cut and the parkway walk. Flatwork at grade inside your own yard needs no permit. We file whichever the job needs and meet the inspector at the base stage, before the pour.
About 10 minutes. Our yard is 3 miles west along Ramona Boulevard, and the mixer follows the same road, so a load arrives with most of its 90 minutes still to run. The measure is booked for the week you call and a call is returned within 1 business day. We are in the city several days a week, which is why a small walk gets a date as quickly as a drive.
Yes, once it is compacted. The San Gabriel River left rounded gravel and sand under the whole city, and it drains in hours and takes a plate compactor well. What it will not do is hold a cut face, so a footing trench is dug and poured the same day, and it will not carry a slab poured straight onto it, which is what the tract builder did in 1958.
About 10 days for a drive. The break-out and the base take 2 days, the pour is the third, and then the slab cures for 24 hours before feet and 7 days before wheels. We give you the pour date the day before, so a household with 3 cars knows which morning the truck stands at the curb and can leave that side of the street clear.
Yes. La Puente and Vincent are on this site, and so are South El Monte and El Monte itself, where the yard is. Irwindale and West Covina sit on the north and east lines and are not on this site. A lot on Puente Avenue or on the Irwindale line changes which city issues the permit and nothing about the base, the steel or the finish.
Baldwin Park borders El Monte, where the yard is, and La Puente, Vincent and South El Monte, all on this site. Irwindale and West Covina lie on its north and east and are not ours. If your street runs along a line, the next page names its permit counter.
Open the El Monte Office in Google Maps Ring or send the form. The figure is written at your door, and the slab carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.