Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete pours drives, patios and walls in Duarte, up the 605 from our El Monte yard, on lots that fall from the mountain to Huntington Drive. Give us the address.
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Duarte sits at the foot of the San Gabriels, and everything on it falls south. The ground is the fan the mountains built, cobble by Royal Oaks Drive and sand by Huntington Drive, and water runs down.
A slab on the fan fails from water and from grade, not from soft ground. The cobble drains fast and settles little once it is compacted, but it is so coarse that a trench in it collapses as it is dug, and a slab poured level on a lot that slopes has water running under one edge in every storm, which washes the fines out of the base and leaves the slab hollow. A drive poured with no break at the curb scrapes, and a patio poured level against a rising yard is a pond at the door.
So the grade is drawn before the slab is. Every pour in Duarte falls at least a quarter inch a foot in the direction the lot already drains, water from above is caught in a swale or a drain before it reaches the concrete, and a cut is held with a footing poured the same day it is dug. Under the slab goes 4 inches of Class 2 base compacted over the cobble, with number 3 bar on an 18 inch grid through it. A slab that sheds water sits on dry base, and dry base does not move.
Duarte is 2 towns. Below Huntington Drive it is 1950s ranch houses on flat tract lots, and above Royal Oaks Drive it is hillside homes on the fan of the mountains, and the same job is done differently on each. Nearly 2 in 3 homes are owned.
A Duarte driveway falls toward the street, and on the hillside streets it falls hard enough that a car scrapes at the apron unless the transition is drawn first. We break the slope over 3 feet at the curb, pour 4 inches on compacted base, and broom the finish across the fall.
A patio on a Duarte hillside street sits on the high side of the house, because the lot rises behind it. We cut into the slope, hold the cut with a low wall, and pour the slab to fall away from the house at a quarter inch a foot, so runoff crosses it to the yard and not the door.
Stamped concrete in Duarte is asked for as a front entry or a courtyard on the flat streets south of Huntington Drive, in a flagstone or slate pattern that suits the ranch house behind it. We stamp a 4 inch slab, color it in the mix, and seal it in 2 coats that grip on a fall.
A walk in Duarte runs downhill to the door or the street, and a smooth broom finish on a fall is a slip in the first rain. We pour walks here with a coarse broom across the direction of travel, break a long run with a step or a landing where the code asks, and joint every 5 feet.
Garages on the Duarte hillside sit below the lot behind them, and water off the slope finds the slab through the back wall. We pour the new floor with a fall to the door, a drain trench across the back where it is needed, and 4 inches on compacted base, flat enough to coat.
Exposed aggregate is at home in Duarte, since the stone in it is the same granite the San Gabriels drop into the river at Azusa, one canyon east. We seed a washed pebble into the slab top, expose it the same afternoon, and seal it. It grips on a slope and hides the dust.
Walls are the Duarte job, because a lot on the fan steps 2 or 3 feet between neighbors and the cut behind a drive or a pool pad has to be held. We pour on a keyed footing into undisturbed ground, drain behind the stem to a pipe that daylights downhill, and engineer over 4 feet.
An interior floor in Duarte is poured for a converted garage, a pool house or an ADU on the flat lots south of Huntington Drive, where there is room for one. We pour over a vapor barrier on compacted base, dowel into the house footing, and float it flat enough for tile.
We come up the 605 from El Monte and off at Huntington Drive, about 20 minutes with a loaded truck, and the same road brings the mixer. Permits go to the building counter at Duarte City Hall on Huntington Drive, and a hillside lot above Royal Oaks Drive can need a grading permit beside the building permit, so a wall or a drive up there is drawn and filed before it is given a date. Flatwork at grade on a flat lot needs neither.
The flat half of the city, between Huntington Drive and the Irwindale line, was built out in the 1950s and 1960s in tracts of ranch houses, and it is where the drives, the patios and the garage floors are. The hillside half, from Royal Oaks Drive up to the edge of the Angeles National Forest, was built house by house on lots the fan shaped, and it is where the walls and the sloping drives are. City of Hope sits on Duarte Road between the two, and we keep off that road at shift change.
The San Gabriel River comes out of its canyon at Azusa, one town east, and the fan Duarte is built on is what the river spread on its way south. Fish Canyon comes down into the north of the city and its wash carries mountain water past the hillside lots after every storm, which is where the grade on a drive matters most. Huntington Drive itself was Route 66, and the older commercial slabs along it are where we are most often asked for a lot rather than a drive.
Four steps, and the first one decides the fall. The grade is set at the measure and written into the figure, so the pour is to a drawing and a slab never arrives level on a lot that is not.
Ismael Duarte tapes the slab, shoots the levels from the house to the street, probes the cobble for fill and marks where water enters the lot.
Building permit to the City of Duarte, a grading permit beside it on a hillside cut. Both are ours to file and chase before a date is set.
The cut is dug and its footing poured the same day, 4 inches of Class 2 base is plate-compacted over the cobble, and the steel is tied.
The slab is poured to the grade, joints cut within 12 hours, walked on after 24 hours and driven on after 7 days. The swale is left clear.
Call or leave the form and you hear back within 1 business day with a date. Ismael Duarte measures the lot, shoots the fall from the house to the street, and writes the figure at the address, because on a sloping lot the grade is half the job.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by owners across the towns this site pours in, Duarte among them. Each names the job it was written about, and the jobs are the ones on this page.
“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.”
What a Duarte owner asks before booking, from what a sloping lot adds to the figure to the grading permit, the drive up the 605, what the cobble does and how long a hillside wall takes.
Yes, and grade is what adds it. A drive that falls toward the street needs a cut at the top, a break at the curb and often a low wall, and each is a line the flat lots south of Huntington Drive do not carry. Area and finish move it after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the levels shot from the house to the curb, so the figure carries the fall and not a guess at it.
On a hillside lot, often yes, and on a flat one, no. The City of Duarte issues a building permit for a wall or a footing and a grading permit where a cut or a fill changes the lot, which a drive above Royal Oaks Drive usually does. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs neither. We file what the job needs at City Hall on Huntington Drive before the date is set.
About 20 minutes up the 605 to the 210 and off at Huntington Drive, with the mixer a few minutes behind on the same road. That is well within the time a load stays workable, so nothing is batched early. We are in Duarte most weeks between the hillside walls and the tract drives, and a call is returned within 1 business day with a date for the measure.
Yes, when the water is dealt with. The fan under Duarte drains fast and settles little once it is compacted, so a slab on it rarely sinks. What it does is let water run through under a slab poured level on a slope, washing the base out from one edge. A slab poured to the fall of the lot, on 4 inches of compacted base, sits dry and stays where it was poured.
About 2 weeks from the first cut to backfill. The cut and the footing are done in a day, the forms and the steel take 2 more, the pour is 1, and the wall cures 7 days before the drain and the backfill go behind it. Anything over 4 feet is engineered first, which adds the time the drawing takes at the city, so the permit goes in before the crew is booked.
Monrovia, South Monrovia Island and Sierra Madre are, to the west, and so are Baldwin Park and Vincent down the 605. Bradbury, Azusa and Irwindale share Duarte's other lines and are not on this site. A lot on Buena Vista Street near the Monrovia line changes which counter issues the permit and nothing about how the slab is graded.
Duarte borders Monrovia, Bradbury, Azusa and Irwindale, and of those Monrovia is on this site, along with Sierra Madre and Arcadia further west and Baldwin Park down the 605. If your street is on the Monrovia line, that page names its permit counter.
Open the El Monte Office in Google Maps Ring or send the form. The figure is written at the address with the fall shot, and the slab carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.