Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete builds driveways, walls and patios in Monrovia, 7 miles north by Peck Road. Every estimate is measured and written on site, because slope never shows in a photo.
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Monrovia sits on the fan the San Gabriel Mountains have been shedding for a million years. At the mountain front the ground is boulders and cobble, and by Duarte Road it has sorted itself into sand.
That sorting is what a slab has to be built for. North of Foothill Boulevard a footing trench hits rock the size of a football within a foot, so a driveway there is dug with a breaker and a bucket rather than a blade, then poured on base packed into the voids between the stones. South of Huntington Drive the same fan has become fine sand and silt, which cuts cleanly and compacts well but washes from under a slab edge if a downspout is left to run onto the ground beside it.
So the section changes with the street. On the cobble we pour 4 inches on 4 inches of base and let the rock do the draining, with the slab edge thickened wherever the ground was disturbed to lift a boulder. On the sand we pour the same 4 inches on the same base, but grade the ground away from the slab at 2 percent, dowel the new panel into any old one it meets, and run a drain line from the downspout so nothing washes the base out from underneath. Number 3 steel runs through both.
Monrovia was laid out in 1886 and incorporated the year after, so the older streets carry 130 years of concrete in every state of repair, and the hillside above them carries slopes the flat towns never see. The work here is mostly replacement.
A Monrovia driveway is often the third one a house has had, and the old one comes out in pieces the size of a door. On a hillside lot the new one is formed on the grade, poured from the top down with a stiff mix, and finished with a coarse broom so a tire holds on a wet morning.
Patios in Monrovia are cut into slopes as often as laid on the flat. We cut the pad level, hold the uphill side with a short poured wall, drain behind it and pour the slab at 4 inches over base, so the patio is a level room in a yard that was never level before we arrived.
Stamped work is asked for around Old Town, where a Craftsman house on Myrtle or Ivy wants a new front walk that reads as old. We stamp a running bond or a slate pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it in the body of the mix so a chip never shows gray, and seal it in 2 coats.
The oldest walks in Monrovia were laid before the trees beside them were planted, and 100 years of roots have lifted them into steps. We take out the lifted panels, cut the roots the city arborist allows, and pour new panels doweled to the old so the joint stays flush.
A Monrovia garage from the 1920s has a floor 3 inches thick and cracked in every direction, and the one under a 1950s ranch is not much better. We break the old floor out, set a barrier over compacted base and pour a new 4 inch slab, jointed so it stays flat enough to coat later.
Exposed aggregate suits Monrovia because the stone in it matches the stone in the ground, and a pale mix with a local pebble reads as part of the fan rather than a sheet laid on top of it. We pour at 4 inches, wash the surface on time and band the edge with a smooth border.
Retaining walls are the Monrovia job the flat towns do not have. On the hillside north of Foothill Boulevard a yard steps 3 to 6 feet between fences, and a wall there is footed into the cobble, drained with gravel and a pipe behind the stem, and filed through the hillside review.
Casitas and studio additions on the deep Old Town lots need an interior slab someone will live on. We pour it over a vapor barrier on compacted base, thickened at the edge to carry the walls, and finished flat enough for tile, with joints on a grid set by the room, not the crew.
The water off Monrovia Canyon runs down Sawpit Wash, through the middle of the city and south past Arcadia to the Peck Road basin, where it joins the flows that become the Rio Hondo. Our business is named for that river, and our yard sits just below where it begins, so the route between the two towns is the route the water takes. Peck Road runs straight north from El Monte to the south end of Monrovia, and the 605 meets the 210 two exits east of Myrtle Avenue.
Permits go to the Building Division of the City of Monrovia's Community Development Department, at City Hall on South Ivy Avenue. On the flat that is a counter visit for anything beyond flatwork in your own yard. On the hillside north of Foothill Boulevard the city reviews grading and walls under its hillside rules, and a wall there takes drawings and a longer wait, so we file it the week we measure. South Monrovia Island is unincorporated, and its permits come from Los Angeles County.
The housing runs by decade from north to south. The blocks around Old Town on Myrtle Avenue hold Victorians and Craftsman bungalows from the 1890s to the 1920s, many with their first concrete walk still in place. Between Huntington Drive and Duarte Road the ranch tracts of the 1950s take over, and the streets around the Monrovia station at Myrtle and Duarte, open since 2016, are the newest ground in the city. A walk from 1910 and a slab from 1955 come out differently.
Four steps, one crew and one figure written at your address. Monrovia is our farthest regular town to the north, so the crew arrives loaded for the whole day and the job is planned so that nothing waits on a second trip.
Ismael Duarte measures the area, probes for cobble, reads the slope with a level and photographs the access. The figure is written there.
Walls, footings and hillside work go to the Building Division on Ivy Avenue. Flatwork at grade in your own yard is confirmed exempt.
Old concrete is broken out, boulders lifted, the subgrade cut to level and 4 inches of base compacted into whatever the fan left behind.
Concrete goes down in one visit, joints are cut within 12 hours. Foot traffic after 24 hours, a car after 7 days, and the street swept.
Call or send the form and we call back within 1 business day with a date. The measure and the written figure cost nothing, and a Monrovia visit is worth the drive to us because a slope and a boulder are never visible in a photograph.
Reviews
The site's own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners in the towns we cover. Monrovia is one of them, and the walls and driveways behind the words are the ones described 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 Monrovia homeowners ask before they book, from what the hillside adds to a figure to which office issues the permit and why the rock in the yard is not a problem to us.
Slope and rock, in that order. A driveway on the hillside north of Foothill Boulevard is formed on a grade, which means more formwork, a stiffer mix and a pour that is planned from the top down, and the excavation below it turns up cobble that has to be lifted rather than scraped. A driveway on the sand south of Huntington Drive has neither, and its figure is the ordinary one. Area and finish move it after that.
Yes for any wall over 4 feet from the bottom of the footing, and for any wall that holds back a slope or carries a fence on the hillside. The Building Division at City Hall on South Ivy Avenue issues it, and on a hillside lot the plans go through the hillside review too. We draw the wall, file it and meet the inspector. A garden wall on the flat under that height is usually exempt, and we confirm it first.
About 7 miles, straight up Peck Road or up the 605 to the 210. Loaded, that is 20 to 25 minutes, so a Monrovia job runs on the same day plan as one in our own town. The crew arrives with the base, the steel and the forms for the whole job, and the mixer is timed to the hour the forms are ready. The visit to measure is booked within 1 business day of your call.
Because the yard is a piece of the mountain. Every winter storm for a million years has carried stone out of the canyons and dropped it on the slope below, biggest first, so the closer a lot sits to the mountain front the larger the rock in its ground. It is no problem for concrete. Cobble drains and does not settle, so once the boulders are out and base is packed into the voids, the slab sits on firm ground.
October to May, with a watch on the rain. Monrovia sits against the mountains, so it takes more rain than El Monte and takes it harder, and a pour is never scheduled onto a forecast of it. From June to September the ground and the air are both hot, so we start at 6 in the morning and finish before the sun is on the slab. A slab poured at midday in August loses its water before it cures and dusts for life.
Yes. It is the unincorporated pocket south of the city line, on the same sand as the streets north of it, and it is on our way in. The one thing that changes is the permit, which comes from Los Angeles County rather than from Ivy Avenue, and the county's plan check runs longer than the city's. The crew, the base, the steel and the written figure are the same as they are anywhere else in Monrovia.
Monrovia touches Arcadia to the west, Duarte to the east and South Monrovia Island at its southern line, and we reach all of them by the same road north from El Monte. If your street sits on a line, the page for the town next door may be the closer match.
Open the El Monte Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day with a time to measure. The figure is free, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.