Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete rebuilds driveways and walls in Monterey Park, west along Garvey Avenue. Every estimate is measured and written on site, since a pad is not read from the curb.
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A hillside pad is two kinds of ground under one house. The uphill half is cut into native hill, the downhill half is fill pushed out to level the pad, and concrete laid across both breaks at the join.
The hills here are the Repetto Hills, folded marine siltstone that weathers into a clay with a high shrink and swell. On the cut side that clay is dense and has sat there for a million years, so it moves only with the seasons. On the fill side it was loosened by the grader, pushed downhill and compacted to the standard of the 1950s, and has settled since. A patio poured across the line in 1962 sits an inch lower at its outer edge, and the crack between the halves is the grader's line.
So the first thing we do on a Monterey Park lot is find that line. The subgrade is probed until the fill side is known, the soft material there is dug out and replaced with base compacted in 4 inch lifts, and the slab is poured at 5 inches with number 3 steel on an 18 inch grid so it spans the join instead of hinging on it. The outer edge is thickened to a footing on the fill side, and every slab is graded so water runs off the pad rather than into the fill behind a wall.
Monterey Park is a city of hills, and most of its houses stand on pads cut from one slope and filled onto the next in the 1950s and 1960s. Sixty years on, the fill has settled and the concrete with it, so nearly every job here is a rebuild.
A Monterey Park driveway on the hills is a slope, and the original one from the 1960s has cracked where the fill under it settled. We take it out, replace the soft fill with compacted base, and pour a 5 inch slab from the top down with steel through it and a coarse broom.
A patio behind a hillside house here is on the fill side of the pad, which is why the old one has dropped at its outer edge. We dig the settled fill out, compact base in lifts, and pour a 5 inch slab with steel that spans the cut and fill line, graded so rain runs off the pad.
Stamped concrete is asked for at the front of the flat 1920s houses along Garvey and Garfield, where the walk and the porch step are what the street sees. We stamp a slate or ashlar pattern into a 4 inch slab, color the mix through the body and seal it in 2 coats.
A walk on a Monterey Park hillside is a stair as often as a path, and the old one has parted at every joint as the fill settled beneath it. We pour new panels on compacted base doweled to each other, with steps cast where the grade needs them, so the walk stays one piece.
Garage floors in the hillside tracts were poured over fill and have dropped at the door end, so the garage floods in a wet winter. We break the old floor out, compact base where the fill has settled, and pour a new 4 inch slab over a vapor barrier with a fall to the door.
Exposed aggregate suits a Monterey Park front yard because the pebble hides the dust that comes off the hills and gives a foot something to hold on a slope. We pour at 4 inches, wash the surface at the right hour so the stone stands proud, and band the edge in smooth concrete.
Retaining walls are the job the hills ask for most. A wall on a cut and fill pad is footed into the cut side where the ground is native, drained with gravel and a pipe behind the stem, and poured with steel tied to the footing, and it goes through Building and Safety first.
Additions and garage conversions on the hillside lots need an interior slab that will not follow the fill down. We dig to firm ground, compact base in lifts, and pour the slab over a vapor barrier with a thickened edge to carry the walls, finished flat enough for tile.
Garvey Avenue starts in El Monte and runs west through Rosemead and South San Gabriel to become the main street of Monterey Park, so the drive to a job here is one road for most of its 6 miles. The 10 runs along the city's north edge when Garvey is slow, with exits at Garfield Avenue and Atlantic Boulevard. The east side of the city drains toward the Rio Hondo, the river we are named for, and the washes that carry the water there are the low ground the flat streets sit on.
The city was incorporated in 1916 and the flat blocks along Garvey Avenue and Garfield Avenue carry its oldest houses, 1920s bungalows on small level lots where the ground is alluvium and a slab is a plain job. The hills south of Garvey, around the Garvey Reservoir and out toward East Los Angeles College, were built out in the 1950s and 1960s on the cut and fill pads this page is about. The median age here is the highest of the towns we cover, and much of the concrete is original.
A permit comes from the Building and Safety Division at Monterey Park City Hall on West Newmark Avenue. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs none. A retaining wall over 4 feet, any wall on a hillside that holds back a slope, and a footing under a cover do, and a driveway approach across the public walk is an encroachment permit from the engineering counter. The streets over the line in East Los Angeles and South San Gabriel are unincorporated, and the county permits them.
Four steps, one crew and one figure written at the address. On a hillside lot the first step is the whole job, because the cut and fill line decides the section and nothing about it shows from the curb.
Ismael Duarte tapes the area, probes the pad to find the fill, reads the fall with a level and writes the figure before he leaves.
Walls, hillside work and approaches are filed with Building and Safety on Newmark Avenue. Flatwork in your own yard is exempt.
Old concrete is broken out, the soft fill dug and replaced with base compacted in 4 inch lifts, steel tied at mid depth on chairs.
Poured from the top down in one morning, joints cut the same day. Walk on it after 24 hours, drive on it after 7 days, and swept.
Call or send the form and we call back within 1 business day with a time. The visit and the written figure are free, and on a hillside lot the visit is where the job is actually decided, so we do not skip it for a photo.
Reviews
The site's own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners in the towns we cover. Monterey Park is one of them, and the hillside driveways and walls behind the words are the ones described.
“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 owners in Monterey Park ask before booking, from what a slope adds to a figure to which office at City Hall issues the permit and why a sixty year old patio has pulled away from the house.
Formwork, a stiffer mix and time. A driveway on a grade is formed with more lumber than a flat one, poured from the top down with a mix dry enough to hold the slope, and finished by a crew working uphill, so the same square footage takes more hours. On a fill pad the figure also carries digging out the soft material and replacing it with base. Area sets most of the figure, and access moves it after that.
Yes. The apron between the curb and your property line is public right of way, and a new or widened one takes an encroachment permit from the engineering counter at City Hall on West Newmark Avenue, poured to the city's own section and inspected. The driveway inside your line is flatwork at grade and needs no permit. A wall over 4 feet or any wall holding a hillside goes to Building and Safety next door.
Along Garvey Avenue, which runs from our yard straight into the middle of the city, or along the 10 to Garfield or Atlantic when Garvey is slow. Either is about 6 miles and 20 minutes loaded, so a Monterey Park job is run on the same day plan as one on our own street. The visit to measure is booked within 1 business day of your call, and the crew that measured the work is the crew that pours it.
Because the outer half is on fill and the house is on cut. The pad under a hillside house was made by cutting into the slope and pushing the spoil downhill, and that material has settled for sixty years while the cut side has not. A slab laid across both drops at the outer edge and opens a gap at the wall. The fix is to dig out the settled fill, replace it with compacted base, and pour a thicker slab with steel.
A week on site for a wall up to 4 feet, plus the permit time in front of it. The footing is dug and inspected first, then poured, then the wall is formed, steeled and poured, and the drain and backfill go in once it has cured for 7 days. A wall over 4 feet or one holding a hillside needs drawings and a plan check at City Hall first, and that wait is longer than the build, so we file the week we measure.
Yes. Both border Monterey Park, both are unincorporated, and both are on the road between the city and our yard. The concrete, the base and the crew are the same as they are inside the city line. What changes is the permit, which comes from Los Angeles County rather than from Newmark Avenue, and the county's plan check runs longer, so on those streets we file the application the same day we measure.
Monterey Park meets Alhambra to the north, Rosemead and Montebello to the east and the county land of East Los Angeles and South San Gabriel on its other sides, and we cover all of it from El Monte. If your street is on a line, the next page may fit.
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.