Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete pours driveways, patios and garage floors in Pico Rivera, 7 miles down Rosemead Boulevard through the Whittier Narrows. The figure is written at your curb.
5.0 Stars How our customers score us · Facebook, Google and the BBB
Pico Rivera lies between the Rio Hondo and the San Gabriel River, on the gravel the two spread before either was channeled. Water goes through it fast, which the county uses and a slab must allow for.
The county runs spreading grounds along both rivers here, the Rio Hondo grounds on the west side and the San Gabriel grounds on the east, because this ground takes water faster than almost anywhere else in the basin. The same gravel under a yard drains a winter storm in hours. A few streets from either channel it has a consequence in a wet year. The water table comes up under the spreading grounds, and a slab poured there without a barrier wicks damp to its surface for weeks.
So on the blocks nearest either river we lay a 10 mil barrier under any slab that will be enclosed, and everywhere in the city we compact the top 6 inches before the base goes down, because loose gravel is what the postwar builders left under most of these drives. The bar is number 3 on an 18 inch grid, and a failed slab is broken out to full depth rather than capped, because the concrete under the broken panels sits on the same loose ground and would keep moving under a new layer.
Pico Rivera was two towns, Pico and Rivera, joined at incorporation in 1958, and most of its houses had gone up by then. Seventy years on, the first slabs are at the end of their life, so the work here is replacement more than a first pour.
Most Pico Rivera drives are 1950s slabs at the end of their life, cracked into a dozen loose panels. We break the old one out to full depth, compact the gravel it sat on, and pour 4 inches on Class 2 base, or 6 where a truck backs onto the apron off Whittier Boulevard.
Pico Rivera lots are wide enough for a mixer to reach the back yard down one side of the house, which is not true in most of this valley. So a patio here is chuted rather than barrowed, poured in one morning, jointed on 10 foot lines and sloped a quarter inch a foot off the wall.
A stamped drive or patio in Pico Rivera is poured at the same depth as a plain one, and the pattern is pressed while the slab is still soft. Ashlar slate and flagstone are the two asked for most here, sealed in 2 coats and resealed when the sun on a south-facing drive dulls them.
A Pico Rivera sidewalk panel is city property once it crosses your front line, and lifting it to replace it needs an encroachment permit from Public Works. We pull that permit, saw the panel out, and dowel the new one into its neighbors so the joint stays level under a stroller.
A garage floor on the streets beside the spreading grounds is poured over a 10 mil vapor barrier, because the water table under Pico Rivera rises in a wet winter and damp wicks through a bare slab. The floor is troweled flat and left to cure 28 days before any coating goes on.
Exposed aggregate reads well on a Pico Rivera drive because the stone that shows is the same rounded river gravel the ground here is made of, gray and tan. We pour it as a 4 inch slab, wash the cream off the top at the right hour, and band it with a smooth troweled border.
Pico Rivera is nearly flat between its rivers, so a retaining wall here is usually holding a raised bed or a sunken drive rather than a hillside. Even a 3 foot wall gets a drained footing set 18 inches into compacted gravel, because loose fill behind a wall tips it within years.
An interior floor in Pico Rivera, in a garage conversion or an ADU off the back of a 1950s lot, is poured over a barrier and troweled flat enough for tile. The joints are cut where a wall or a doorway will hide them, and the slab dries 60 days before a floor covering goes down.
We reach Pico Rivera down Rosemead Boulevard, across the Whittier Narrows and past the dam the Army Corps finished in 1957, a year before the city incorporated. It is 7 miles from our end of El Monte, and a crew with a mixer booked behind it is on Whittier Boulevard in about 20 minutes. Permits come from the Building and Safety Division at Pico Rivera City Hall on Passons Boulevard, and an apron or a walk panel that crosses the public sidewalk needs Public Works to sign as well.
The old Rivera side, east of Paramount Boulevard toward the San Gabriel River, has the older houses, and the Pico side to the west along Whittier Boulevard filled in during the same postwar decade. Lots on both are wide enough for a mixer to reach the back yard along one side of the house, which is rare in this valley and takes a day off a patio. Two thirds of the houses here are owned by the people living in them, so most of what we pour is meant to be kept for decades.
The I-605 runs along the east edge of the city, and the boulevards that feed it, Beverly, Washington and Telegraph Road, carry truck traffic a residential street does not, so a drive that meets one of them gets 6 inches at the apron rather than 4. The calendar follows the rivers. The channels are dry from May to October and running from December, and we book garage and interior slabs for the dry half, because a barrier keeps water out of a floor but not out of a trench.
Four stages between the phone call and the day you park on the slab. The old concrete comes out to full depth on every replacement, because in Pico Rivera the failed slab and the ground under it are the same problem.
Ismael Duarte walks the slab, notes where it has lifted or sunk, probes the gravel beside it and photographs the side access before writing.
The old panels are broken out to full depth and hauled, the gravel under them is compacted, and 4 inches of Class 2 base goes down, plated.
We file with Building and Safety on Passons Boulevard and book the inspection, and where an apron crosses the sidewalk, Public Works signs too.
The pour is one morning. Walk on it after 24 hours, park on it after 7 days, and the forms and the offcuts leave with us the same afternoon.
Call, or send the form, and someone calls you back within 1 business day with a day for the visit. Every estimate is measured and written on site, at your address, and nothing is booked until you have read the figure and the date on one sheet.
Reviews
These are our own reviews, left on Google and Facebook across the San Gabriel Valley towns we cover. Pico Rivera is on that list, and the drives and patios behind them were poured as described here.
“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 a Pico Rivera homeowner asks before booking, from what moves the figure on a replacement drive to which counter the permit comes from and how many days the yard is out of use.
Break-out, then depth. Most drives here are replacements of a 1950s slab, and hauling the old concrete away is a line the figure carries before a yard of new material is counted. A drive that takes a truck at the apron goes to 6 inches instead of 4. Every estimate is measured and written on site, because it is the tape that decides it and not the street name.
The Building and Safety Division at Pico Rivera City Hall on Passons Boulevard. A patio or a drive on your own lot at grade needs no permit. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing under a cover, or any work that crosses the sidewalk does, and the sidewalk work needs an encroachment permit from Public Works as well. We file both and meet the inspector.
The same week for a measure, and within 1 business day for the call that books it. The yard is 7 miles up Rosemead Boulevard, so the crew crosses the Whittier Narrows and is at a Pico Rivera address in about 20 minutes. A pour is booked for the first dry morning after the base passes inspection, and the mixer is timed to the crew rather than the other way round.
On the blocks beside the spreading grounds, yes. The county sinks river water into the gravel along both the Rio Hondo and the San Gabriel River here, and in a wet winter it rises under the yards nearby. An enclosed slab on those streets is poured over a 10 mil barrier so damp cannot wick through a garage floor, and an outdoor slab is unaffected by it.
Four to five days for a full replacement. Break-out and base take 2 days, the pour is a morning, and the slab wants 24 hours before foot traffic and 7 days before a car. A patio or a walk poured onto prepared ground, with no old slab to remove, is finished in 2 days on site with the same cure after it.
Yes. Montebello lies across the Rio Hondo to the west, and Whittier and West Whittier-Los Nietos across the San Gabriel River to the east, and all three are on our list from the same yard. Each has its own page, because the ground changes at the river and the permit counter changes at the city line, and a page that fits both would say nothing true of either.
Pico Rivera shares its lines with Montebello, Whittier and West Whittier-Los Nietos, and South El Monte sits just across the Narrows. We cover every one from the same yard, so if your street runs along a city line, the next page names your permit counter.
Open the El Monte Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call you back within 1 business day to book the measure. The figure is written at your address, and the work carries a written guarantee against defects in the work.