Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete pours drives, walks and patios on San Gabriel lots laid out before the tract builders came, 4 miles west on Valley Boulevard. The figure is written at your address.
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San Gabriel's first slabs went down in the 1920s without steel in them, thin and poured on whatever the ground was. Ninety years of roots and foot traffic have broken them into pieces no patch holds.
A slab without reinforcement fails by lifting, not by cracking evenly. Street trees along Las Tunas Drive and Mission Drive have pushed walks up 2 inches at a joint, and the drives beside the bungalows south of the boulevard have settled at the apron where the base was never compacted. Capping either with a new pour is a short-lived fix, because the old slab keeps moving under the new one and sends the same crack through within a season. The lasting repair is to take it out to the dirt.
So a San Gabriel replacement is quoted as a break-out first. The old slab is broken and hauled, the ground under it is probed and compacted, 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid, and number 3 bar goes in on an 18 inch grid, because a slab with steel in it stays in one piece when the next root or tremor moves the ground. North of Las Tunas Drive, where the lots run larger and the drives longer, the joints are set on 10 foot centers so a 60 foot drive cracks at its joints and nowhere else.
San Gabriel was a town while the rest of the valley was walnut groves, and the blocks around the Mission hold the oldest concrete we touch. So the work is replacing walks and drives poured before steel was usual, and the patio a bungalow lacked.
A San Gabriel drive is usually a replacement of one poured without steel, settled at the apron and lifted along the side yard. We break the old one out, compact the ground, and pour 4 inches on Class 2 base with number 3 bar in it, jointed every 10 feet so it cracks on its lines.
Many San Gabriel bungalows never had a patio, only a back step onto lawn. We pour one 4 inches thick, tied to the house slab with dowels so the two do not step apart, sloped a quarter inch a foot away from the wall, and barrowed in through the side yard where the drive is narrow.
Stamped concrete around the Mission District is asked for in a flagstone or a brick pattern, to sit beside a 1920s house without looking like a tract drive. We pour it at full depth, press the pattern before the slab sets, and seal it in 2 coats, with the color in the mix.
San Gabriel's walks along Las Tunas Drive and the streets off it were lifted by the trees the city planted, and the panel is city property once it passes your line. We take the encroachment permit from Public Works, cut the lifted panel out and pour a new one doweled level.
A garage floor in a San Gabriel bungalow is often a thin slab from the 1920s, cracked through and lower than the drive. We break it out, compact and base the ground, lay a barrier where the garage is becoming a room, and pour 4 inches troweled flat, 28 days before any coating.
Exposed aggregate and a colored broom finish are what San Gabriel asks for on a front walk and a drive apron, where a plain gray slab reads as a repair. The color goes into the mix, the aggregate is washed back a few hours after the pour, and the border is troweled smooth.
North of Las Tunas Drive the lots step up toward the foothills, and a retaining wall there is holding real ground. We set its footing 18 inches into the compacted cobble, run a drain along its back, and pull the permit from the Building Division for any wall over 4 feet.
An interior floor in San Gabriel, under an ADU or a converted garage, is inspected before the pour with the barrier and the bar in view. We pour 4 inches over a 10 mil barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat enough for tile, and cut the joints where the plan puts a wall.
Valley Boulevard takes us into San Gabriel in 4 miles, and the permit counter is the Building Division at City Hall on Mission Drive, a short walk from the Mission itself. Work on your own lot at grade needs no permit, a wall over 4 feet or a footing under a roof does, and a drive apron or a walk panel in the public right of way takes an encroachment permit from Public Works as well. We file whichever the job needs and meet the inspector on site.
The city has two halves. South of Las Tunas Drive, around the Mission District and Valley Boulevard, the lots are small and the houses are 1920s bungalows with a narrow drive along one side, and the concrete is reached with a barrow. North of Las Tunas, toward Huntington Drive and the country club, the lots widen and a mixer backs in, so the same patio is poured in half the time. The I-10 crosses the south of the city, and the streets against it carry truck traffic a walk has to take.
The Raymond Fault runs under the north of the city, and it does something useful as well as something to plan for. It dams the groundwater, which is why wells on either side of it draw from different basins, and the ground north of Huntington Drive is coarser, cobble off the mountains rather than river sand. Both compact well. What the fault adds is the argument for steel. A slab tied together survives a shake in one piece, as the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake showed.
Four stages, and the first is the old concrete leaving. Nothing in San Gabriel is poured over what was there, because the slab that failed is the reason the new one would fail with it.
Ismael Duarte measures the slab, records where it has lifted at a root or sunk at the apron, and probes the ground at its edge before writing.
The old slab is broken and hauled the same day, roots that lifted it are cut back, and the ground is compacted before 4 inches of base goes in.
Where the job needs one, we file with the Building Division at City Hall and with Public Works, book the inspection, and you never see a counter
The pour is one morning on a prepared base. Walk on it after 24 hours, drive on it after 7 days, and the site is swept before the crew leaves.
Call or send the form, and we call you back within 1 business day with a day. Every estimate is measured and written on site, which in San Gabriel means the old concrete is looked at before the new is promised, so the figure carries the break-out.
Reviews
Our reviews on Google and Facebook, left by homeowners across the towns we pour in. San Gabriel is one of them, and the walks and drives behind these reviews were replaced as this page describes.
“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.”
Six questions from San Gabriel before a job is booked, on the estimate for a replacement, the permit counter on Mission Drive, the Raymond Fault, how long a walk is closed, and the towns on either side.
The break-out, first. Most San Gabriel drives being replaced were poured without steel decades ago, and lifting and hauling that concrete is a line on the figure before any new material is counted. After that it is area and depth, with 4 inches for a car and 6 where a truck backs in. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the old slab is seen before the new one is quoted.
From the Building Division at San Gabriel City Hall on Mission Drive. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs none. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing under a patio cover or a slab under a room does, and a drive apron or a walk panel in the right of way needs an encroachment permit from Public Works too. We file it and meet the inspector on site.
Four miles, straight along Valley Boulevard from El Monte. We call back within 1 business day to book a visit, a measure is fitted in the same week, and a crew is on Mission Drive inside 20 minutes of leaving the yard. A pour follows the first dry morning after the base is inspected, and the old slab is hauled the day it comes up.
It changes what goes in the slab, not where. The fault crosses the north of the city near Huntington Drive, and the whole valley sits in a high seismic category regardless, so every slab we pour carries number 3 bar on an 18 inch grid and is jointed so it cracks on a line and stays in one piece. The ground north of the fault is coarser, cobble off the mountains rather than river sand, and it compacts well.
A front walk is out for 2 days on site and 24 hours after, so you use the drive in the meantime. A drive replacement runs 4 days on site, a day to break out, a day for base and steel, a morning to pour, and then 7 days before a car goes on it. We pour a long drive in 2 halves where a household has no other parking.
Yes. Alhambra to the west, Temple City to the east, San Marino to the north and Rosemead to the south are all on our list, and each has its own page, because the permit counter, the lot size and the age of the concrete change at every one of those lines. All four are a short drive from the yard in El Monte.
San Gabriel is bounded by Alhambra, San Marino, Temple City and Rosemead, and all four are covered from our yard in El Monte. A street on the line is served under whichever city issues its permit, and that city's page is the one to read for its 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 break-out and the new slab are on one written figure, and the work carries a written guarantee.