Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete pours driveways, steps, walls and patios in Sierra Madre, 7 miles north of our yard on Peck Road. Ismael Duarte measures the slope before anything is written.
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Sierra Madre sits on the head of the alluvial fan below the San Gabriel Mountains, where the ground is granite boulders in a matrix of decomposed granite rather than the sand of the valley floor.
That ground bears well and drains fast, so a slab on it rarely settles. The trouble is getting into it. A footing trench that would take a morning in El Monte can take a day here, because every few feet the bucket meets a boulder the size of a washing machine that has to be broken or lifted out. The boulder count decides how long a wall takes, not its length, and it is why we probe a Sierra Madre yard with a bar before we write anything down.
So the specification here is about the excavation and the water, not the base. We dig to firm granite and bear on it directly where we reach it, lay 4 inches of compacted base only where the cut has been overdug, and put a drain behind every wall and at the foot of every slope a slab sits on, because the fan carries the winter runoff from the whole face of the mountain through these yards.
Sierra Madre climbs from the flats below Sierra Madre Boulevard to the mouth of the canyon, and almost every job here has a fall across it. That is why steps, walls and a drive that climbs are ordered more often than a flat patio.
A Sierra Madre driveway climbs. On the streets above Grandview Avenue a drive can rise the height of a garage door between curb and house, so we set the grade to keep water off the slab, broom the surface across the fall for grip, and thicken the downhill edge.
A patio in Sierra Madre is usually cut into the slope rather than laid on it. We bench the ground level, hold the uphill side with a low block wall, and pour 4 inches on compacted base so the slab has one bearing rather than a wedge of fill at its outer edge that settles.
Stamped concrete in Sierra Madre is asked for on entries and courtyards beside the 1910s and 1920s bungalows around Kersting Court, where a plain gray apron looks wrong. We pour the pattern on a 4 inch slab, color it in the body of the mix rather than on top, and seal it twice.
Most Sierra Madre walks run uphill to a porch, so they are steps and landings as much as paving. We keep a run under a 1 in 12 fall where the lot allows, break steeper ground with a riser, and joint every panel so a walk over tree roots cracks along a line we cut.
A garage floor in Sierra Madre often sits below the road, with the slope draining toward the door. We pour the slab to fall back toward the opening, set a trench drain across the threshold where the drive comes down at it, and hold the finish flat enough to coat later.
Exposed aggregate suits Sierra Madre because the ground is already stone. We wash the surface of the pour to show the rounded gravel in the mix, which reads like the dry washes above town, and the rough face gives grip on a walk that falls toward the street all winter.
Retaining walls are the job Sierra Madre orders most from us, because the fan rises fast and every level yard on it was cut from a slope. A wall here is footed into the granite below the loose fill, drained behind the stem with gravel and pipe, and engineered above 4 feet.
An interior floor in Sierra Madre goes into a garage conversion or a unit on the lower part of a lot as often as into a house. We pour it over a vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat for tile or polish, and cut the joints on the room's lines so they sit under a wall.
Our yard is 7 miles south on Peck Road, and the drive up Santa Anita Avenue takes about 20 minutes with a loaded truck. Permits come from the Building Division at Sierra Madre City Hall on West Sierra Madre Boulevard, and work above the flats falls under the city's hillside rules, which add a review before a wall or a cut is approved. We allow for that when we give you a start date, because a job in the canyon does not begin the week it is agreed.
The town has two kinds of street. Below Sierra Madre Boulevard the lots are level and a mixer backs to the form, so a driveway is a 2 day job. Up Sierra Madre Canyon the streets are one lane, the houses were cabins before they were homes, and there is nowhere to stand a truck, so concrete comes up in a pump line or by barrow and the same yardage takes twice as long. We tell you which kind your lot is at the first visit.
The mountain sets the calendar. The debris basins at the mouths of Bailey Canyon and Little Santa Anita Canyon are there because a winter storm sends water and rock down the fan, so we do not leave an open trench or a bare cut in a Sierra Madre yard over a rain. The pour season is the rest of the year, and in summer the town runs a few degrees cooler than El Monte, which buys an extra hour on a slab before it sets.
The order is fixed by the slope. Nothing is poured until the cut is made and the water has a way out, and the figure is measured at your address before a date goes in the book.
Ismael Duarte measures the fall across the lot, probes for boulders with a bar, and finds where a truck or a pump can stand.
The bench or trench is dug to firm granite, boulders come out, and a drain line goes in behind any wall before a form is set.
We submit to the Building Division at City Hall and carry the hillside review where the lot needs one. You never queue at the counter.
Flats pour in a day and canyon jobs in 2. Walk on it after 24 hours, drive on it after 7 days, and the cut stays covered until then.
Call, or send the form, and we will reply within 1 business day with a time to come up. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the visit costs nothing, whichever side of the boulevard you live on.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover, Sierra Madre among them. The walls and drives they describe were built the way 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.”
What people here want settled before a truck comes up the hill, from what the slope does to the figure to which office the permit comes from and how long a canyon street is blocked.
The slope and the stone. A level lot below Sierra Madre Boulevard is priced like anywhere in the valley, because the mixer reaches the form. Above it, every foot of fall adds a wall or a step, every boulder in the trench adds an hour, and a canyon street adds a pump. Every estimate is measured and written on site, after the ground has been probed, so what is written covers the boulders we found.
The Building Division at Sierra Madre City Hall on West Sierra Madre Boulevard. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs no permit. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a wall carrying a slope above it, and any cut on a hillside lot do, and the hillside lots get a planning review first. We file it and meet the inspector.
7 miles, about 20 minutes up Santa Anita Avenue. We answer within 1 business day, and the visit is booked for the first slot that suits you. A crew is in Arcadia or Sierra Madre most weeks, so a small job such as a step or a walk is often fitted between larger ones rather than waiting for its own week.
Granite, in pieces. The town sits on the fan the San Gabriel Mountains have shed for ages, so a few inches of topsoil sits on decomposed granite full of rounded boulders. It bears a slab well and drains through fast, and it is hard to dig. We probe it first because a trench line that finds 3 boulders and one that finds 30 are different jobs.
Half a day, in the morning. On a one lane street in Sierra Madre Canyon the pump truck stands in the road while the concrete goes in, so we pour early, from 7, and are clear by lunch. We tell the neighbors the day before. The slab is walkable after 24 hours and takes a car after 7 days, and none of that blocks the street.
Yes. Arcadia, Monrovia, Temple City and San Marino are all on our list and all on the way from the yard. The difference is the ground. Below Huntington Drive the fan has flattened to sand and fine gravel, so the digging is easy and the base matters more. If your lot sits on the Arcadia line, the Arcadia page describes that work.
Sierra Madre shares its southern line with Arcadia, and the same crew covers Arcadia, Monrovia, Temple City and San Marino from the yard in El Monte. If your street sits on a boundary, the neighboring page says how the ground changes across it.
Open the El Monte Office in Google Maps Send the form, we reply within 1 business day, and the estimate is written at your address. The work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.