Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete pours driveways, aprons, patios and garage floors in South El Monte, 2 miles down Peck Road from the yard. Ismael Duarte measures at your address first.
5.0 Stars How our customers score us · Facebook, Google and the BBB
South El Monte sits at the bottom of the valley, just above the Whittier Narrows, where the two rivers are pushed through one gap and the ground stays wet longer than anywhere upstream of it.
The dam at the Narrows holds storm water back across the basin south of the city, and the spreading grounds beside the rivers are there to push water into the ground on purpose. So a slab in South El Monte sits over a water table that rises through the winter and a subgrade that stays damp for weeks after a storm, when the same sand in the north of the valley has dried in days. Concrete does not mind wet ground once it has set. What it minds is a base that pumps under load.
So the base is thicker and the barrier is not optional. We dig out the soft top, lay 4 inches of compacted base and 6 under a slab that takes a truck, and put a 10 mil vapor barrier under every floor that will be lived on or coated. Every exterior slab is graded to fall away from the house, and where a narrow lot gives the water nowhere to go we set a drain in the slab rather than let it stand against the foundation.
South El Monte is half houses and half yards where trucks turn, so one crew pours a driveway on Tyler Avenue in the morning and a loading apron off Rosemead Boulevard after lunch. Both sit on ground lower and wetter than the rest of the valley.
South El Monte driveways carry more than a car. The 1950s tracts off Durfee Avenue have a work truck on the drive most nights, so we pour 5 inches rather than 4 where a truck parks, run steel through the slab, and dowel the apron to the gutter so the edge does not drop.
A patio here fills a small yard. Lots in South El Monte run narrow, and the patio often takes the whole width between the fences, so it has to drain to the front or to a drain in the slab because no lawn is left to take the water. We set that fall first and pour 4 inches on base.
Stamped concrete in South El Monte goes on the front entry more than the back, where a stamped border around a plain broom drive lifts a 1950s frontage without paving it all in pattern. We stamp a 4 inch slab, color it through the mix, and seal it so the color holds under a hose.
A walk in South El Monte is often the path down the side of the house to a converted garage or a unit at the back, and it has to take a wheelbarrow and a wheelchair as well as feet. We pour it 3 feet wide at least, joint it every 4 feet, and broom it across the line of travel.
A South El Monte garage floor is a workshop floor as often as a parking pad, and a slab poured in the 1950s is cracked and rarely flat. We break it out, lay a vapor barrier on the base because the ground holds water, pour 4 inches with steel, and trowel it flat enough to coat.
Exposed aggregate and a colored broom finish are the decorative work South El Monte asks for, because a plain gray slab in a yard with no shade glares by noon in August. A lighter integral color and a washed stone surface read cooler and hide the dust the freeway leaves.
Retaining walls in South El Monte are short and hold a raised bed or a step in grade at the back fence, because the town is flat. What they need is a footing below the wet ground, so we dig to firm sand, pour the footing with its steel tied to the stem, and drain the back.
An interior floor here is poured for a garage conversion or a new unit at the back of the lot, and a wet subgrade is the risk. We lay a 10 mil vapor barrier under the slab, pour it 4 inches on compacted base, and hold the finish flat so tile or plank goes straight on.
Our yard is on Peck Road in El Monte, and Peck Road runs straight into South El Monte, so a crew is at your address in under 10 minutes. Permits come from Building and Safety at South El Monte City Hall on Santa Anita Avenue, and a driveway apron or anything past the property line goes to Public Works for an encroachment permit. Because the city is small, a permit is usually in hand within the week and we plan the start around it.
The houses came in one push after the city incorporated, so the tracts off Durfee Avenue, Merced Avenue and Tyler Avenue are 1950s and early 1960s on lots of a few thousand square feet, with a driveway down one side and a garage at the back that has often since become a room. The west and south of the city, along Rosemead Boulevard and Santa Anita Avenue toward the 60, is industrial, and the aprons and yards there are the other half of what we pour.
The Pomona Freeway runs east to west through the south of the city, and the truck traffic it carries is why the aprons and the yards near it are poured 6 inches on 6 inches of base with steel throughout. The Whittier Narrows Recreation Area is the southern edge, and the lots that back onto it sit lowest and wettest. We probe the ground on every job there and lay a barrier under a slab that would go without one on higher ground.
Four stages, the first one at your address. The ground is probed for water before any figure is written, and the permit is filed by us, so the only thing you do is choose the finish.
Ismael Duarte measures the slab, checks the fall to the street, and probes the subgrade for wet sand before writing the figure.
We file with Building and Safety on Santa Anita Avenue and take out the encroachment permit where the apron meets the city gutter.
The old slab and soft ground come out, 4 inches of base go in and get compacted, and a vapor barrier is laid under any floor.
Most jobs pour in a day. Joints are cut the same day, the slab is walked on after 24 hours, and a truck goes on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we reply within 1 business day with a time. We are 2 miles away, so the visit is usually the same week. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with the ground probed before the figure is written.
Reviews
Reviews from Google and Facebook, left by homeowners and yard managers across the towns we cover, South El Monte among them. They describe the slabs 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.”
The things people in South El Monte settle before they book, from why a truck driveway costs more than a car driveway to which counter the permit comes from and whether a wet yard can take a slab at all.
Because it is a thicker slab on a thicker base. A car driveway is 4 inches on 4 inches of base. A drive that parks a loaded truck every night is 5 or 6 inches on 6 inches, with steel through it, and that is more concrete, more base and more digging on the same footprint. Nothing else about the lot moves the figure as much. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the depth is agreed at your address.
Building and Safety at South El Monte City Hall on Santa Anita Avenue. A patio or a walk on your own lot at grade needs none. A new driveway apron, a wall over 4 feet, and a slab under a room do, and the apron also needs an encroachment permit from Public Works because it crosses the city gutter. We file both and meet the inspector.
Yes, once the base is right. Ground near the Whittier Narrows holds water for weeks after a storm, and a slab laid straight on it pumps and cracks under load. We dig out the wet top, lay compacted base, and put a vapor barrier under any floor that will be coated or lived on. The slab then sits on a dry layer whatever the ground under it is doing.
In minutes, since the yard is 2 miles up Peck Road. We reply within 1 business day to book the visit, and a crew passes through South El Monte most working days on the way to somewhere else, which is why a small job such as a walk or a step often goes in within the fortnight rather than waiting its turn behind a full driveway.
8 days from the pour, and 1 to 2 days of work before it. The break out and base take a day on a standard drive, the pour takes a morning, and then the slab needs 24 hours before it is walked on and 7 days before a car goes on it. A truck waits the full 7. We leave the old drive in place until the day before the pour so you lose the parking for as short a time as we can manage.
Yes, in load and in permit. An apron off Rosemead Boulevard or Santa Anita Avenue takes trailers turning on it, so it is 6 inches on 6 inches of base with a saw cut grid at 12 feet, and a commercial lot goes through plan check rather than over the counter. The ground is the same wet sand as under the houses, so the base rule is the same.
South El Monte touches Rosemead across the river to the west and Montebello and Pico Rivera beyond the Narrows to the south, and we cover all three from the same yard. If your street sits on a line, the other town's page says how the ground changes there.
Open the El Monte Office in Google Maps Call or send the form. We reply within 1 business day, the measure costs nothing, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.