Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete pours driveways, walks, steps and retaining walls in South Pasadena, 9 miles west of the yard along Huntington Drive. The trees and the old houses decide the method.
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South Pasadena protects its trees by ordinance, so a slab here is designed around what is already growing on the lot rather than the other way round.
The camphors and oaks along the streets north of Mission Street were planted when the houses went up, and a century on their roots run under most of the front yards. The city's tree ordinance covers the parkway trees and the larger trees on private lots, and it does not allow a major root to be cut without permission. A driveway poured over a live root lifts within a few years, and one poured after the root is cut can kill the tree, which is the one outcome the city will fine.
So a South Pasadena drive is set out with the roots exposed first. We hand dig the strip near the trunk, bridge a root with a thickened slab on a gravel bed it can grow under, and shift a ribbon or narrow a walk to pass a root we cannot bridge. The base is 4 inches of compacted Class 2 on the alluvium the Arroyo Seco left, which is a good bearing sand, and the fall is set toward the street because the old foundations behind us were never meant to be wet.
South Pasadena's houses are older than their driveways. What we pour here replaces a strip or a walk laid for a Model T, under a street tree the city will not let anyone cut, on a lot that may be on the local register.
Most South Pasadena driveways are two ribbons with grass between, poured in the 1920s for one narrow car. We replace them as ribbons where the house is on the register and the look matters, or as one slab where it is not, and either way clear of the parkway tree's roots.
A South Pasadena patio sits behind a house that fills the lot, so it is reached down a 3 foot side yard and poured by barrow. We match the slab to the porch level, fall it away from a foundation that is often brick or river rock and cannot stay wet, and pour 4 inches on base.
Stamped concrete is rare in South Pasadena and we say so. Beside a Craftsman house a stamped pattern reads as imitation, so where a client wants texture we suggest a scored and colored slab or a broom finish with a smooth border, and stamp only where a newer house suits it.
A walk in South Pasadena is often the public walk in front of the house, lifted by a camphor or an oak root, and that walk is the city's. We pour the private path to the porch, cut the panels to match the old scoring, and bridge any protected root with a thicker slab.
Garages in South Pasadena are detached, at the back of the lot, and built with the house, so the floor is 100 years old and was poured on dirt. We break it out, lay base and a vapor barrier, pour 4 inches with steel, and leave the old sill alone, as the garage may be protected.
Decorative work here means a scored grid, an integral color in the buff range that suits a plaster or shingle house, or exposed aggregate that matches the river rock of the porch piers. Each is poured as an ordinary 4 inch slab with the finish in the surface, not a coating.
Retaining walls in South Pasadena hold the ground on the north side of town, where the Raymond fault has left a step in the land and the streets climb it. We footing a wall below the slope, drain it behind the stem, and where it faces the street we show the city the face first.
An interior floor in South Pasadena goes into a converted garage or a new unit at the back, both under the state's ADU rules, on ground that never had a barrier over it. We pour 4 inches on compacted base over a 10 mil barrier, trowel it flat, and joint it under future walls.
Our yard is 9 miles east in El Monte, and the drive over along Huntington Drive through San Marino takes about 25 minutes. Permits come from the Planning and Building Department at South Pasadena City Hall on Mission Street. A wall, a footing or a slab under a room needs one, flatwork at grade does not, and work that shows from the street on a house on the city's historic inventory gets a design review as well, which we file for and attend.
The town is Craftsman bungalows and Spanish houses from 1900 to 1935 on the flat south of the fault, and larger houses on the rise north of it toward Raymond Hill. Lots are narrow and deep with the garage at the back, so almost every job is poured by barrow down a side yard, and a mixer stands on a street lined with the trees the ordinance protects, which means plating the parkway before a wheel goes near it.
The Arroyo Seco is the western edge of the city, and the streets that run down to it fall hard enough to need a wall under a drive. The rest of the town sits on the sand the Arroyo spread, which bears well and drains, so the base is standard. The Raymond fault runs under the north of the city, and while it changes nothing about a slab it is why a step in grade appears in the middle of an otherwise flat block and why walls are ordered there.
Four stages, with the trees checked before anything else. Nothing is dug near a protected tree until the city has agreed how, and the figure is measured at the house first.
Ismael Duarte measures the slab, maps the roots and the protected trees near it, and photographs the side yard the concrete comes down.
We file with Planning and Building on Mission Street, and with the design review where the house is on the historic inventory.
Ground near a root is dug by hand, the root is bridged or the slab moved, and 4 inches of base go in and get compacted.
Concrete comes down the side yard by barrow over plated ground. Walk on it after 24 hours, park on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we reply within 1 business day with a time to come over. Every estimate is measured and written on site, including the trees, so the figure allows for the hand digging a root needs rather than surprising you with it.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns on our list. South Pasadena is among them, and the drives and walks they describe were built around the trees, as this page says.
“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 settle before they book, from what a protected tree does to the figure to which department at City Hall takes the permit and whether a historic house needs a review for a driveway.
Hand digging, mostly. A drive that runs past a protected tree is dug by hand near the roots, and a root that has to be bridged means a thicker slab over that stretch. After that it is access, since a barrow pour down a side yard takes longer than a chute. The old ribbons also have to be broken out. Every estimate is measured and written on site, after the roots have been exposed.
The Planning and Building Department at City Hall on Mission Street. Flatwork in your own yard at grade needs no permit. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing and a slab under a room do. If the house is on the city's historic inventory and the work shows from the street, it also goes to design review, and we present the drawings there for you.
Usually not, and we would rather not. The city's tree ordinance protects parkway trees and large trees on private lots, and cutting a major root without approval is a citation. We bridge the root with a thickened slab on a gravel bed, or move the ribbon over. Where a small root genuinely has to go we apply first, and an arborist decides.
About 3 weeks where a permit is needed and under 2 where it is not. The visit is booked within 1 business day. Digging and base take a day or 2, a day longer where roots are dug by hand, the pour is a morning, and then 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car goes on it. Design review, where the house needs one, is the part we cannot hurry.
Yes, it slopes. The Raymond fault has left a rise across the north of the city, so the lots there step and the driveways climb, and a wall or a set of steps is part of most jobs. The flat south of the fault is where the ribbon drives and the root work are. The ground is the same Arroyo sand on both sides, so the base does not change.
Yes, both from the same yard, and Alhambra is on the way. San Marino has its own tree rules and its own City Hall on Huntington Drive, so a job on a boundary street is filed with whichever city the parcel is in, and we check the parcel before we file. The houses and the ground are much the same on either side of the line.
South Pasadena borders San Marino and Alhambra, and both are on our list along with San Gabriel and Monterey Park, on the same drive out from El Monte. If your street sits on a city line, the neighboring page says which counter the permit goes to.
Open the El Monte Office in Google Maps Send the form and we reply within 1 business day. The estimate is free, and the finished work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.