Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete pours driveways, patios, walks and garage floors in West Whittier-Los Nietos, a short run down the 605 from our office. The job is measured at your door first.
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West Whittier-Los Nietos lies just below the Whittier Narrows, where the San Gabriel River and the Rio Hondo squeeze between the hills and spread out again. Under every lawn is sand the river left.
Until the Whittier Narrows Dam was finished in the 1950s this ground flooded, and the 1938 flood came through it. That history is why the sand is clean and deep, and why the spreading grounds on the Pico Rivera bank are where they are, since water poured onto it sinks straight in. For concrete it means a subgrade that compacts in two passes and never heaves, so a cracked drive here failed from a thin pour or a root. Sand also runs when cut, so a footing is dug and poured the same day.
The specification follows the ground. The lawn and topsoil come off to clean sand, the sand is wetted and plate-compacted, and 4 inches of Class 2 base goes down on it so the slab bears on a firm plane rather than on loose grains. The slab itself is 4 inches with steel on a grid, 5 inches at a drive that a work van parks on, and every footing is dug, inspected and filled in one visit so the trench walls never have a night to slump.
West Whittier-Los Nietos is postwar bungalows on small lots, seven in ten of them owner-occupied, on ground the San Gabriel River spread flat before the dam went in. The concrete here is mostly the builder's, and it is due.
A Los Nietos drive is a single strip poured with the bungalow in the late 1940s, and the apron at the curb belongs to the county. We break out both, lay 4 inches of compacted base on the river sand, pour 4 inches with steel on a grid, and file the county permit the apron needs.
The back yards here are reached through a gate a barrow wide, so a patio in West Whittier-Los Nietos is wheeled in rather than chuted. We compact the sand, pour 4 inches on base, joint it every 10 feet and grade it to the lawn, which on this ground takes the water unaided.
Stamped work in Los Nietos is most often a front walk and porch landing, chosen to read as flagstone against a stucco bungalow. We stamp a 4 inch slab, color it through the mix so a chip does not show gray, and seal it in two coats, which keeps the texture through summer.
The walk in front of a Los Nietos house sits in county right-of-way, so its replacement needs a county permit and we apply for it. The path from the walk to the porch is yours. We pour it in square panels on compacted base, broom finished across the line of travel for grip.
A 1940s garage floor in West Whittier-Los Nietos was poured thin on sand with nothing under it, so it draws damp and cracks along the tire lines. We pour a new slab on 4 inches of base over a 10 mil vapor barrier, troweled flat, which is the floor an ADU conversion needs.
Exposed aggregate belongs on this ground, since the rounded gravel in it is what the San Gabriel River carried down. We seed the surface with the same stone, wash the paste off so it stands proud, and saw the joints. It gives a patio or walk grip without the look of a path.
West Whittier-Los Nietos is flat, so a retaining wall here holds a raised bed or a step at a lot line. Even a low wall in sand is footed below the topsoil, filled the day the trench is cut and drained behind the stem. Above the exempt height it takes a county permit, filed by us.
An interior floor in Los Nietos is usually the slab under a garage turned into living space or a unit built at the back of the lot. We pour it on a vapor barrier so it is dry enough for tile, trowel it flat, and dowel it to the house foundation so the doorway stays level.
The name goes back to the Rancho Los Nietos, granted to Manuel Nieto in 1784 and one of the first private landholdings in California. The streets on it now, Norwalk Boulevard, Sorensen Avenue and Los Nietos Road, were laid out with the houses after the war, and the area was never taken into Whittier or Pico Rivera. It is unincorporated Los Angeles County, so its permits are issued by the county and not by either city hall next door.
A permit, where one is needed, comes from the Building and Safety Division of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. We apply for it, we meet the inspector, and we tell you at the visit whether the job needs one at all. Flatwork at grade on your own lot does not. A wall over the code's exempt height, a footing under a cover and any concrete in the road right-of-way, including the walk and the apron at the curb, does.
The crew takes the 605 south through the Narrows and leaves it at Whittier Boulevard, which is about a quarter of an hour from the yard. The lots on the streets between Whittier Boulevard and Sorensen Park are small and close, so a mixer chutes from the street to most front yards but the back is reached by barrow through a side gate a wheel wide. We read the gate at the visit, because it sets the crew size and the length of the day.
Measured first, written at the house, then one crew from the first cut to the sealer. A county permit is in hand before anything is broken out, so the job never waits on a counter mid-way.
Ismael Duarte measures the slab, checks the fall toward the street, tests the sand with a probe and measures the side gate for a barrow.
A wall, a footing or work at the curb goes to Los Angeles County Building and Safety. We apply and meet the inspector. Flatwork needs none.
The old slab is broken and hauled, the sand under it wetted and plate-compacted, and 4 inches of base laid and compacted to a plane.
Poured in the morning, joints cut that afternoon, foot traffic after 24 hours and a car after 7 days. The gate and lawn are put back as found.
Call or send the form and we ring back within 1 business day with a time. The figure is written at your house after the slab and the gate are measured, and it is free whether or not you go ahead.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners in the towns we pour in. West Whittier-Los Nietos is one of them, and the drives and patios above are what the reviews describe.
“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 owners in West Whittier-Los Nietos ask before booking, from who issues the permit in an unincorporated area to how river sand behaves under a slab and how soon a car can go back on the drive.
Los Angeles County, through the Building and Safety Division of its Department of Public Works, because West Whittier-Los Nietos is unincorporated and belongs to neither Whittier nor Pico Rivera. A drive, patio or garage floor at grade on your own lot needs no permit. A retaining wall above the exempt height, a footing under a cover and any concrete at the curb or in the walk does, and we file it.
The area of the slab first, then whether the apron at the curb is part of the job, since that piece sits in county right-of-way and carries a permit and an inspection of its own. Depth comes next, an inch more under a work van. The sand under the lot is the one thing that does not move the figure, because it compacts easily. Every estimate is measured and written on site, once drive and apron are measured.
About 7 miles, down the 605 through the Whittier Narrows and off at Whittier Boulevard, which is a quarter of an hour without traffic. We ring back within 1 business day to fix the visit, and because the run is short the mixer is loaded at the plant and on your street inside the window the concrete allows.
No, it is the easiest ground we pour on, provided it is compacted and never left open. Sand does not swell or shrink with the seasons, so a slab on it does not heave, and it drains so well that a patio graded to the lawn sheds a storm without a drain. The one care it needs is at a trench, because a cut face in sand slumps overnight, which is why every footing here is dug and filled on the same day.
After 7 days. Concrete takes a footstep after 24 hours and a car after a week, and the apron at the curb cures on the same clock. With the small lots here there is nowhere else to put the car but the street, so we pour late in the week and the drive is back in use by the second weekend. Break-out and base take a day before that.
Yes, both, and the streets around West Whittier-Los Nietos run into them without a visible line. Whittier issues its own permits from its City Hall and Pico Rivera from its own, so the one thing that changes at the boundary is which counter the paperwork goes to. The ground, the crew and the written estimate are the same on either side.
West Whittier-Los Nietos has Whittier on one side and Pico Rivera across the river on the other, with Montebello a short way north through the Narrows. We cover each of them from the same El Monte office, and each has its own page.
Open the El Monte Office in Google Maps Send the form and we ring back within 1 business day to book the measure. The estimate is free and written on site, and the work carries a written guarantee against defects in the build.