Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete pours driveways, patios, walks, steps and retaining walls in Whittier, 7 miles down the 605 from our office. Every job is measured where it will stand first.
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Whittier sits where the San Gabriel River plain meets the Puente Hills, and the Whittier Fault runs along that seam. Below it the ground is river sand. Above it the ground is old sea floor under clay.
On the flat, from Uptown out to the 605, a slab sits on sand that drains and never heaves, and the enemy is the street tree. Whittier planted its parkways a century ago, and the roots of a mature camphor or ficus lift a walk or a drive edge by inches. In the hills the problem inverts. The clay over the Puente Formation swells when winter rain reaches it and shrinks through the dry season, so a slab poured straight on it cracks in a year, and an unheld cut moves the first wet winter.
So a Whittier job is specified by where it stands. On the flat a drive or patio is 4 inches on 4 inches of compacted base with steel on a grid, and a root that has lifted the old slab is cut back and barriered before the new one goes down. In the hills the base is thicker, the steel is closer, the slab is jointed to move with the ground, and a wall holding a cut is footed into firm material below the clay, drained behind the stem to daylight, and engineered where the height requires it.
Whittier is three towns in one, the Craftsman streets around Uptown and the college, the postwar tracts of East Whittier, and the hillside houses of Friendly Hills. Each asks for concrete for a different reason.
A Whittier drive on the flat is lifted by a parkway tree more often than cracked by the ground, so the root is cut back and barriered before we pour 4 inches on compacted base. On a hillside lot the drive is steep, so we broom it across the slope and joint it for the clay.
Behind a Craftsman house in Uptown the patio is a rear yard the builder never paved, and behind a Friendly Hills house it is a terrace cut into clay. On sand we pour 4 inches on base, jointed every 10 feet. On the hill the base is thicker and the steel closer.
Stamped concrete in Whittier is asked for at the front of the postwar tracts of East Whittier, where an owner wants a walk and porch that read as stone. We stamp a 4 inch slab in the pattern chosen, color it through the mix so wear does not show gray, and seal it in two coats.
The walk in front of a Whittier house sits in the city parkway, so its replacement is a permit from City Hall, and the century-old trees along it are why it lifted. We cut the root, lay a barrier, and pour the panels on compacted base in the same square rhythm as the block.
A Whittier garage floor being turned into living space under the state ADU rules needs to be flat, dry and level, and a 1950s slab in East Whittier is none of those. We test it for moisture, then grind and overlay it or pour it new on a 10 mil vapor barrier, as the test says.
Exposed aggregate suits the Craftsman streets of Whittier because it reads as the same era as the houses. We seed the surface with rounded river gravel, wash the paste back so the stone stands proud, and saw the joints straight, so a walk or patio has grip without a modern look.
A retaining wall is the job the Whittier hills ask for most, because a lot in Friendly Hills is a cut and a fill with a house between. The wall is footed into firm material below the clay, drained behind the stem to a pipe run to daylight, and engineered where the city requires.
An interior floor in Whittier is usually the slab for a garage conversion or a unit on a deep Uptown lot. We pour it on a vapor barrier so it is dry enough for tile or wood, trowel it flat, and dowel it to the house foundation, so the doorway between old and new never steps.
Whittier was laid out by Quakers in 1887 and incorporated in 1898, and the grid around Greenleaf Avenue and Whittier College still shows it. The Craftsman houses on those streets have the oldest concrete in the city, porch steps and walks poured in the 1910s and 1920s, and much of it survived the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake that brought down the brick on Greenleaf. A step that has lasted a hundred years is worth matching, so we form new risers to the old profile.
A permit comes from the Building Division of the Community Development Department at Whittier City Hall on Penn Street. Flatwork at grade on your own lot needs none. A retaining wall above the exempt height, a footing under a cover, and anything in the parkway or at the curb does, and a wall on a hillside lot may need an engineer's drawing as well as the permit. We file the application and meet the inspector, and we tell you at the first visit which of those the job is.
We come down the 605 and leave it at Beverly Boulevard or Whittier Boulevard, which puts a crew in Uptown in about twenty minutes and in Friendly Hills in thirty. Under six in ten homes in Whittier are owner-occupied, the lowest of the towns we cover, so a share of our work here is for a landlord with a duplex on one of the older lots, where the drive is shared and the pour has to be sequenced so one tenant is never blocked in for the week of curing.
Measured at the address, written there, and built by one crew. The specification is fixed at the visit by which ground the job stands on, so nothing is redrawn once the tear-out begins.
Ismael Duarte measures the work, probes for sand or clay, checks the trees and the slope, and writes the figure at the house.
A wall, a footing or curb work goes to the Building Division at Whittier City Hall, with an engineer's drawing for a hillside wall.
The old concrete is cut and hauled, roots are cut back and barriered, and Class 2 base is compacted, deeper on clay than on sand.
Poured early, jointed the same day, walkable after 24 hours and carrying a car after 7 days. A wall's drain is tested before it is backfilled.
Call or send the form and we ring back within 1 business day to fix a time. The estimate is written at the house once we know whether the job is on sand or on clay, and it is free either way.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and the BBB by homeowners in the towns we cover, Whittier among them. The steps, drives and walls described on this page are the jobs the reviews are about.
“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 Whittier owners, on permits and Penn Street, what the hills do to a slab, what a century-old walk in Uptown needs, and how long a shared drive is out of use.
Not for a drive, a patio or a garage floor at grade on your own lot. You do for a retaining wall above the height the code exempts, for a footing that carries a patio cover, and for any concrete in the parkway or at the curb. Those go to the Building Division at Whittier City Hall on Penn Street, and a wall on a hillside lot usually needs an engineer's drawing with the application. We prepare and file all of it.
The height of the cut and what the wall is footed into. A wall in Friendly Hills holding more than a few feet of clay is engineered, footed below the clay into firm material, and drained with a pipe run to daylight, and each of those adds to the figure. A low planter wall on a flat lot needs none of them. The estimate is written at the house after the slope is measured, because no two hillside lots cut alike.
About twenty minutes to Uptown and thirty to the hills, down the 605 and off at Beverly Boulevard or Whittier Boulevard. Our office is 7 miles away. We ring back within 1 business day to book the visit, and a job in Whittier is often measured on the way back from another one in Pico Rivera or Los Nietos.
Because the ground there moves with the seasons. The Puente Hills are marine sediment with clay soil over it, and clay swells in a wet winter and shrinks in the dry months, lifting and dropping a slab that sits directly on it. A slab on a compacted base with steel on a close grid rides that movement, and a wall with a drain behind it has no water to move with. Below the hills, on the sand, none of this applies.
Yes. The Craftsman houses around Greenleaf Avenue have steps and walks from the 1910s and 1920s with a rounded nosing and a fine trowel finish, and we form new risers to the old profile and finish them to match rather than pouring a modern broom finish beside them. Where the old concrete is sound it stays. Only the broken run is replaced, and the joint between old and new is doweled so it never opens into a lip.
Eight days for a straight replacement, and we split it where two households share the drive. The slab is poured in two halves a week apart, each carrying a car after 7 days and a footstep after 24 hours, so one side is always open. That is slower than a single pour but on the duplex lots of Whittier it is the only way nobody is blocked in.
Whittier meets West Whittier-Los Nietos and Pico Rivera on its west side and Montebello through the Narrows to the north, and we pour in each from the same El Monte office. Each has its own page, because the ground and the permit office change at the line.
Open the El Monte Office in Google Maps Send the form and we ring back within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is measured and written at the house at no charge, and the finished work carries a written guarantee.