Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete pours pool decks on the ring of backfill a pool excavation leaves around the shell, compacted in lifts before a form goes in. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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How a deck is built here
A pool deck fails at the water first. The shell was dug a foot or two wider than the pool it holds, and the trench left around it was backfilled the day the plumbing went in, usually with whatever came out of the hole. The deck then sits half on ground that has lain undisturbed for thousands of years and half on fill that has lain there for a few weeks. It settles at the coping, tips toward the water, and the sealant joint at the bond beam tears open the first summer.
Rio Hondo El Monte Concrete was started in 2015 by Ismael Duarte, who had spent 21 years on the San Gabriel Valley flatwork crews before the first job under his own name, and he is beside the pool at every pour. Most pools here went into the small tract yards of the 1950s and 1960s long after the houses were built, dug within a few feet of the fence on one side and the house on the other, so a deck three feet wide on two sides is the ordinary case.
Decks are poured under a CSLB C-8 concrete license with liability insurance on every job. Flatwork around an existing pool does not usually open a building permit, but a deck that changes the barrier, the equipment pad or a drain line does, and that is settled with Building & Safety before a date is booked rather than argued at an inspection. Every deck leaves with a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Repair or replace
Run a hand from the deck onto the coping stone. A lip you can feel means the deck has dropped on its backfill while the shell, on undisturbed ground, has not moved. It is the first thing a bare foot catches on and the last thing a patch can hide, because the slab keeps going down.
A deck is poured to fall away from the water. Once a panel tips the other way, splash and rain sit against the coping instead of running off to the lawn, and every wet afternoon soaks the joint at the bond beam. In a hot week that water pulls the sealant loose.
The soft joint between deck and coping is there to let the two move apart. When it is torn, missing or bridged with a hard patch, the deck pushes on the bond beam every time it expands in August. Cracked tile along the waterline usually means this has gone on for summers.
A deck drain sits at a low point cut into the slab, and it is where a settling deck breaks first. Cracks running from the grate out toward the pool mean the base under that channel has washed away. They widen as the fill keeps going, and the drain ends up running the wrong way.
In every deck
Eight things are in every pool deck we pour at no separate line, and each one answers something a back yard pool in this city does: sits in loose backfill, shoves on the deck every summer, and takes water and bare feet all season.
Every panel is broken out and hauled away, working from the coping outward, so nothing is dropped into the water or against the tile.
The ring around the shell is dug out to where the fill ends, because it was never compacted when the pool went in and it has to be now.
Crushed base goes back into that ring in shallow layers, each one plate-compacted, so the deck sits on ground that has been proved.
The forms are set to a quarter inch of fall per foot away from the coping, so splash and rain leave the pool edge instead of soaking it.
A foam strip is set against the bond beam and the finished joint filled with pool mastic, so the deck can grow in summer without shoving the shell.
Number 3 rebar on a grid through a 4-inch slab, tied so a panel that spans both fill and native sand behaves as one piece rather than two.
Broom or salt finish across the whole deck, with the surface tested under a running hose before we leave, because a pool deck is walked wet.
We walk the deck with you against the estimate, the fall, the joint, the finish, and the written guarantee is handed over before we go.
How it can be finished
Four surfaces for the same deck, judged on what matters beside a pool: how hot it gets underfoot in an El Monte August, how it grips a wet foot, and what it asks of you afterward. The base, the steel and the joint at the coping are the same under all four.
| Option | Heat in summer | Grip when wet | Upkeep | Back in use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light broom finish | Coolest of the four in plain gray | Good grip, easy to hose clean | A hose and a stiff brush | Bare feet after 3 days |
| Salt finish, gray | Cool, with pitted shade in the surface | Grips most when wet, holds a little grit | Hosed out, grit collects in the pits | Bare feet after 3 days |
| Stamped and colored | Hot in dark colors, fair in sand tones | Slick unless a grit goes into the seal | Resealed to hold the color | 7 days, then sealed |
| Exposed aggregate | Warm, the stone shows through the gray | Grips well, harder on soft feet | Resealed to keep the stones in | Bare feet after 3 days |
Light broom and salt finishes cost least and stay coolest; a stamped deck in a dark color costs most to lay and is the one that burns a bare foot in July.
Ground and yard
Every pool deck here sits on the ring of backfill left around its shell, and most sit in a yard so small that the deck is a walkway on three of its four sides.
The native ground is San Gabriel River wash, sand and rounded gravel that drains in minutes and takes a plate compactor well. A pool builder digs the shell wider than the pool, plumbs it, and pushes that same sand back into the gap in one push, uncompacted, because the deck is somebody else's job. That ring stays loose. Rain, splash and the backwash line find it, and it goes down a fraction each wet season. A deck poured over it drops with it, and the shell stays put.
The yard is the second. Lots on the postwar tracts here are narrow, and a pool went into many of them decades after the house, with a fence on one side and the house on the other. That leaves a deck three or four feet wide down two sides, too narrow for a proper fall or a joint pattern that keeps cracks straight, so the fall goes to a slot drain along the fence. Where the ground steps up behind, a retaining wall is poured with the deck.
From call to swim
Five stages, one crew throughout, and the person who probes the backfill is the one standing at the coping on pour day. Anything that touches the barrier or the equipment is cleared with the city before the breaker starts.
Ismael Duarte bars the backfill all the way round, shoots the fall on the old deck and checks the coping joint. He writes the figure there.
You pick the surface against heat and grip, decide where a drain goes, and take a date. The pool stays full, since an empty shell can lift.
The old deck goes out from the coping outward, then the loose ring around the shell is dug to where the fill stops and the plumbing in it checked.
Base compacted in lifts, rebar tied on chairs, the foam strip set at the bond beam, then a pour begun early on a summer morning and broomed.
Joints sawn the same day, the coping joint filled with mastic once the slab has dried, the deck kept damp a week, and the paperwork handed over.
Behind the number
The width of the deck starts the figure and the state of the backfill finishes it. Two pools the same size can be a day apart in work once the bar goes into the ring, so nothing is quoted from a photo. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A deck that is a walkway on three sides and a patio on the fourth is measured as two areas, because the wide side takes the fall and the joints.
Backfill that has stayed loose has to come out and go back in lifts. A ring that was compacted when the pool went in, which is rare, saves a day.
A slot drain along a fence, a re-set equipment pad or a backwash line under the slab are each formed and poured as their own item on the estimate.
A light broom is the plainest. Salt, exposed aggregate and stamping each add a step at the pour and a seal afterward, and the estimate names it.
The visit costs nothing and neither does the written figure, and the call to arrange it comes within 1 business day. (626) 774-7973 or send us a message.
Send the form or call, and someone rings back within 1 business day to fix a time. Ismael Duarte probes the backfill, shoots the fall and writes the figure at your pool, and you are under no obligation to act on it.
Decks we replaced
Three owners writing about a pool deck and nothing else, one each on Google, Facebook and the BBB, and each naming the lip, the puddle or the torn joint that brought them to us.
“The deck had dropped nearly an inch below the coping all along the deep end and my kids kept catching a toe on it. They dug out the whole ring around the pool, packed it back in layers and poured the deck level with the stone. Two summers on and there is no lip anywhere.”
“Water sat in a puddle by the steps every time anyone got out and the joint at the tile was long gone. Ismael reset the fall to a drain along the fence and put a proper mastic joint in at the coping. The deck dries in an hour now and the tile has stopped cracking.”
“Ours is a narrow deck, barely four feet down both sides, and the old broom finish had cracked into pieces from the drain outward. They poured it in salt finish with rebar through it and the kids can run on it wet without slipping. It has stayed cool this whole August.”
Before you book
What moves the figure, how long the pool is out of use, whether the city has to see it, and what is guaranteed once the mastic is in, answered for a back yard pool on this valley floor.
How far round the pool the deck runs and what the bar finds in the backfill, in that order. The wide side of the deck is measured as its own area because it carries the fall and the joint pattern; the loose ring around the shell is either dug out and rebuilt or, rarely, found sound and left. Drains, an equipment pad and the finish are each named as their own line. All of it is written at your pool.
About two weeks from the first breaker to the first swim. Breaking out and opening the backfill takes a day, base and steel another, and the pour a third. The slab then cures for seven days before it takes bare feet, and the coping joint is filled once the concrete has dried, which is what finally seals the deck against the shell. The pool stays full the entire time, because an empty shell on this sand can float.
Yes. Removing the old deck, opening the ring around the shell to where the fill ends and putting compacted base back in its place are all inside the figure, since that ring is what the whole job exists to fix. Named separately at the visit rather than added later are a broken skimmer line found in the trench, a new slot drain, or moving the equipment pad. The figure you sign is the figure on the bill.
Usually not for the slab on its own, but yes the moment the work touches the barrier, the equipment or a drain line. A replaced deck that alters the fence, the gate or the pool alarm is a barrier change under the state's pool safety law, and that goes through Building & Safety like any other permit. We ask the counter before the date is set, and if an inspection is called for we meet the inspector.
Almost never. A deck that has settled on its backfill over twenty years is treated as wear and maintenance by every policy we have seen, not as a sudden loss, so the replacement is the owner's. The exceptions are a covered event, a burst supply line that washed the base out or a tree lifting the slab. Photograph the deck before anything is broken out and ask your carrier before you book.
How it was built: the backfill dug out and recompacted, the base, the 4-inch thickness, the rebar, the fall off the coping and the joint at the bond beam, each printed on the estimate before you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Sun fading, chlorine marks, furniture wear and the shell itself moving sit outside it. Where the fault is ours we put it right.
A 3,500 psi ready-mix placed the morning it is batched, crushed base under it, number 3 rebar tied on chairs through the whole deck, and a self-leveling pool mastic over a foam backer at the coping. Stamped and exposed finishes are sealed with a breathable sealer that takes a grit for grip. The mix, the steel and the sealant are named on the estimate so what comes off the truck can be checked against it.
Only for the measure at the start and the walk-through at the end. In between, the crew needs a hose, a way through the side gate and the pool left full, and the yard is not usable for the two weeks the job takes. Children and dogs have to stay off the trench once the ring is open, because it drops straight down to the shell's plumbing. Tell us at the visit if the side gate is the only way round to the back.
Towns we pour in
Eight towns, the nearest first, with how far each sits from the office on Peck Road as the crow flies. A deck in any of them is probed and measured at the pool before a figure is written.
Four jobs that go with a new pool deck more often than not, poured on the same base in the same week by the same crew, and set out line by line on the one written estimate.
Exposed aggregate for the deck itself, the stone washed proud so it grips wet.
A patterned deck in a pale color, sealed with a grit so it does not turn slick.
The wide side of the deck carried on to the back door as one slab with one fall.
A poured wall where the yard steps up to the neighbor behind the pool.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say roughly how wide the deck runs on each side and whether there is a lip at the coping, and the visit is booked for a day inside the same week.