Goldenwest Huntington Beach Concrete pours patios, footings and driveways in La Palma, up Valley View Street from our office in Huntington Beach. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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In La Palma the patio gets a roof. The city is 12 miles from the water and the marine layer rarely reaches it, so a back yard is in full sun by 10 and the slab behind the house is built to be roofed.
That changes the slab. A patio cover stands on posts, and each post carries the roof into the ground through a footing, so the slab is planned around 4 or 6 points that carry weight the rest of it does not. The 1960s tract patios here were poured first and roofed later, with the posts bolted to the slab where they landed, and the slab cracked at every one, because a thin slab on an old base cannot carry a point load. A new cover does it again unless the ground under the posts is fixed.
So we pour the footings first and the slab around them. Each post gets its own footing dug to the depth the cover's plan calls for and inspected by the city before the pour, with the anchor set in it. The slab is then poured 4 inches thick on 4 inches of compacted crushed rock, with an isolation joint around each footing so the slab and the post move separately, and a fall of a quarter inch a foot away from the house so the runoff leaves. Salt does not reach La Palma. Sun does.
La Palma is inland of the marine layer, so a back yard here is in full sun by mid-morning most of the year, and the patio is built to be roofed. The slab, the footings under the posts and the walk that reaches it are one job.
A La Palma driveway was poured with the house in the 1960s and has carried cars for 60 years, and the tracts set the garage close to the street, so it is short and every panel of it is worn. We pour it 5 inches on 4 of compacted base, doweled to the city walk at the apron.
A patio in La Palma is the floor of an outdoor room, poured to take a cover, so we set it out from the posts inward. The footings go in first, the slab is poured 4 inches on base around them with an isolation joint at each post, and it falls a quarter inch a foot from the house.
Stamped concrete under a La Palma patio cover keeps its color, because the roof takes the sun that fades a stained surface outdoors. We cast the pattern in a 4 inch slab, color the mix through, and seal it in 2 coats at 28 days. Under a cover the reseal stretches to 3 years.
A walk in La Palma runs from the drive to the front door and from the side gate to the patio, and the second one has heaved, because the sprinklers have run beside it for decades. We pour 4 inches on a base that drains, jointed every 4 feet, and doweled into the patio it reaches.
Garage floors in La Palma are often the room a second story could not be, a workshop or a gym, and the 1960s slab under them cracked at the door. We break out the failed panels, lay a vapor barrier over compacted base, and pour 4 inches troweled flat enough for a coating.
Exposed aggregate is the finish asked for on a La Palma front, because a light stone surface stays cool in the sun and hides what the street trees drop on it. We seed the stone into a 4 inch slab, wash the paste off before it sets, and seal it so the stone stays bright.
La Palma is flat, so a retaining wall here is a raised planter along the drive or a bed at the lot line rather than a bank held back. We footing it 18 inches into compacted ground, run steel up through the block into a filled core, and drain it so a wet winter cannot push it out.
A room over the patio, a unit in the back yard or a garage turned into a bedroom in La Palma needs a floor someone will live on. We pour it over a 10 mil vapor barrier on gravel, thicken the edge under the walls, and trowel it flat for tile, once the trench has been inspected.
Our office is on Edinger Avenue in Huntington Beach, and the route to La Palma is Bolsa Chica Road north, which becomes Valley View Street and runs up through Westminster, Garden Grove and Cypress into La Palma, about 12 miles and half an hour with no freeway in it. Plans go to the Community Development Department at La Palma City Hall on Walker Street, and a patio cover is a structure, so it takes a building permit there and the footings are inspected before the pour. We file it.
The city is under 2 square miles of 1960s tracts between the 91 and Coyote Creek, and it was Dairyland before it was La Palma, so the ground under every lot is level pasture that was graded once and built on. The streets off Walker Street and Moody Street are the same plan, a single-story or two-story house with a short drive and a yard behind it, and because the whole city is small the drive from any job to the counter on Walker Street is a few minutes.
The creek is the west edge of the city and the county line, and the ground beside it holds water into spring, so a base of crushed rock goes under every slab here and a floor goes over a vapor barrier. The jacaranda and the camphor on the older streets drop leaves and roots alike, which is why we plan a walk around the trees and seal a patio against the stain. The crew groups La Palma with Cypress, Buena Park and Cerritos, so a visit here is rarely a trip on its own.
One crew, one visit to measure, one written figure. The order below is for a patio that will carry a cover, the job we do most in La Palma, and a drive or a walk follows the same steps with the footings left out.
Scott Ferreira measures the yard, sets out where the posts will land from the cover's plan, reads the fall, and writes the estimate there.
The cover's plan goes to the La Palma Community Development Department, and the footings are booked for inspection before the concrete arrives.
The footings are dug and poured with the anchors set, the yard is compacted in lifts, and 4 inches of crushed rock is laid around them.
Poured 4 inches in one morning, isolated at each post, falling away from the house, joints sawn that afternoon and sealed at 28 days.
Call the office or send the form and we reply within 1 business day. The visit is free, and the estimate is written in your yard with footings, base, slab, joints and finish as separate lines, so you can see what the cover adds before you decide.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by people whose concrete we have poured across the towns we cover, La Palma among them. Each one names the job and the year it was done.
“Our pool deck was the original 1972 surface, lifting at the coping. They cut it out, compacted the sand, poured 640 square feet at 4 inches with an isolation joint at the pool, and sealed it at 28 days. Scott Ferreira measured it on a Thursday and we had the written estimate before he left.”
“The old driveway had sunk where the sand washed out under it and the cars scraped at the apron. They pulled the encroachment permit themselves, compacted the base in three lifts, poured 5 inches for my husband's truck and cut the joints that afternoon. Two winters on, not a crack.”
“We wanted a patio that looked like slate without the joints weeds get into. Scott Ferreira laid the pattern out with us on the visit, the crew poured 380 square feet, stamped it in ashlar and sealed it at 28 days. A full year of salt air later it still looks like the day it was finished.”
What we are asked in La Palma, on cost, whether a patio cover needs a permit, the drive up from the coast, the ground beside the creek, how long the yard is out of use and the towns beside it.
The footings, then the area. A slab that will carry a cover has 4 or 6 footings dug, inspected and poured before the slab, and each one is a line on the estimate that an open patio does not have. Access through the side gate and what is under the old slab move it next, then the finish. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so every line is on paper before you decide anything.
Yes for the cover, no for the slab. A patio cover is a structure, so its plan goes to the Community Development Department at La Palma City Hall on Walker Street and the footings are inspected before they are poured. The slab itself is flatwork inside your lot line, which the California Residential Code exempts. We file the permit with the cover's plan and meet the inspector at the footings.
About 12 miles, straight up Bolsa Chica Road and Valley View Street with no freeway, which is half an hour with the mixer behind us. We reply within 1 business day and book the visit inside the week, and because the crew is in Cypress, Buena Park and Cerritos on the same days, a La Palma job is usually measured on the way to another one.
Because the posts were bolted to a slab that was never meant to carry them. A thin 1960s patio on a settled base spreads a person's weight but not a roof's, and at each post the load goes straight through to soft ground and the slab breaks around it. The new patio carries the cover on footings dug below the slab, with an isolation joint around each one, so the roof's weight never reaches the slab at all.
It is flat and it holds water, which is the pair to plan for. La Palma sits on old pasture beside Coyote Creek, level enough that a slab has to make its own fall, and wet enough beside the creek that a base poured straight onto the dirt stays damp all winter. We compact the ground in lifts, lay 4 inches of crushed rock that drains, and pour the slab over it with steel on a grid.
About 2 weeks for a covered patio, and 10 days for an open one. The old slab comes out on the first day, the footings are dug and inspected on the second and poured on the third, the base goes in and the slab is poured on one morning after that, with the joints sawn that afternoon. Walk on it after 24 hours, and the cover's installer can stand the posts after 7 days.
La Palma has Cypress on its south side, Buena Park to the east and Cerritos across Coyote Creek to the west, and we cover all three from Huntington Beach. If your street runs along one of those lines, the page next door is as good as this one.
Open the Huntington Beach Office in Google Maps Send the form or call and we reply within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is free and written in your yard, and every slab carries a written workmanship guarantee.