Goldenwest Huntington Beach Concrete pours in Lakewood, up the 405 and over the county line, on ground that holds water where ours drains it. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Lakewood is the one town on our list where the beach sand gives out. The ground is the silt the San Gabriel River laid down across its plain, and silt holds water where sand lets it through.
That changes what a slab fails from. At home a driveway drops where loose sand washes out beneath it. In Lakewood the silt does not wash, it softens, and a drive poured on it in 1952 with no base has spent 70 winters on ground that turns to paste for a week after each rain and firms again in spring. The slab rocks a little each cycle, the joints open, and by now most original drives on a Lakewood Park street are plates that tilt toward the garage.
So in Lakewood the base does the draining the ground will not. The old slab comes out, the silt is opened and left to dry, then compacted in lifts, and 4 inches of crushed rock goes over it as a layer that carries water sideways to the edge of the slab rather than holding it underneath. The concrete is graded to the street, since a flat lot gives it no fall of its own, and poured 4 inches thick under cars and 5 where a pickup parks, with the joints sawn the afternoon of the pour.
Lakewood's concrete is 70 years old and it went in all at once, so it is failing all at once. The long drive to the back garage, the front walk and the patio behind the kitchen are the three jobs we are called for, and the silt sets the rebuild.
A Lakewood drive runs the depth of the lot to a garage at the back, and the 1950s slab under it has broken into plates on the silt. We take it out whole, dry and compact the ground, lay 4 inches of crushed rock to carry the water and pour 4 inches, graded to the street.
The patio behind a Lakewood kitchen was a 10 by 10 pad the builder left, and it has sunk toward the house on the silt. We pour a slab 4 inches thick on a compacted base, isolate it from the house and grade it toward the side yard, because the flat lot gives water no way out.
Stamped concrete goes at the front of a Lakewood house where the drive and the walk meet the street. We stamp 4 inches of colored mix and seal it at 28 days against sun and tire marks, since a drive this long lives under a car rather than salt air.
A Lakewood front walk is two panels, the city's parkway strip and then your lawn, on silt that has heaved the old ones apart. We replace both under one city permit, pin the new panel to the old so the joint stays level, and saw the joints the day of the pour.
The detached garage at the back of a Lakewood lot has the oldest slab on it, poured on bare silt in the early 1950s and cracked through. We break it out, dry and compact the silt, then pour 4 inches over a barrier, troweled flat enough to coat or to convert.
Exposed aggregate suits a long Lakewood drive because the stone hides silt after rain and does not glare in the afternoon sun. We wash it proud the same day, trowel a plain band along the house and seal it at 28 days, and it reads the same from the street to the garage.
Walls in Lakewood are low, holding a raised bed or a planter on a flat lot rather than a slope. We footing them 18 inches into firm silt below the old lawn soil, drain behind the stem to a pipe that runs to the street and cap them level, because wet silt pushes a wall over.
Interior floors here are for the back garages being turned into rooms, on silt that is damp half the year. A vapor barrier goes on the compacted base, and the slab is poured level with the house floor and troweled to take tile, so the new room meets the old flush.
The crew takes the 405 north from Huntington Beach, leaves it at Lakewood Boulevard and runs north past Long Beach Airport into the city, about 17 miles and half an hour early in the day. Lakewood is a contract city, so its building permits are issued by Los Angeles County Public Works, Building and Safety, from its counter at Lakewood City Hall on Clark Avenue, and the apron, the parkway and the public walk take a permit from the city's own Public Works Department. We file both.
Lakewood Park is the middle of the city, the tract of small houses that went up in the early 1950s between Del Amo Boulevard and South Street on lots 50 feet wide, most with a garage set back at the end of a long drive. Lakewood Village, on the Long Beach side near the country club, is older and its lots are larger. Mayfair and the streets east toward the 605 and the San Gabriel River filled in through the 1950s on the same silt, and the concrete across all of them is of one age.
The ground decides the calendar here more than the weather does. Lakewood is 10 miles from the surf, so summer afternoons run warmer than ours and the pour is booked for the morning, but the marine layer still reaches this far most days and keeps a slab damp through its first hours. Winter is the constraint. Silt that has taken a week of rain will not compact, so a January job waits for a dry week and the tear-out is done first to give the ground time to drain.
Four steps on a Lakewood lot, with the drying of the silt built into them. The estimate is written on the first visit, and the base does not go down until the ground under it is firm.
Scott Ferreira measures the drive, the walk or the patio, probes the silt for soft ground, checks the fall to the street and writes it up.
We file at the county's Building and Safety counter at City Hall on Clark Avenue where the job needs it, and take the city permit for the apron.
The 1950s slab comes out, the silt is opened and dried, then compacted, and crushed rock is laid 4 inches deep to carry water to the edge.
The pour is one morning, graded to the street, the joints sawn that afternoon and the slab wet cured for 7 days before a car goes on it.
Phone or send the form and we answer within 1 business day. Scott Ferreira comes up the 405, measures the slab and probes the ground it sits on, and prices the tear-out, the base and the concrete on separate lines of an estimate written at the house.
Reviews
Reviews from Google, Facebook and the BBB, left by people whose drives and patios we rebuilt in Lakewood and on the run back down the 405. Each 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 Lakewood Park, the Village and Mayfair, answered as we answer them on the drive: what moves the estimate, which counter permits it, the silt, the run up the 405 and when cars go on.
The length of the drive, then the ground. A Lakewood drive runs the depth of the lot to a garage at the back, so it is long and narrow, and a long slab is more tear-out and more base than a wide one of the same area. Soft silt that has to be dried or dug out is a line of its own. Thickness and finish move it after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with each of those as a line.
Los Angeles County, on the city's behalf. Lakewood contracts its building inspection to the county, so a wall over 4 feet, a footing or a slab under a room is permitted by County Public Works, Building and Safety, at its counter in Lakewood City Hall on Clark Avenue. The apron, the parkway and the public walk take the city's own Public Works permit. A drive replaced inside your lot needs neither.
About 17 miles, up the 405 to Lakewood Boulevard and north past the airport, half an hour before the freeway fills. It is the farthest we go into Los Angeles County, and a Lakewood job is booked as a full day so nobody drives it twice for one step. We answer within 1 business day, come out the same week, and the mixer comes from a plant on the Lakewood side.
Because they were poured on bare silt with no base and no steel. The 1950s tract slabs were 3 to 4 inches on graded dirt, and silt softens under a slab after every rain and firms again in spring, so each plate has rocked a little every year for 70 years. The fix is not a patch. The slab comes out, the silt is dried and compacted, 4 inches of crushed rock goes under the new one and steel goes through it.
Three to four working days on site for a full-depth drive, and a car stays off it for 7 days. The long slab to the back garage makes the tear-out a full day, the silt dries and the base goes in on the second, the pour is the third morning and the joints are sawn that afternoon. In a wet January the ground adds a week of waiting before any of that. Walk on it after 24 to 48 hours.
Bellflower, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens, Artesia and Signal Hill are on our list, all of them on the same river silt and reached by the same run up the 405 or the 605. Long Beach, which wraps Lakewood on three sides, is not on it, and neither is Downey or Norwalk. If your street is on the Long Beach line, call and we will say straight away whether it is one we come to.
Lakewood sits between Bellflower, Cerritos and Hawaiian Gardens, with Signal Hill and Artesia a few miles off, and the crew that crosses the county line works all five. A house closer to one of those towns is on that town's page.
Open the Huntington Beach Office in Google Maps Send the form or call and we answer within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is free and written at your house, and the rebuilt slab is guaranteed in writing.