Goldenwest Huntington Beach Concrete pours drives, patios and slabs in Signal Hill, 17 miles up the 405 from a town that grew over an oil field as this one did. The estimate is written there.
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Signal Hill and Huntington Beach were both oil towns before they were suburbs, and in both a lot can carry a plugged well under the lawn. We learned to look for them at home.
The Long Beach oil field under Signal Hill was among the richest in the state from the 1920s, and the hill was a forest of derricks before it was a neighborhood. As wells were plugged the land was graded and built on, so a house on the hill can sit beside or over an abandoned well, and the state keeps the record of where each one is. A slab poured over a well without knowing is a slab that may have to come out, and a footing dug into one is a problem nobody wants to find with a shovel.
So a Signal Hill job starts at the records rather than the tape. Before anything is drawn we check the state's well finder, kept by the California Geologic Energy Management Division, for any well on or near the lot, and where one turns up the slab is set clear of it or the footing moved. Then the work is what it is at home, ground compacted in lifts, rock under the slab, steel on chairs, joints sawn before the crew leaves. The harbor wind brings salt, so the slab is sealed as ours are.
Signal Hill has two kinds of house, the 1920s bungalows on the flat streets below the hill and the homes built on the hill after the wells came out, and two kinds of concrete under them. Both need a base checked for what the field left behind.
A Signal Hill driveway on the hill has a grade to hold, and one on the flats has a 1920s slab to replace. Either way we compact the ground, lay 4 inches of crushed rock and pour 5 inches over steel, with the joints laid across the slope so a crack cannot run down the drive.
Patios in Signal Hill are small on the old lots and terraced on the hill, where the yard is a cut pad with a view. We pour 4 inches on compacted rock with the fall set toward the drain the grading plan shows, and hold the slab clear of any well marker the property's records show.
Stamped concrete in Signal Hill goes on a hillside patio more than a drive, because a slab with a view is the one the owner spends on. We pour it at 4 inches, stamp slate or ashlar, and seal it at 28 days, since the wind off the harbor carries salt up the hill as it does to us.
Signal Hill walks on the flat streets are the originals, poured while the wells were pumping and lifted since by roots and by ground that settled as the field was drained. We cut out the lifted panels, pour new ones at 4 inches on compacted rock, and dowel them to the sound ones.
Garage floors in Signal Hill are being turned into rooms on the older streets, where the slab is thin and sits on bare ground. We break it out, look up the site's well records before the dig, lay a barrier on crushed rock, and pour 4 inches, thicker under the new wall.
Exposed aggregate suits a Signal Hill hillside, because a textured surface holds a foot on a slope and the pale matrix stays cool through the afternoon. We seed river stone into the top, expose it the same day, and seal it once cured, then reseal on the coastal schedule.
Retaining walls are the job Signal Hill asks for most, because the hill rises more than 300 feet above the flats and most lots on it are cut and filled. A wall over 4 feet or under a slab is drawn by an engineer, permitted by the City, footed below the fill, and drained.
Interior floors in Signal Hill are the slab under a rear unit or a room added to a bungalow on the flats, on ground that has been drilled, filled and drilled again. We pour over a vapor barrier on compacted base, float it flat for tile, and run the joints under the walls.
A crew leaves the office on Edinger Avenue, takes the 405 north and comes off at Cherry Avenue, and is on a Signal Hill street in about 30 minutes outside the rush. The city is its own, 2 square miles inside Long Beach and in Los Angeles County, so permits come from the City of Signal Hill at City Hall on Cherry Avenue and not from Long Beach or the County. Our insurance follows the crew across the county line, and a job here is scheduled beside jobs in Lakewood and Seal Beach.
The flat streets on the south and west of the city, toward Willow Street and Atlantic Avenue, are 1920s bungalows on small lots with concrete as old as the houses, and that is where most of our replacement work is. The hill itself, up Cherry Avenue and around Hilltop Park, was built out from the 1980s on as the wells came out, on pads cut and filled from the old field, and those lots ask for walls, steps and terraced patios more than flat slabs. Both carry the records we check first.
Signal Hill is 3 miles from the water, on a rise the sea wind reaches without anything in its way, so the salt that shapes a slab in Huntington Beach shapes one here too. The steel is kept well inside the slab, the mix is dense and the surface is sealed, as at home. The marine layer sits on the hill most mornings from May into July, which keeps a fresh slab from drying out, and a wet week in winter moves a date here as it does on our own street.
A records check before the first shovel, then one crew from the measure to the walk-through. The visit, the permit and the pour each get a planned day, alongside our other work in Los Angeles County.
Scott Ferreira looks up the state's well records for the lot, then measures the slab, probes the ground and hands you the estimate in writing.
Where the City needs a permit, for a wall, a slab under a room or work at the curb, we file it on Cherry Avenue and meet the inspector.
The old slab is broken out, the ground compacted in lifts and rock laid over it, then the concrete is placed and finished in a morning.
Joints go in before the crew leaves, the slab stays wet for a week and is sealed at 28 days, and you walk it with us against the estimate.
Phone or send the form and we get back to you within 1 business day. The visit costs nothing, the estimate is written on site, and because Signal Hill is a run up the 405 the visit lands on a day we are already across the county line.
Reviews
Reviews on Google, Facebook and the BBB from homeowners in the towns we work, on both sides of the county line. Signal Hill is among them, and each names the job and the year.
“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 Signal Hill before a job is booked, on cost, permits, the wells under the hill, the drive from Huntington Beach, how many days a slab needs and the salt on the wind.
Grade first, on the hill, and age first, on the flats. A slab on a hillside lot needs its ground held and its joints laid to the slope, and a 1920s slab on the flats has to be broken out and its base built from nothing. After that come thickness, steel and finish. We check the well records, measure and probe on a free visit, and write the estimate at the property.
The City of Signal Hill, at City Hall on Cherry Avenue, not Long Beach and not Los Angeles County. Flatwork inside your lot needs none, a wall over 4 feet, a slab under a room and any work at the curb or the public walk need one, and a lot with a plugged well on it may need the state's sign-off as well. We file all of it and are there for the inspection.
Possibly, and it can be checked before anyone digs. The state's Geologic Energy Management Division keeps a map of every well ever drilled in the field, plugged or not, and we look up the lot before the estimate is written. If a well is on it, the slab is set clear of the wellhead or the footing is moved, and the record goes in the estimate so you have it for the next job too.
About 17 miles and half an hour, up the 405 to Cherry Avenue. It is over the county line, which changes nothing about the crew, the insurance or the guarantee, only the calendar. A Signal Hill visit falls on a day we are already in Lakewood or Seal Beach, and a job here is planned in whole days with the concrete ordered for the morning.
Walk on it after 2 days, park on it after 7, and give it 28 before anything heavier. The crew is on site 2 to 4 working days, longer on the hill where the ground has to be held before it is poured on, and the joints are cut the day of the pour. On a hillside lot we agree where the cars go while the drive cures, since the street below is often the only place.
Yes, because the hill stands in the wind off the harbor with nothing to shelter it. Salt reaches the steel through unsealed concrete and rusts it from inside, which is what breaks the surface off a driveway near the water. We keep the steel deep in the slab, keep the mix dense, and seal at 28 days with a reseal every 2 to 3 years, the same schedule as at the beach.
Signal Hill is surrounded by Long Beach, and the towns we cover nearest it are Lakewood, Hawaiian Gardens, Los Alamitos and Seal Beach, all of them reached on the same Los Angeles County run. Look for yours in the list below, or call and ask.
Open the Huntington Beach Office in Google Maps Send the form or call and you hear back within 1 business day. The well check, the measure and the written estimate are all free, and the finished slab carries a written guarantee.