Goldenwest Huntington Beach Concrete rebuilds older pool decks as one dense, sealed slab drained to a channel, salt kept on top and groundwater below. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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What a deck answers to here
A pool deck is the most exposed concrete on a coastal lot. It is hosed, splashed and backwashed on every hot day, the onshore wind lands salt on it every afternoon, and it stands in the open with nothing to shade it, so whatever gets into the surface gets in faster than on a drive. Chloride is what matters, because once it reaches the steel the bar rusts, swells and lifts the top of the slab off in a sheet. So the deck is mixed with less water and sealed once it has cured.
Most pools in Huntington Beach went in behind tract houses between the mid 1960s and the late 1970s, and a great many still carry their first deck, a thin slab under a sprayed topping patched a dozen times. Scott Ferreira has taken those decks out on canal lots in the Harbor and on the tracts off Brookhurst, and the steel that comes up is usually orange and half gone. The replacement is 4 inches on a compacted base, cut free of the coping, and made to be resealed.
The deck is poured under a CSLB C-8 concrete license to the California Residential Code, with liability insurance on every job. The bonding wire that loops every pool is found, tested and carried into the new slab, because the California Electrical Code requires a deck bonded to the shell and the pump. A gate moved to get the old deck out goes back to the barrier rules that day. Each deck carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Patch or replace
Orange streaks that come back after every pressure wash are rust from the steel, carried up through the slab by water. On a deck a mile from the surf that means chloride has reached the bar, and the bar is swelling. A new coating hides the stain for a season and does nothing else.
A sprayed topping that sounds hollow under a wet foot has let go of the concrete beneath it, and the water it lets in has nowhere to dry out. The plates grow each summer as the slab under them flakes. Recoating a surface that has delaminated once fixes the part that is not broken.
A lip at the coping, where the slab sits lower than the pool edge, means the base under the deck has moved. On the Harbor side of town that base is wet sand over the water table, and it settles a little each year. The joint that opens there feeds water down, and the drop speeds up.
A puddle that lasts past lunch against the back of the house is a deck falling the wrong way. Every splash and every hosing then drains toward the slab your house stands on, and a house slab with wet sand under one edge is a bigger job than a deck. Fix it before summer, not after.
In every deck
Eight things go into every deck at no separate line, and each one answers what this coast does to a slab around a pool. Salt lands on it every afternoon, water reaches the base from below on the lowland lots, and the pool was built before its owner was born.
The old slab is sawn a hand's width from the coping and broken out to the base, with the tile line and the pool edge left standing untouched.
The copper loop around the shell is uncovered, tested through to the pump and tied to the new steel, because an unbonded deck fails inspection.
Sand compacted in lifts, then crushed rock on top, so water from the pool or from the ground below moves through the base instead of sitting in it.
Number 3 bar on chairs at mid-depth, never laid on the base and pulled up, so there is concrete over it and not a skin salt walks straight through.
A 3,500 psi mix batched dense, because a slab with less water in it has fewer pores, and pores are the road chloride takes to the steel.
A full-depth foam joint between deck and coping, capped with a sealant, so the slab moves on its own and never pushes against the shell.
A quarter inch of fall in every foot away from the water to a channel drain at the far edge, piped out, so nothing runs to the house or the pool.
A penetrating sealer once the slab has cured at 28 days, the walk-through against the estimate, and the written guarantee handed to you.
How it can be finished
Four ways to finish the same 4-inch slab, set against what matters most around a pool on the coast, grip when it is wet and how the surface is kept once the salt starts landing on it. The base, the steel, the joint and the drain are the same under all four.
| Option | Wet grip | Heat underfoot | Sealing | Back in use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Medium broom finish | Ridges across the walk hold a wet foot | Warm by noon in a pale mix | Penetrating sealer, every 2 to 3 years | Feet at 48 hours, furniture at 7 days |
| Salt finish deck | Pitted surface grips wet or dry | Fair in a pale mix, the pits hold no heat | Penetrating sealer, every 2 to 3 years | Feet at 48 hours, furniture at 7 days |
| Stamped and colored | Needs grit in the sealer to grip wet | Hot in a dark color, fair in a light one | Film sealer with grit, every 2 to 3 years | Feet at 48 hours, furniture once sealed |
| Exposed aggregate | Stone proud of the surface grips hardest | Warm, the stone holds the afternoon sun | Penetrating sealer, every 2 to 3 years | Feet at 48 hours, furniture at 7 days |
Broom costs least to lay and needs only a reseal; stamped costs most and takes the most looking after. Salt finish is the one that reads as original on a 1960s pool.
Salt above, water below
Two things reach a pool deck here that never reach one in Fullerton. Salt comes off the ocean every afternoon, and groundwater sits a few feet under the lowland lots by the Harbor and the river.
The salt comes in on the sea breeze that sets up most days after noon and blows across the whole city, so a deck in the tracts off Magnolia gets it as surely as one on Pacific Coast Highway. Concrete takes chloride in through its pores and carries it down to the steel a little further every wet season, and a pool deck is wetted more often than anything else on the lot. The answer is not a thicker slab but a denser one, mixed with less water, and a sealer put back before it wears out.
Groundwater is the other. Huntington Harbor, Sunset Beach and the low ground along the Bolsa Chica and the Santa Ana River sit a few feet above the water table, and a test hole beside a canal lot pool fills before it is knee deep. A base wet from below cannot be drained down, so on those lots the rock layer is built thicker and the deck drains to a channel piped away, not off the edge onto sand already full. On the dune sand toward Main Street the sand is compacted in lifts first.
From call to first swim
Five stages, the same crew at each, and the pool stays full the whole time. The bonding wire is found before a form is set, and the sealer goes on at 28 days, which is the one step that is booked after the crew has left.
Scott Ferreira measures the deck, shoots the fall from the coping out, and probes the base for water. The figure is written before he leaves.
You pick the surface from the table above, decide where the channel drain runs, and take a date. If the gate has to move, the City hears first.
The slab is sawn off the coping and hauled away, the bonding loop is uncovered and tested, then the base is compacted in lifts and rocked over.
Foam joint set at the bond beam, bar chaired at mid-depth and tied to the loop, forms set to the fall, then a dense pour finished before the wind.
Joints sawn the same afternoon, the deck kept damp for 7 days, the drain tested with a hose, and the sealer applied once the slab has cured out.
Behind the number
The old deck sets the figure before the new one does. What it is made of, what is under it and where its water has been going decide the first two days of work, so nothing is quoted from a photo. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A kidney pool behind a house off Adams or Brookhurst is mostly break-out and base. Curved coping adds forming, a sprayed topping a day of removal.
A deck on the water table needs a thicker rock base, a channel drain piped away and a pump for the hole. The side gate is measured too.
A deck for a whole building is wider, is poured in halves so the pool stays open, and carries a barrier check with the City before the date.
Stamped work adds a day of finishing and a gritted sealer; a salt finish adds a morning. Each is its own line on the estimate so you can weigh it.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and the call to book it comes within 1 business day. Bring the pool's permit card if you have one, for the pipes. (657) 312-3698 or send us a message.
Send the form or call, and someone rings back within 1 business day to fix a time. Scott Ferreira measures the deck, probes the base and writes the figure beside the pool, and the pool stays full while you think it over.
Decks we replaced
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a pool deck rather than a patio or a drive, and each naming the age of the pool or the finish that went on.
“Our pool went in around 1971 and rust was coming through the cool deck in a dozen places. They took it all out, found the bonding wire, which nobody else had asked about, and poured a salt finish that looks like the original but stays cool under bare feet. Sealed at four weeks as promised.”
“We are on a canal in the Harbor and the old deck had sunk an inch below the coping. Scott dug a test hole that filled with water, so they put a deeper rock base in, ran a channel drain to the street side and poured 4 inches broomed. Two winters on and the coping and deck are still level.”
“Our deck sloped back toward the house and the slider track was full of water after every swim. They reset the fall away from the pool, put a drain along the fence and poured a light broom finish. The kids were back in after two days and the patio door track has been dry since.”
Before you book
How long the pool is out of use, what the estimate covers, whether the City is involved, and what the guarantee says about salt, answered for a deck around a pool on this coast.
The old deck and the ground, more than the size of the new one. A sprayed topping over a thin slab is quicker to break out than a deck poured thick with mesh in it, and a dry sand base is a day less work than one wet from the water table that needs a pump and a thicker rock layer. Then the finish moves the number, broom the least and stamped the most. All of it is measured at your pool and written down.
It is not. The pool stays full and the equipment keeps running, and the only day you cannot swim is the pour day, when the deck is wet concrete. The crew is on site three to four days for one pool, a day to break out and haul, a day to compact and rock the base, a day to set steel and pour. Walk on it after 48 hours, put furniture back after 7 days, and the sealer goes on at 28 days.
Yes. Sawing the old deck off the coping, breaking it out, loading it and hauling it away is written into the figure, and so is any sprayed topping on it, which comes up with the slab. What sits outside the figure is named at the visit rather than added later, a coping that breaks as the deck comes off, a cracked pipe under the slab, or a fence rebuilt to the barrier rules. The number you sign is the one billed.
Not the slab itself, because flatwork inside your lot line is exempt under the California Residential Code. Two things around it can bring the City in. Bonding the deck to the pool is an electrical item, and if the fence, the gate or the equipment pad moves to get the old deck out, the barrier goes back to the rules the Community Development Department enforces. We ask at City Hall first when either applies.
Almost never. A deck that has rusted from the inside, settled on wet sand or lost its coating over 40 years is wear, and policies treat wear as the owner's to fix rather than as a sudden loss. The exception is a covered event, a tree down across the deck, a vehicle through the fence or a burst supply line that washed the base out overnight. Photograph the deck before anything is cut, and ask your carrier first.
It covers how the deck was built, the base, the steel at mid-depth, the thickness, the joint at the coping, the fall and the finish, with those terms printed on the estimate, and it is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Salt is covered on one condition, that the sealer is put back at the interval on the estimate, since a deck left open for years is not the deck we built.
A 3,500 psi ready-mix batched with a low water content, placed the morning it leaves the plant, over compacted sand and crushed rock. Number 3 rebar on chairs at mid-depth, tied to the pool's bonding loop, and a foam expansion joint at the coping. The sealer is a penetrating silane rather than a film, because a film peels on a surface wet every day. The mix, the bar and the sealer are named on the estimate.
Only for the measurement at the start and the walk-through at the end. In between the crew needs water, a side gate wide enough for a barrow, and the pool equipment left on, since the filter runs the whole time. Dogs and children stay inside on the pour day, because the deck is soft until the evening. If the only way to the yard is through the house, say so at the visit and the deck is pumped from the street.
Towns we pour in
The eight nearest towns on the list, with the straight-line distance from the office on Edinger Avenue beside each. The salt reaches a pool deck in every one, and each is measured at the pool before a figure is written.
Four jobs that tend to be booked with a new deck or straight after it, on the same base and the same sealer, by the same crew, and itemized on the one written estimate.
The dry half of the yard, poured on the same day as the deck and falling to the same drain.
The step or two from a raised spa or a sliding door down to the deck, cast with the pour.
A patterned and colored deck, sealed with grit in the coat so it still grips a wet foot.
The low wall that holds a raised bed or a spa pad off the deck, poured on its own footing.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say roughly when the pool went in and which way the deck is falling now, and the visit can be booked for a day inside the same week, with the pool left full.