Goldenwest Huntington Beach Concrete casts flights solid, posts grouted in sleeves and bar held deep in the riser, so the salt air rusts none of it. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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What a flight answers to here
A flight of steps on this coast fails at its metal before its concrete. The rail post stands in a pocket that holds water, the bar behind a nosing sits an inch under a surface that is wet every morning, and the sea breeze lands salt on both every afternoon. Rust takes more room than steel, so a post or a bar that has rusted splits the riser around it from inside, and the step breaks where it is climbed. A flight built here keeps its steel deep, its posts sleeved and its face sealed.
Huntington Beach gives a crew two kinds of flight. The tracts poured through the 1960s and 1970s stand on slabs a riser or two above the path, so a front door wants a broad stoop cast against the house. The two-story homes on the Harbor canals and the narrow lots on the numbered streets downtown stand a full flight above the sidewalk, with a landing and a rail. Scott Ferreira has rebuilt both, and the old flight nearly always comes out with a rusted post and a hollow riser.
Steps are cast under a CSLB C-8 concrete license to the California Residential Code, with liability insurance on every job. The Code sets a riser at no more than 7 3/4 inches, a tread at no less than 10, risers within 3/8 inch of each other, and a handrail on four or more, and every flight is formed to those figures. A flight over 30 inches high is a building permit from the City. Each carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Repair or recast
An orange streak below the base of a rail post is the post rusting inside its pocket, where water stands and the salt cannot rinse out. Steel swells as it rusts, and a rusted post pushes the concrete around it apart. A crack ringing the post means it has started.
A step edge that has broken away and shows rusted steel has lost its cover. The bar was set too close to the face, chloride reached it, and the rust lifted the nosing off. Patching puts new concrete over the same bar, and the same bar breaks it again within a couple of winters.
Tap the lowest step and a hollow sound means the sand has run out from under it. Older flights here were poured over loose fill against the foundation, and every downspout and sprinkler since has carried a little away. The step is now a beam over nothing, and it cracks.
A gap opening between the top tread and the door sill means the flight is moving and the house is not. It was cast against the slab without being tied to it, and a flight that has moved once is still moving. Water runs into the gap and under the door frame, and filler does not hold.
In every flight
Eight things go into every flight at no separate line, and each answers what this coast does to a step. Salt reaches any steel near the face, sand runs out from under a flight poured on fill, and a slab house moves its door not at all.
The old steps are broken out to the fill beneath, with the door sill, the porch slab and the path left standing and protected.
The fill against the foundation is probed, the loose top dug out, and the sand compacted in lifts until a plate stops sinking into it.
A thickened footing under the bottom riser, poured with the flight, so the step bears on compacted ground and not on the sand a hose can move.
Number 4 bars drilled and epoxied into the slab or the porch, so the flight and the door move as one thing and the top tread never leaves the sill.
The steel behind every nosing and riser sits 2 inches from the face on chairs, the cover that keeps the salt from reaching it for decades.
Every post stands in a cast-in sleeve and is grouted above the water line, aluminum or galvanized, so no pocket holds water against bare steel.
Every riser within 3/8 inch of the next, every tread broomed and pitched a little to the front so a wet morning drains off it, and nosings eased.
A penetrating sealer once the flight has cured, the walk-through against the estimate, and the written guarantee handed over before we go.
How it can be built
Four flights a house here asks for, set against how they are used and what stands in them. The footing, the dowels, the cover on the bar and the sleeves for any rail are the same in all four, so the table is about the shape.
| Option | Suits | Handrail | Steel in it | Back in use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two-riser stoop | A slab tract house door off Adams or Warner | None needed under four risers | Number 4 dowels into the slab | Feet at 48 hours |
| Flight with a landing | A raised entry in the Harbor or downtown | Both sides at 34 to 38 inches | Bar mat on chairs, posts sleeved | Feet at 48 hours, rail hung at 7 days |
| Wide patio step | A slider down to a yard or a pool deck | None, the step is a riser or two | Dowels into the house slab | Feet at 48 hours |
| Poured entry ramp | A door reached on wheels | One side at least, 34 to 38 inches | Mesh at mid-depth, posts sleeved | Feet and wheels at 48 hours |
A two-riser stoop costs least and a flight with a landing most, with the ramp between them. The wide patio step takes the most concrete for the least height.
Salt and sand
Two things set a flight here. The sea breeze carries salt to any steel within an inch of the face, and the ground under most stoops is the loose sand backfilled against a 1960s foundation.
The salt is the one that decides how a flight is built. Steps carry more steel near the surface than any other slab on the lot, a bar behind every nosing and a post in every rail, and each is inches from a face the marine layer wets most mornings from May to August. Chloride moves in through the pores, reaches steel set shallow, and the rust splits the riser from inside. So the bar is chaired 2 inches back, the posts stand in grouted sleeves, and the flight is sealed once cured.
The ground is the other. A tract house here stands on a slab, and the stoop at its door was poured on the sand pushed back against the footing when the slab was cast, never compacted, and washed out a little by every gutter since. So the toe of a new flight gets its own footing on ground dug and compacted, and the top is doweled into the slab. On the canal lots, where the water table is close, that footing sits on crushed rock. A flight onto a new walk is poured with its sidewalk.
From call to first climb
Five stages, the same crew at each, and the person who measures the door height is the person who sets the riser forms. A flight over 30 inches is permitted with the City before the breaker starts.
Scott Ferreira measures sill to path, divides the rise into risers, and probes the ground under the bottom step. The figure is written on the spot.
You pick the shape from the table above, the rail if one is needed, and a date. A flight over 30 inches goes to the City for a permit first.
The old steps come out, the loose sand under them is dug to firm ground and compacted in lifts, and the dowel holes are drilled into the slab.
Riser forms set and leveled, bar chaired 2 inches back, sleeves set for the posts, then the flight poured solid and each tread broomed and edged.
Forms off the next day, the flight kept damp for 7 days, the rail grouted in, and the sealer applied once the concrete has cured out.
Behind the number
The rise sets the figure and the rail finishes it. A stoop at a slab house and a flight up to a raised entry are the same trade and a day apart in work, which is why nothing is quoted over the phone. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
One or two risers at a front door off Brookhurst or Springdale is mostly break-out, footing and dowels. Width moves the number more than height.
A flight of five or more risers in the Harbor or downtown adds a landing, a bar mat, sleeved posts and a rail, and usually a permit from the City.
Steps used by several doors are wider, take a rail both sides, and are poured in halves so nobody is locked out of the building overnight.
Brick-faced risers or a colored tread add a day of finishing and a matching sealer, each 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. If the flight needs a rail, the estimate names the metal. (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 rise, probes the ground under the old flight and writes the figure at your door, and you are free to put it in a drawer.
Flights we recast
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a flight of steps rather than a patio or a drive, and each naming the rise that was cast or the rail that went in.
“Our front steps were the 1968 originals and the rail post had split the top riser clean through. They cast three new risers all the same height, set the posts in sleeves this time and doweled the flight into the slab. A year of foggy mornings later there is no rust and no crack.”
“We are on a canal and the house sits a full flight above the walk. Scott measured a rise of 52 inches, divided it into seven risers with a landing, pulled the permit and poured it solid on a footing. The rail went on a week later and the whole thing is level with the door.”
“The bottom step at our back slider had gone hollow and cracked across. They dug out the sand under it, put a footing in, and poured a wide two-riser step that runs the width of the door and drains off the front. My mother uses it every day and it has not moved.”
Before you book
How long a flight takes, what the estimate covers, when the City is involved, and what is guaranteed once the forms are off, answered for steps at a house on this coast.
The rise and the rail, more than the width. A two-riser stoop at a slab house is a footing, two forms and a morning's pour, while a flight up to a raised entry adds a landing, a mat of steel, sleeved posts and a rail, and usually a permit. Under either, ground that has to be dug out and compacted adds a day. All of it is measured at your door and written down before we leave.
Two to three days for most flights, and you can use the door the whole time if there is another way in. Day one is the break-out and the dig, day two the forms, the steel and the pour, and the forms come off the morning after. Walk on the flight after 48 hours, and the rail is grouted in at 7 days once the concrete has hardened around the sleeves. If it is the only door, say so and we build a temporary step.
Yes. Breaking out the old flight, loading it and hauling it away is written into the figure, and so is the dig-out and compaction of the sand under it. What sits outside the figure is named at the visit rather than added later, a porch slab found cracked once the steps are off it, a door sill rotted behind the old top tread, or a rail in a metal other than the one named. The number you sign is the one on the bill.
Not usually. A stoop of a riser or two at a slab house is exempt flatwork under the California Residential Code, and the Community Development Department does not need to see it. A flight standing more than 30 inches above the ground beside it, which is most raised entries in the Harbor and downtown, is a building permit, and the rail and the riser heights are inspected. We file it first and meet the inspector.
Almost never. A flight that has rusted at the rail post, hollowed out over sand or pulled away from the sill over 50 years is wear, and policies treat wear as the owner's to fix. The exception is a covered event, a vehicle into the porch, a tree down across the flight, or a burst supply line that washed the ground out under it in a night. Photograph the steps before anything is broken out, and ask your carrier.
How the flight was built, the footing dug and compacted, the dowels into the slab, the cover over the bar, the sleeves under the posts and the riser heights, with those terms printed on the estimate before you sign. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Wear on the treads, staining, and a rail rusting where the sealer was never renewed sit outside it.
A 3,500 psi ready-mix placed the morning it is batched, poured solid rather than over fill, on a footing of compacted sand or crushed rock. Number 4 bar on chairs 2 inches from every face, number 4 dowels epoxied into the house slab, and cast-in sleeves for the posts. The rail is aluminum or hot-dip galvanized steel, never bare steel set in the pour, and the flight is sealed. Each is on the estimate.
Only for the measurement at the start and the walk-through at the end. In between the crew needs water, a way to the door, and the porch cleared of pots and furniture. The flight is soft concrete until the evening of the pour, so children and dogs use the other door that day. If the steps are the only way in, tell us at the visit and a temporary timber step goes in until the flight can take a foot.
Towns we pour in
The eight nearest towns on the list, with the straight-line distance from the office on Edinger Avenue beside each. Every flight is measured at the door before a figure is written.
Four jobs that tend to be booked with a new flight or straight after it, on the same footing and the same sealer, by the same crew, and itemized on the one written estimate.
The walk the flight comes down onto, poured with it so the bottom riser lands on a level path.
The slab a wide patio step drops onto, jointed to the step and falling away from the house.
The deck a spa step comes down to, cast with the same cover on the bar and the same sealer.
The low wall beside a garden flight cut into a raised bed, poured on its own footing.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say roughly how high the door sits above the path and whether there is a rail now, and the visit can be booked for a day inside the same week.