Ontario Concrete Pro pours driveways, patios and floors in Covina, 16 miles west on Interstate 10, on ground that was orange grove. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
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Covina lies on the fan the San Gabriel Mountains built. Everything under the city is sand, gravel and decomposed granite carried down from the range to the north, which is why the orange groves drained so well and why a slab here rarely heaves.
What that ground does instead is settle unevenly where it was disturbed. When the groves came out in the 1950s the trees were pulled and the holes were filled with whatever was to hand, and a tract slab poured across two or three of those spots has a soft patch under it that the rest of the yard does not. Sixty winters of sprinkler water find those patches, and the slab drops there and cracks along the line between firm and soft. Most of the broken patios we take out in Covina failed that way, in the middle rather than at an edge.
So the subgrade is probed before it is built on. Soft ground is dug out and replaced, 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and plate-compacted over the whole footprint so a patch cannot act alone, and number 3 steel runs on an 18-inch grid through the slab to bridge anything the probe missed. Where the new pour meets an old slab or a foundation we dowel the joint rather than butt it, and the slab is graded a quarter inch to the foot toward the yard so sprinkler water runs off it instead of under it.
Covina's houses are mostly 60 to 70 years old and its slabs are the same age, so the work is replacement more often than new. A driveway poured when the orange trees came out has done its time, and the lot behind it has room a new suburb lacks.
A Covina driveway from the 1950s was poured thin on grove ground and has usually dropped where a tree hole sits under it. We break it out, dig the soft spots, compact 4 inches of base across the whole run and pour 4 inches with number 3 steel on an 18-inch grid.
Patios are the job a Covina ranch lot has room for, since the back yard runs deep enough for a slab the width of the house. We compact base over the grove ground, pour 4 inches, joint it every 10 feet and dowel it to the old slab at the back door so the two move together.
Stamped work in Covina is asked for on front walks and drives inside the mile square, where the bungalows have brick porches and owners want the path to match. We cast a running bond into a 4 inch slab, color it integrally and seal it in 2 coats, and it never needs resanding.
The walks along Citrus Avenue and the older streets are lifted by the roots of street trees planted when the tracts went in, and the panel between the curb and your line is public. We file the encroachment with the city, cut the panel square and dowel the new one to its neighbor.
Garage floors in Covina's tract houses were poured thin and have dropped at the door where the driveway pulled away. We cut out the failed apron or the whole floor, compact base and pour 4 inches, troweled flat and moisture tested before an epoxy goes on.
Covina runs a few degrees milder than Ontario, but a dark slab in a west facing yard is still too hot to stand on by mid afternoon in August. We pour a light integral color with a broom or a salt finish, which reads cooler underfoot and hides the grit off a granite yard.
Covina is flat, so a wall here is a garden wall or a raised planter more often than a cut slope, and it is drained behind the stem all the same, because the gravel under the city carries water straight to a footing. Over 4 feet it is engineered and permitted before we dig.
Backyard units are where Covina's deep ranch lots are gaining rooms, and each needs an interior slab someone will live on. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier, trowel it flat enough for tile, and cut the joints on a grid that suits the room rather than the crew.
Our yard is on Holt Boulevard in Ontario, and the drive to Covina is 16 miles west on Interstate 10 to the Citrus Avenue exit, so a crew is on site in half an hour outside the morning rush. Plans go to the City of Covina Building Division in Los Angeles County, and because the city was laid out early and keeps old records, the counter can usually tell us when a house went up and whether its garage slab has been touched since. Charter Oak, on the east side, is unincorporated and is permitted by Los Angeles County instead.
The blocks around Citrus Avenue and Badillo Street inside the original mile square are prewar bungalows on 50 foot lots, and the walk down the side is too narrow for anything but a barrow. Outside that square, from Grand Avenue out to the Charter Oak line, the ranch tracts of the 1950s and 1960s sit on lots wide enough to back a mixer to the fence, so the same patio is poured in half the time. Covina is flat almost everywhere, so a lot rarely needs a wall, and the fall on a slab has to be built in rather than found.
Walnut Creek runs along the south of the city and takes its drainage, so a slab is graded toward the street or the creek side of a lot and never toward the neighbor. The calendar is the San Gabriel Valley's, a few degrees milder than our own. Summers still pass 100 degrees in July and August, so we pour at first light and keep the surface wet for the first day, and from December to March we hold a pour when rain is forecast within 48 hours, because base compacted wet does not stay compacted.
Four stages, one crew, one written figure. The visit comes first because the estimate is measured on site, and on a Covina lot the probe finds the old tree holes that decide how much base goes in before a tape measure is opened.
Victor Salgado measures the area, probes the subgrade for soft fill where the grove came out, checks the fall and photographs the side access.
The old slab is broken out and hauled, soft ground is dug and replaced, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and plate-compacted across the lot.
We file with the City of Covina Building Division where the work needs it, or with Los Angeles County in Charter Oak, and meet the inspector.
Most Covina jobs are 2 to 3 days on site. Joints are cut within 12 hours, you walk on it after 24 and park on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to set the visit. The measure and the written figure cost nothing, and Covina is a straight run west on Interstate 10 from our yard, so we are there most weeks.
Reviews
Our own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover from Ontario. Covina is one of them, and the slabs behind these reviews were built the way this page describes.
“Our place off Euclid is from the 1920s and the drive still ran back to the alley. They replaced 400 square feet at 5 inches, matched the fall to the alley apron and cut the joints the same day. Victor was there from start to finish.”
“We built an ADU in the back garden and needed the slab done properly. They over-excavated the old dairy ground, brought in engineered fill and poured to the soil report. It passed inspection first time, which is not what I expected.”
“The warehouse yard on Jurupa Street was breaking up under the forklifts and we could not shut down to fix it. Ontario Concrete Pro poured 2,800 square feet at 6 inches over two weekends so we never stopped shipping. A year on the joints are still tight.”
What people in Covina ask before booking, covering cost, permits and Charter Oak, the grove ground under the tracts, how long a slab is out of use, and which towns around Covina we reach from the same yard.
Area first, then what is under the old slab. A Covina replacement pays for tear-out and haul-off before it pays for a yard of new concrete, and a subgrade with soft tree holes in it takes more base and more digging than one that probes firm. Access moves it after that, since a bungalow inside the mile square is barrowed and a ranch lot is chuted. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
Not for a driveway, patio or walk at grade on your own lot. Yes for a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing that carries a roof, a slab for a backyard unit, and anything between the curb and your line. We file those with the City of Covina Building Division and meet the inspector, and a lot in Charter Oak files with Los Angeles County instead, because Charter Oak is not inside the city.
Because the ground under the middle was a tree hole. Covina's tracts were poured across grove land within a few years of the trees coming out, and the holes were filled loose, so a slab spans firm ground on one side and soft on the other. Sprinkler water softens the soft side further and the slab drops and breaks along the line. We dig those spots out and compact base across the whole footprint.
It sets the job as a replacement. A 1950s house has a driveway poured thin on bare ground, a garage slab that has dropped at the door and often a raised foundation the new work has to meet, so most Covina jobs start with a day of breaking out. The upside is the lot. A ranch tract lot has room for a mixer to back to the fence, which a newer subdivision with 5 foot side yards does not.
Most jobs run 2 to 3 days on site, a day of it tear-out, and a large driveway or a full floor runs 4. Then the concrete needs 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car goes on it, and the control joints are cut within 12 hours of the pour, which keeps the cracks in straight lines. In July and August we start at first light, because a slab that dries too fast at 100 degrees loses strength for good.
Charter Oak, from the same drive, as unincorporated Los Angeles County with its own permit counter. The cities around Covina on our list are Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne and Walnut, each with its own page below, all reached from Ontario on Interstate 10 or Interstate 210. Every town we cover sits within 25 miles of our yard on Holt Boulevard, so the drive to any of them is the same half hour.
Covina shares its lines with Glendora, San Dimas and Charter Oak, and Glendora and San Dimas have their own pages below, covered on the same drive. Every town on the list sits within 25 miles of Ontario, so on a city line, read the page next door.
Open the Ontario Office in Google Maps Send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book the free measure. The work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.