Ontario Concrete Pro replaces driveways, patios and garage floors in Grand Terrace, 20 miles east of our Ontario yard by the 10 and the 215. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Grand Terrace tilts. The city sits on a bench between the Santa Ana River flats and the foot of Blue Mountain, and most lots drop from east to west, so a level slab here holds water against the house.
The bench is old river terrace on the west half and the wash off Blue Mountain on the east, which means silt and fine sand near the 215 and coarse decomposed granite up toward the preserve. Both drain, but the granite moves as it wets and dries, and the silt side ravels under an unsupported slab edge. The concrete poured here in the 1970s was 3 and a half inches with no steel, and where it has cracked the cracks follow the slope, because the slab crept downhill a little each summer.
So a slab in Grand Terrace is set to the grade before it is set to a thickness. We cut the subgrade to a fall of a quarter inch per foot away from the house, thicken the downhill edge to 8 inches so it works as a footing rather than a lip, and lay 4 inches of Class 2 base under 4 inches of concrete with number 3 steel on an 18-inch grid. Joints go in every 10 feet across the slope, because a crack that wants to run downhill needs a straight line to run in.
Grand Terrace was built out before it was a city, in the ranch houses of the 1960s and the tracts of the 1970s, so the flatwork here is 40 to 50 years old and nearly every call is a replacement rather than a first slab on bare ground.
A 1970s driveway in Grand Terrace was poured 3 and a half inches thick, and a second car parked on it every night since has cracked it into plates. We break it out, cut the grade to fall away from the garage, and pour 4 inches on compacted base with steel, joints every 10 feet.
A patio in Grand Terrace is usually the second one, because the yard falls away to the west and the builder's 8-foot slab was never big enough. We take the old slab out, step the new one down the slope in 2 levels where the drop asks for it, and broom the finish.
Stamped concrete is asked for at the front of the house in Grand Terrace, where a plain drive faces a street of plain drives. We cast a running bond or flagstone pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it in the mix so a chip does not show gray, and seal it in 2 coats.
The walks along Mount Vernon Avenue and Barton Road are city property to the back of the sidewalk, and the strip to your fence is yours. A lifted panel there is usually a street tree root, so we cut the root back to the line the city allows and dowel the new panel in flush.
A garage floor in a 1970s Grand Terrace tract is the thinnest slab on the property, poured without a vapor barrier, so an epoxy laid over it lifts within a year. We test the slab for moisture, grind and fill where it is sound, and pour new over a 10 mil barrier where it is not.
Decorative work in Grand Terrace is mostly color and finish on a patio that faces Blue Mountain, the view side of most lots on the east of the city. We pour an integral sand or tan color with a salt or exposed aggregate finish, which stays cooler than a gray slab in summer.
A retaining wall in Grand Terrace holds a cut on a lot that climbs toward Blue Mountain, and behind it is decomposed granite that turns to soup when wet. We drain it with a perforated pipe in gravel, foot it 18 inches into firm ground, and engineer any wall over 4 feet.
An interior floor in Grand Terrace is a garage conversion or a room added to a 1960s ranch house, and it meets a slab poured 60 years ago at a different height. We dowel the new pour into the old, lay a 10 mil barrier under it, and trowel it flat enough to tile.
We drive in from Ontario on the 10, south on the 215 and off at Barton Road, about 20 miles outside the commute. Permits come from the City of Grand Terrace Building and Safety Division at City Hall on Barton Road, a small counter where a flatwork permit is a same-week matter. The city was incorporated in 1978, after most of its houses were built, so the slab records for a 1970s tract sit with San Bernardino County rather than the city. We know where to ask, and we ask before we cut.
Mount Vernon Avenue is the spine, and the blocks off De Berry Street and Michigan Street between it and the 215 are the tracts, level lots of 7,000 square feet with a drive that runs straight from the curb to a 2-car garage. Above Mount Vernon the ground climbs toward Blue Mountain and the lots grow to half an acre in places, with drives that turn and climb. The first is a mixer job from the street. The second is a pump job, and the estimate says so on its own line.
The Gage Canal crosses the city on its way from the river to Riverside, a reminder that this was groves. Grove ground was irrigated for a century, so the top 2 feet are looser than the terrace under them and we compact through them rather than trust them. Summer passes 100 degrees by July, so from June to September the crew pours by 6 in the morning and covers the slab before noon. The 3 wet months from December to March are worked from a covered subgrade.
Four stages run by one crew, from the first measure to the last sweep. The figure is written on site at the first visit and the schedule is set from it, so the only thing that changes after that is the date if it rains.
Victor Salgado measures the area, shoots the fall with a level, probes the old slab for thickness and photographs the drive from the street.
The old slab is broken out and hauled, the subgrade is cut to a quarter inch per foot away from the house, and 4 inches of base is compacted.
Where the job needs one, we file with the City of Grand Terrace Building and Safety Division and meet the inspector. No counter for you.
The pour is done by 6 in summer, joints are cut within 12 hours, and the slab is covered to cure. Walk on it after 24 hours, park after 7 days.
Call or send the form and Victor Salgado calls back within 1 business day to set a time. The measure and the written figure cost nothing, and we are on the Barton Road side of the 215 most weeks, so the visit fits around a job already in the city.
Reviews
Our own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover from Ontario. Grand Terrace is one of them, and the slabs behind them were poured as 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 Grand Terrace ask before they book, covering what moves the figure, the permit counter on Barton Road, the slope, the ground under a 1970s slab, and how long a driveway is out of use.
The slope first, then the tear-out. A lot that drops from east to west needs the subgrade cut to a fall and the downhill edge thickened, which is more base and more concrete than the same area on the flat, and a 1970s slab has to be broken out and hauled before any of that starts. Thickness, steel and finish move the figure after those two. 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, and any work between the curb and the sidewalk. We apply to the City of Grand Terrace Building and Safety Division at City Hall on Barton Road, meet the inspector at the footing stage, and close the permit before the last payment, so nothing is left open on the house when you sell it.
Because the slab creeps downhill. A 3 and a half inch slab with no steel, poured on a lot that falls to the west, moves a fraction each summer as the ground under it dries and shrinks, and the crack opens across the direction of movement. A replacement poured 4 inches thick on compacted base, with steel through it and joints cut across the slope every 10 feet, cracks only where the joint tells it to.
Most of it is tear-out. The tracts off De Berry Street went up in the 1970s and the ranch houses along Mount Vernon Avenue a decade before, so the slab we arrive at is 40 to 60 years old, thin and unreinforced, and it comes out in plates rather than in one piece. That adds a day and a haul to a job that would be a pour alone in a newer city, and the estimate shows the day as its own line.
About 10 days from break-out to parking. The tear-out and the base take 1 day, the pour takes 1 more, and then the slab needs 24 hours before it is walked on and 7 days before a car goes on it. The joints are cut within 12 hours of the pour. A patio follows the same clock without the 7-day wait for a vehicle, so it is in use the day after the pour.
Yes, in access and in the ground. Above Mount Vernon Avenue the drives climb and turn, a mixer cannot reach the top of most of them, and the concrete goes in by pump. The ground there is decomposed granite off Blue Mountain, which compacts well dry and moves wet. On the flat toward the 215 a truck chutes straight from the curb onto silt that is compacted in lifts, and the same slab takes half the time.
Grand Terrace shares a line with Colton to the north and with Riverside County along Main Street to the south. Colton is covered from the same yard on the same drive, so a house on the north side of Barton Road is on that page rather than this one.
Open the Ontario Office in Google Maps Send the form and Victor Salgado calls back within 1 business day to book the measure. The estimate is free and written on site, and the work carries a written guarantee.