Ontario Concrete Pro pours driveways, patios and retaining walls in La Verne, 13 miles from our yard by Holt Boulevard and White Avenue. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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La Verne is an alluvial fan. Everything under the city washed out of San Dimas Canyon and Marshall Canyon, so a shovel hits rounded cobble within 2 feet on most lots north of Foothill Boulevard.
Cobble is good ground for concrete and bad ground for digging. It does not settle or swell, and water goes straight through it, which is why 60-year-old slabs on the flat streets south of Bonita Avenue are often still level. What has failed is the surface, worn to aggregate by sun and cars, and the edges, broken off at the curb. Up the hill it is different. The lots above Baseline Road were cut and filled to make pads, so one yard has cobble on the cut side and loose fill on the other.
So on the flat we pour on what is there. The old slab comes out, the cobble is trimmed and compacted rather than dug, 2 inches of base fills the voids, and 4 inches of concrete with number 3 steel on an 18-inch grid goes over it with the edges thickened to 8 inches. On the hillside we find the fill line first with a probe, and a slab that crosses it is doweled to a footing on the cut side, because a slab half on rock and half on fill hinges at the line within a few winters.
La Verne runs from 1910s bungalows around D Street to hillside houses of the 1990s under the 210, and each street asks for a different job. The flat lots want their 1960s drives replaced. The hillside wants walls and steps.
A driveway in La Verne is usually a 1960s slab worn to bare aggregate, with the edge broken off where it met the curb. On the cobble south of Foothill Boulevard the base is already there, so we break out the old slab, fill the voids and pour 4 inches with the edge thickened to 8.
Patios in La Verne are the job on the tract streets between Arrow Highway and Foothill, where a 1950s house has a yard and a 6-foot stoop and nothing between. We pour 4 inches on the compacted cobble, joint it every 10 feet, and broom it so it is not slick after a hose.
Stamped work goes at the front of the bungalows around D Street, where a poured pattern in a soft color suits a Craftsman porch better than a plain gray apron. We cast a flagstone or an ashlar pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it in the mix, and seal it in 2 coats after 28 days.
La Verne keeps the strip between the curb and the sidewalk, and the walk to your door is yours. Old Town has camphor and magnolia street trees that lift panels, so we cut the root to the line the city allows, dowel the new panel to the old, and leave the top flush with no lip.
A garage at the back of a lot in Old Town La Verne was built for a 1920s car, and its floor is 3 inches of slab with no barrier under it. We pour a new one at 4 inches over a 10 mil barrier, doweled to the footing, and trowel it flat enough to coat or broom it for a workshop.
Decorative concrete in La Verne is mostly a color and a finish for a patio in the foothills, where the view is the point and a gray slab argues with it. We pour an integral tan or buff, expose the aggregate or salt the surface, and it stays cooler underfoot through August.
Walls hold the pads on the hillside streets north of Baseline Road, where a lot steps 4 feet at the back fence. The cut side is cobble and the fill side is not, so the footing goes to the cobble, the wall drains through a perforated pipe, and one over 4 feet is engineered.
An interior floor in La Verne is a garage conversion in a tract house or a new room on a bungalow, and either meets a slab 60 to 100 years old. We dowel the new pour into the old at the same height, lay a 10 mil barrier under it, and trowel it flat enough for tile.
Our route in is Holt Boulevard west through Pomona and White Avenue north past the fairgrounds, 13 miles and about 25 minutes. Permits are issued by the City of La Verne Community Development Department, Building Division, at City Hall on D Street, and the city keeps its own records back to incorporation in 1906, so a house on the old grid usually has a plan on file. We pull it, because a 1920s bungalow can have a footing where a new patio wants to sit.
Old Town around D Street and Third Street is bungalows and Craftsman houses on 50-foot lots, with drives that run down the side of the house to a garage at the back. The 1950s and 1960s tracts fill the ground between Arrow Highway and Foothill Boulevard, wider lots with the garage at the front. North of Baseline Road the streets climb into the foothills, and the drives are steep enough that a mixer chutes from the street only where the garage is at the bottom of the lot.
The city is at the foot of the San Gabriels, so the weather comes off the mountain. Winter rain runs down every street north of Foothill, which is why a hillside driveway gets a drain across its top rather than a hope. Summer runs a few degrees under the valley to the east, but a July pour still starts at first light and goes under blankets by noon. Santa Ana winds in the fall dry a slab from the top down, so on a windy day we mist the surface until the finish is on.
Four steps, one crew, one figure written on the first visit. Nothing in the sequence changes between a bungalow on D Street and a house in the foothills except the day spent on the hill for access.
Victor Salgado measures the area, probes for the cobble and the fill line, checks the fall toward the street and writes the figure on the spot.
The old slab is broken out and hauled, the cobble is trimmed and compacted, 2 inches of base fills the voids, and any footing is dug.
For a wall, a footing or work in the parkway, we file with the City of La Verne Building Division and meet the inspector on site.
A morning pour, joints cut within 12 hours, blankets on by noon. Walk on it after 24 hours, park on it after 7 days, and we sweep the drive.
Call or send the form and Victor Salgado calls back within 1 business day to set a time. The measure and the written figure are free, and since we are through Pomona and up White Avenue most weeks, the visit is usually the same week you ask.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover from Ontario, La Verne among them, about work done the way this page describes it.
“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 La Verne ask before booking, from what moves the estimate and which counter issues the permit to why the cobble is a help, how the hillside changes the job, and how long a driveway is out of use.
Where on the fan the house is. On the flat, most of the figure is area and tear-out, because the cobble under a slab is a base already and needs trimming rather than importing. On the hillside north of Baseline Road a pump replaces the chute and a footing may replace part of the base, and each of those is a line on the estimate. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the figure comes from the lot.
The City of La Verne Community Development Department, Building Division, at City Hall on D Street. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs no permit. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing under a cover, and anything in the parkway do, and a cut or fill on a hillside lot may need a grading permit as well. We file, meet the inspector, and close the permit before we leave.
No, it is the reason the old slabs lasted. The cobble under La Verne is alluvium off the San Gabriels, it drains straight through, and it does not shrink or swell with the seasons the way a clay does. What it does is resist a shovel, so we trim it with a machine and fill the voids with 2 inches of fine base before the pour. The slab on top gets steel because concrete always does, not because the ground needs it.
It adds a footing and a pump. A pad above Baseline Road was cut on one side and filled on the other, and a slab that crosses the line hinges on it, so we probe for the fill and carry that side on a footing doweled into the slab. The drive is usually too steep for a mixer to chute, so the concrete goes in by pump, and a drain runs across the top of the slab to catch the water that comes down the street in winter.
About 9 days. The tear-out and the base take 1 day on the flat, the pour is the next, joints are cut within 12 hours, and then the slab needs 24 hours before it is walked on and 7 days before a car goes on it. A hillside drive adds a day for the footing and the pump. A patio is walkable the day after the pour and in use the same week.
Yes, care with what is under the yard. A house on the old grid around D Street has been added to over a century, and a footing, a cistern or a clay sewer line can sit exactly where a patio wants to go. We pull the plan from the city, probe before the machine comes in, and form around anything we find. The slab itself is poured the same, 4 inches on compacted ground with steel through it.
La Verne sits between San Dimas and Claremont on Foothill Boulevard, with Pomona below Arrow Highway, and we cover both neighbors from the same yard. If your street is on a city line, the page for the town on your tax bill is the one to read.
Open the Ontario Office in Google Maps Send the form and Victor Salgado calls back within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is measured and written on site at no cost, and the work carries a written guarantee.