Ontario Concrete Pro replaces driveways, patios and garage floors in Placentia, about 20 miles from our Ontario yard by way of the 57. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
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Placentia's concrete is old. The city turned from citrus town to suburb in the 1960s and 1970s, and the driveways those tracts came with have carried cars for 50 years, longer than a plain slab lasts.
So the ground under a job here has already been built on once. The old slab is broken out, and what we find under it is the grove soil the tract was graded on, a fine loam that held water for orange trees and holds it just as well under a driveway. It heaves a little when wet and shrinks when dry, and that movement is what cracked the first slab. The tracts were also laid out tight, with lots around 6,000 square feet and side yards a wheelbarrow wide, so concrete rarely arrives by chute.
The fix is to build what the tract builder did not. The old slab comes out whole, the loam is cut to firm material and 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and compacted over it, so the new slab sits on a layer that drains rather than swells. Steel runs through the slab on an 18-inch grid and the joints are cut the same day, so the movement that broke the first driveway is carried instead of resisted. Every estimate is measured and written on site, because the tear-out varies most.
Placentia was orange groves until the 1960s, and most of its houses went up in one push on those groves, so the concrete here is at the end of its life. The work is tear-out and replacement, on lots tight enough that access decides the method.
Most Placentia driveways were poured with their houses in the 1960s and have no steel in them, which is why they crack in a map pattern rather than a line. We break out the old slab, compact 4 inches of base and pour 4 inches with steel on an 18-inch grid, and pull the permit.
A Placentia back yard usually has a small builder's slab at the door and a lawn that was never used. We extend it with a new patio on compacted base, doweled into the old slab so the two do not step, and graded away from the house because flat lots here do not drain themselves.
Stamped concrete does well in Placentia because the yards are small and one pattern reads as one surface. Ashlar slate and wood plank are asked for most. We cast the pattern into a 4-inch slab, color it integrally so a chip does not show gray, and seal it in 2 coats.
In Placentia the sidewalk in front of your house is the city's, and a lifted panel is repaired under a permit from the City of Placentia Building Division. We saw-cut the panel square, deal with the root that lifted it where the city allows, and pour it to the old line.
A 1960s Placentia garage floor was poured thin and often has the driveway's cracks running straight through it. Where it has settled we break it out and repour 4 inches on base. Where it is sound but rough we grind it and fill the cracks, then test it for moisture first.
Decorative work in Placentia is mostly a front walk and a porch cap on a ranch house, done in a salt finish or an exposed aggregate that suits the era of the street. We pour it in a light integral color with a sand finish, which keeps it cooler in August than plain gray.
Placentia is flat, so a retaining wall here is usually a low garden wall or the step down from a raised Old Town lot to the street. We foot it 12 inches into firm material below the grove soil, drain behind the stem, and anything over 4 feet is drawn and permitted before we dig.
Garage conversions and ADUs are how Placentia adds rooms on lots with no space to build out, and both need a floor someone will live on. We pour over a vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat enough for tile or plank, and cut the joints on a grid the room can hide.
We come in on the 57 from Ontario, about 20 miles and half an hour on a clear morning, and leave the freeway at Yorba Linda Boulevard or Chapman Avenue depending on which side of town the job is on. Permits go to the City of Placentia Building Division, and the one that comes up most is for a driveway approach, because the apron between the sidewalk and the street is in the public right-of-way and needs the city's permit before it is cut.
Old Town Placentia around Santa Fe Avenue and Bradford Avenue is the oldest part of the city, pre-war houses on raised foundations and narrow lots, and the work there is careful demolition beside old footings. The tracts east of Kraemer Boulevard and up toward Yorba Linda Boulevard are the 1960s and 1970s, slab-on-grade houses where the driveway and the garage floor were poured together and fail together. Along the 91 near Orangethorpe Avenue the lots are smaller still.
Water is the constant. Placentia is flat, so lots do not fall much either way and a patio poured level pools against the house within a year. We grade every slab away from the foundation at a quarter inch to the foot and put the low corner where the yard can take it. Summers here are milder than the Inland Empire's by several degrees, which lets us pour through the afternoon most of the year, and we cover a pour when the winter storms come in off the ocean in January.
Four stages, one crew, one written figure. In Placentia the first stage matters most, because what is being removed and how it leaves through a side gate decides the days on site, and neither can be read off a photograph.
Victor Salgado measures the old slab, checks how it leaves the lot and where the new one drains, and writes the figure at the house.
The old concrete is broken out and hauled, the grove soil is cut to firm material, and 4 inches of base is laid and compacted.
The approach permit and any right-of-way work go through the City of Placentia Building Division, and we meet the inspector ourselves.
Most Placentia jobs run 2 to 3 days on site. Walk on it after 24 hours, park on it after 7 days, and we sweep the side yard on the way out.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book a visit. Victor Salgado comes to the house, measures the old slab and the route out for it, and writes the figure before he leaves the driveway.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners in the towns we work in, Placentia among them. The jobs they describe are the same tear-outs and repours set out on this page.
“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 Placentia ask before booking, covering what moves the estimate on a tear-out, which permits the city wants, how far we travel, what grove soil does under a slab and how long a driveway is out.
The tear-out, then the access. A Placentia job usually starts with an old slab that has to be broken and hauled, and how much of it there is moves the estimate more than the new pour does. After that it is the side yard, because a gate under 4 feet wide means concrete is barrowed rather than chuted. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so both are measured before a figure is written.
For the driveway on your lot, no. For the approach, the apron between the sidewalk and the street, yes, because it sits in the public right-of-way and the City of Placentia Building Division issues the permit for it. A retaining wall over 4 feet and any footing that carries a roof are permitted too. We pull the permits and meet the inspector ourselves.
Because they were poured thin, without steel, on grove soil. The 1960s tract driveways here went down at 3 to 4 inches over the loam the orange trees grew in, which swells when wet and shrinks when dry. 50 years of that movement breaks an unreinforced slab into a web of cracks. A new slab on 4 inches of compacted base with steel through it rides that movement instead of breaking.
Most went up between 1955 and 1975, and it matters because their concrete is the same age. A slab poured in 1965 has done its work. Old Town around Santa Fe Avenue is older still, pre-war houses on raised foundations, where a new porch or walk is poured beside a footing that has to be left undisturbed. The era tells us what we will find before we open the ground.
About 10 days from the first day on site. Tear-out and base take a day, the pour takes another, and the slab needs 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car goes on it. We book the tear-out and the pour back to back so the car is on the street for as few nights as possible on a lot with no other parking.
Yes. Yorba Linda to the east and Brea to the north are covered from the same Ontario yard, and Diamond Bar over the county line as well. The ground changes past the city line, from Placentia's flat grove loam to the foothill slopes of Yorba Linda and Brea, so each town's page describes its own lots rather than repeating this one.
Placentia borders Yorba Linda to the east and Brea to the north, and we cover both from the same Ontario yard, along with Diamond Bar over the county line. If your street runs into one of them, that town's page describes the ground you are actually on.
Open the Ontario Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call you back within 1 business day. The estimate is free and written on site, and the work has a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.