Ontario Concrete Pro pours driveways, patios and pool decks in San Dimas, reached from our Ontario yard along Foothill Boulevard. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
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San Dimas is built on the fan of San Dimas Canyon. The ground under most of the city is gravel and cobble carried down from the San Gabriel Mountains, and it drains almost as fast as it is wetted.
That is good ground for a slab and awkward ground for digging. A driveway on cobble rarely heaves, because there is no clay under it to swell in a wet winter, so the failures on the flat tracts south of Foothill Boulevard are age rather than movement. Slabs poured in the 1960s were often 3 inches thick with no steel, and 60 years of cars have cracked them along the wheel lines. Toward the canyon the cobble gets larger, and a footing is dug with a bar and a bucket rather than a trencher.
So the method changes with the street. On the flat tracts we break out the old slab, take the subgrade down to firm gravel and pour 4 inches with number 3 steel on an 18-inch grid, thicker at the apron where a car turns in. In the foothills we dig footings to firm material however deep the cobble runs, form against it and drain behind any wall, because water off the canyon moves fast through this ground and a wall without a drain becomes a dam.
San Dimas has two kinds of lot. North of Foothill Boulevard the houses sit on cobble washed down San Dimas Canyon. South of it the tracts are flat and the slabs date from the 1960s and 1970s, which is where the replacement work is.
Most San Dimas driveways we replace were poured in the 1960s and 1970s at 3 inches with no steel, and the cars have cracked them along the wheel lines. We break them out, compact 4 inches of base and pour 4 inches with number 3 steel, 6 inches at the apron where a truck turns in.
A patio in San Dimas is usually the back of a flat tract lot between Arrow Highway and Covina Boulevard, reached through a side gate. We barrow the concrete in, pour 4 inches on compacted base and joint it every 10 feet, with a fall of a quarter inch per foot away from the house.
Stamped concrete is asked for in Via Verde more than anywhere else in San Dimas, because the driveways climb and a plain broom finish looks like a road. We cast a flagstone or ashlar pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it integrally and seal it in 2 coats so the sun does not fade it.
On the older San Dimas streets the parkway trees have lifted the walks. We saw-cut the raised panel, take it out, cut the root back and pour a new panel doweled into the old ones so the joint stays flush rather than opening into a step, and we file for a right-of-way permit where the panel is public.
Garage floors in the 1960s tracts of San Dimas were poured thin and have dusted and cracked under 60 years of cars. We break out the slab, lay a 10 mil vapor barrier over compacted base and pour 4 inches troweled flat, which is what an epoxy coat needs in order to hold.
A dark slab in a San Dimas back yard is too hot to stand on by early afternoon from July to September, when the valley runs past 100 degrees. We pour a light integral color with a salt or broom finish, which stays cooler underfoot and hides the dust that blows down off the foothills.
The foothill lots north of Foothill Boulevard and the hillside streets of Via Verde both step, so a level yard in San Dimas is often held up by a wall. We foot the wall into firm cobble, drain behind the stem with gravel and a perforated pipe, and take any wall over 4 feet to the city for a permit.
A garage conversion or a new unit at the back of a San Dimas lot needs a slab someone will live on, not a yard slab. We pour it over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat enough for tile and lay the joints out to fall under walls rather than across the middle of a room.
Our yard is in Ontario, and the route to San Dimas is Foothill Boulevard, the old Route 66, west through Upland, Claremont and La Verne. It is one road the whole way, which is why San Dimas jobs are scheduled first in the morning before Foothill fills. Plans go to the City of San Dimas building division at city hall on Bonita Avenue, a small counter where residential flatwork and a retaining wall are the ordinary business of the day rather than a special case.
The city grew in two pushes and the lots show it. The packing house years left the ranch houses and the horse lots north of Foothill Boulevard and up San Dimas Canyon Road, where a parcel is often large enough for a mixer to back straight onto the work. The tracts between Arrow Highway and Covina Boulevard went in through the 1960s and 1970s on flat lots with narrow side yards, and Via Verde came later on the hills by Puddingstone Reservoir, where the driveways climb.
Water shapes the calendar here more than the heat does. San Dimas Wash and Walnut Creek carry the runoff off the mountains through the city, and after a winter storm the ground north of Foothill Boulevard is wet for a day and dry the next, because gravel drains. So we pour through the winter on any dry day and grade every slab to send water toward the street rather than the house. From July to September the valley passes 100 degrees, so pours start at 6 in the morning.
Four stages, one crew and one figure written on the day of the visit. Nothing is agreed until the ground has been probed, because a slab in San Dimas is priced by what is under it as much as by how big it is.
Victor Salgado measures the slab, probes the ground for cobble, checks the fall to the street and photographs the access before writing the figure.
The old slab is broken and hauled, the subgrade is taken down to firm gravel and 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and plate-compacted.
Where the work needs one, we file with the City of San Dimas building division and meet the inspector on site. You never visit the counter.
The pour is a morning, the joints are cut the next day and the slab is covered to cure. Walk on it after 24 hours and park on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. Victor Salgado measures the job in San Dimas and writes the figure before he leaves, and both the visit and the figure cost nothing.
Reviews
These reviews were left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover, San Dimas among them. The work they describe is the work described above.
“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 San Dimas ask before they book, from what moves an estimate on cobble ground to which counter takes the plans and how long a new driveway stays out of use.
The ground first, then the tear-out. North of Foothill Boulevard the cobble slows every footing, and on the older tracts a 1960s slab has to be broken and hauled before anything is poured. Area, thickness, steel and finish move the figure after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the number comes off a tape and a probe rather than a phone call.
Not for a driveway or a patio at grade on your own lot. You do for a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing that carries a roof, and any work in the public right-of-way, including a new curb cut. We take the plans to the City of San Dimas building division and meet the inspector on site. Nothing goes to Los Angeles County, because San Dimas is a city and issues its own.
Not from movement, if the base is compacted. Gravel and cobble do not swell, so the slab does not heave the way one on clay would. What cracks a slab here is an uncompacted trench, a thin section or joints cut too late. We compact 4 inches of base, run steel on an 18-inch grid and cut the joints within 12 hours of the pour.
Yes, mostly in what comes out. The tracts south of Arrow Highway carry 1960s and 1970s slabs, so the job starts with a breaker and a dump run and the new drive is poured thicker than what it replaces. In Via Verde and on the foothill streets the slab is younger but the lot is steeper, so the work is steps, walls and a driveway with a set fall.
About 10 days from the first day on site. Tear-out and base take 1 day, forming and the pour take 1 or 2 more, and then the concrete needs 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car goes on it. Joints are cut the day after the pour. In a wet week north of Foothill Boulevard we wait a day for the ground to drain before we pour, and it does.
Everything on the same run. La Verne is the next town east on Foothill Boulevard, Glendora is the next one west, Covina is over the 10 to the south and Walnut is beyond it. All of them are covered from the same yard in Ontario, and each has its own page, so if your street sits on a city line you can read both.
San Dimas shares its lines with La Verne, Glendora, Covina and Walnut, and the same crew covers all four from Ontario. If your street sits on one of those lines, the page next door describes the same work from the other side of it.
Open the Ontario Office in Google Maps Send the form. We reply within 1 business day to book a free estimate written on site, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.