Ontario Concrete Pro pours driveways, patios and retaining walls in Walnut, 16 miles west of Ontario on the 60, most of it on a slope. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
5.0 Stars Rated by our customers · Google, Facebook and the BBB
Nearly every house in Walnut stands on a pad a grader made. The hill was cut on one side and filled on the other to level the lot, so under a yard sits native clay at the back and fill at the edge.
That is why slabs in Walnut fail at the downhill edge. Fill settles, and the clay of the San Jose Hills and the Puente Hills swells when wet and shrinks when dry, so a patio poured on the yard without a base rides up and down with the seasons and cracks where the fill meets the cut. A wall built into the fill rather than through it leans within a decade. Rain is the trigger. A wet winter soaks the fill, and by spring the slab has a step in it at the corner nearest the fence.
So on a Walnut lot we find the cut line before we form anything. The subgrade is probed, soft fill is dug out and replaced with compacted base, and a footing or a wall is taken down to firm native ground however deep that is, rather than stopped in the fill. Slabs are poured 4 inches thick with number 3 steel on an 18-inch grid and thickened at the downhill edge, and every wall is drained behind the stem, because clay holds water against it and water is what pushes a wall over.
Walnut is a city of hills. The houses climbed the San Jose Hills and the slopes above the 60 through the 1970s and 1980s on graded pads, so the work is driveways with a fall, walls holding the cut and pool decks on the fill.
A Walnut driveway climbs from the street to a garage above it, so it is poured with the fall set at the forms and a broom finish across the slope for grip. We compact 4 inches of base, pour 4 inches with number 3 steel and thicken the apron, and cut the joints across the fall so any crack runs straight.
A patio in Walnut sits on the flat pad at the back of the house, and its outer edge is usually on fill. We probe that edge, dig any soft ground and replace it with compacted base, then pour 4 inches with steel through it and thicken the downhill side so the slab does not step at the fence line.
Stamped concrete is asked for on the hillside streets of Walnut, where a driveway is the largest thing seen from the road. We cast a slate or ashlar pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it integrally and seal it in 2 coats, and we keep the texture shallow enough on a slope that a tire still grips it.
Walnut's walks were poured with the tracts in the 1970s and 1980s, and on the cut side of a street the slope has pushed panels out of line. We saw-cut the moved panel, reset and compact the base, and pour a new one doweled into its neighbors so the joint stays flush instead of becoming a trip step.
A Walnut garage floor is often the highest slab on the lot, with the driveway falling away from it. Where it has cracked on the fill we break it out, lay a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base and pour 4 inches troweled flat, which is what an epoxy coat needs in order to hold to the concrete.
A dark slab on a Walnut hillside faces the sun all afternoon, and by 2 on a summer day past 100 degrees it cannot be crossed barefoot. We pour a light integral color with a salt or broom finish, which stays cooler and hides the fine clay dust that a hillside sheds onto every flat surface below it.
Retaining walls are the concrete Walnut needs most, because nearly every lot has a cut behind it or a fill in front of it. We foot the wall into native clay below the fill, drain behind the stem with gravel and a perforated pipe, and take anything over 4 feet to the City of Walnut for a permit.
A garage conversion or a new unit on a Walnut pad needs an interior slab, and on a hillside lot it also needs a footing into native ground on the fill side. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat enough for tile and lay out the joints to sit under the walls of the room.
Our yard is in Ontario, and Walnut is 16 miles west on the 60, off at Lemon Avenue, so a crew is here inside half an hour if it leaves before the freeway fills. Plans go to the City of Walnut building division, and because so many lots here are hillside, we draw a drainage detail on every wall plan before we go, since a wall in clay without one is not a wall we would build, and a plan that answers the question before it is asked is one trip to the counter rather than two.
The streets above Valley Boulevard and around Mt. San Antonio College were built through the 1970s and 1980s on graded terraces, so a lot is level for the house and drops at the back fence, sometimes by a full story. Driveways climb from the street, side yards are steps rather than paths, and the pool sits on the fill at the edge. On the flatter ground along Lemon Creek the lots are older and the work is more often a plain replacement drive.
Water decides the sequence. Clay drains slowly, so after a winter storm a Walnut yard is soft for days where a San Dimas gravel lot would be dry by morning, and we do not pour on it until a probe says it is firm. That puts hillside pours in the dry months where we can, and it puts a drain behind every wall and a fall on every slab away from the cut. Summers here pass 100 degrees, so from July to September pours start at 6 in the morning and cure under a cover.
Four stages, one crew and one figure written on the day of the visit. On a Walnut lot the probe comes before the tape, because what is under a yard sets the job more than how big the yard is.
Victor Salgado measures the slope, probes for the cut line and any soft fill, checks the drainage off the pad and writes the figure on site.
Soft fill is dug out to firm ground, footings are taken down into native clay, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is laid and plate-compacted.
A wall over 4 feet goes to the City of Walnut building division with its drainage detail. We file it and meet the inspector on site.
Walls are drained behind the stem and backfilled. Slabs are poured with the fall set. Walk on it after 24 hours and park 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 slope in Walnut, probes the ground for the cut line and writes the figure before he leaves, at no charge.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover, Walnut among them. The hillside work they describe is the work set out 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 Walnut ask before they book, from what a slope does to an estimate to which counter takes a retaining wall plan and how long a pool deck stays off limits after the pour.
The slope first. A driveway with a fall needs more forming, and a wall needs a footing dug into native ground, and on a Walnut lot the depth to that ground varies with where the grader stopped. Area, thickness, steel and finish move the figure after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the number is written from a probe and a tape rather than over the phone.
Yes, over 4 feet or carrying a load such as a driveway above it, and for any footing that holds a roof. Flatwork at grade on your own lot needs none. We take the drawing, with its drainage detail, to the City of Walnut building division and meet the inspector on site. Walnut is a city and issues its own, so nothing goes to Los Angeles County.
Because that edge sits on fill. The pad was cut from the hill on one side and built out with fill on the other, and fill settles while the clay behind it swells and shrinks with the rain. A slab poured across both moves differently at each end. We dig the soft fill, compact 4 inches of base, run steel on an 18-inch grid and thicken the downhill edge.
About 10 days from the first day on site. Tear-out and base take 1 day, forming on a slope takes 1 more, the pour is a morning, and then 24 hours pass before foot traffic and 7 days before a car. A pool deck can be walked on after 24 hours, but the furniture stays off for the week. After a storm on clay we wait for the ground to firm before pouring.
Yes, and it is the slope that changes. On the hillside streets above Valley Boulevard the job is walls, steps and a driveway with a set fall, and the mixer stays at the street. On the flatter ground toward Lemon Creek and the 60 the lots are older and closer to level, so the work is a plain driveway replacement and a truck can chute straight to the forms.
Diamond Bar shares the 57 and the 60 with Walnut and is on the same run from our Ontario yard. Covina and San Dimas are over the San Jose Hills to the north, and La Verne and Claremont sit beyond them. Every one has its own page, so if your street runs along the Diamond Bar line, read both, because the ground is the same on either side of it.
Walnut sits against Diamond Bar to the south and east, with Covina and San Dimas over the hills to the north, and one crew covers them all from Ontario. If your street sits on the Diamond Bar line, the page next door describes the same hillside.
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 each wall and slab carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.