Concrete contractor in Avocado Heights - slabs set to drain on flat ground

The ground in Avocado Heights is mostly flat, which sounds easy until it rains and the water has nowhere to go. A flat slab holds puddles, and a slab that tips the wrong way sends water toward your house or garage. So before we set a single form, I check where the water runs now and where it should end up, then we build the slab to fall away from the house toward the street, a drain or the yard. You won't feel that fall standing on it, but you'll see it work the first time it rains.

A lot of driveways here carry more than a car, with work trucks, horse trailers and the odd camper parked to one side. That weight is why I care more about the subgrade, the dirt the slab sits on, than about the finish on top. We dig out soft soil, pack in base rock and add rebar, steel bars set inside the slab to hold it together, where the load calls for it. A nicer surface can come later, but the base can't, so it's the last place I'd cut to save money.

Avocado Heights isn't a city, so there's no city hall in the picture. The County of Los Angeles is the local government, and LA County Public Works issues the building permits. When your job needs one, we pull it and line up the inspections, and if the county wants a soils report or an engineer's plans first, I tell you at the start and help you get them, because that paperwork sets the start date more than the pour does. We're fully licensed and insured, and before you hire anyone, check that the contractor holds a license from the Contractors State License Board, the state board that licenses builders. A business located in unincorporated LA County also needs a County Business License if its work is on the county's list. Your price moves with the size of the slab, how much digging and base the ground needs, whether old concrete comes out first, and the finish, where a broom finish, the brushed texture that keeps feet and tires from slipping, costs less than stamped work.

We come over from El Monte, on the far side of the 605 and the San Gabriel River. What slows a pour here is usually access on the lot itself: a long driveway, a gate too narrow for the truck, or a slab out back that means pumping the concrete instead of pouring straight from the chute. I check that on the first visit, because it changes both the price and how the day runs. We do the same kind of work next door in West Puente Valley and across the river in South El Monte.

Avocado Heights sits between the City of Industry to the north and east, Hacienda Heights to the south, and the 605 and the San Gabriel River to the west. It's mostly houses on flat ground, with an equestrian district that allows more horses than most of the county, so plenty of lots have stalls, arenas and trailer parking out back. You'll see riders on the decomposed granite trail that runs past homes, schools and parks, and at the arena in Avocado Heights Park.

Coming over from El Monte, what we notice most here is how hard the lots get used. Trailers, hooves and work trucks are tough on concrete, and flat ground gives water no help running off, so most of the work on a job here goes into the base and the grade before anything gets finished.