Concrete pool decks in El Monte, CA - a deck that grips under wet, bare feet

Most people call us when the old deck is cracked, sinking near the pool edge or slick enough that somebody has already gone down, or when a new pool is going in and the deck is the last piece. The price moves with the size in square feet, the finish you pick, whether we're breaking out an old deck first and how much digging and drainage the yard needs, and some of that I only find out once I walk it. The schedule turns mostly on the permit, any soils report the city wants and curing, the slow hardening concrete needs before you put weight on it. I'll give you a written estimate that says what's in the price and what isn't, and if you're after more pattern or color, our decorative concrete page covers those finishes.

On a pool deck, grip for wet bare feet comes first and looks come second, so we settle the finish with you before we talk color. Before anyone digs, we go through your pool designer's details and agree on where the water drains, where any deck drains sit and how the deck meets the pool edge, because the deck and the pool shell move differently and the edge has to be built to let them. Then we dig out and pack the subgrade, the dirt the slab sits on, since a base that's only raked level settles later and takes the deck with it. We set forms so the deck falls away from the house and doesn't wash dirty water into the pool, place the rebar, the steel inside the slab, where your plans call for it, pour in the cooler part of the day so the top doesn't dry weak and dusty, and cut control joints, shallow cuts that give the slab a straight place to crack, before it cracks somewhere nobody picked. The base is the first thing people want to cut from a budget because nobody sees it on day one, and it's the last place I'll save you money, because a nice finish on a bad base is just a nice crack later.

A new deck often changes the height at the back door, so the concrete steps may need rebuilding to match, and we plan them with the deck. If you're adding a pool house or an equipment pad, that's slab foundation building, and it's worth laying out with the deck so the slopes work together.

The city says most of El Monte sits inside state-mapped liquefaction zones, called Zones of Required Investigation, where loose, wet ground can act like liquid in a strong quake. That matters if your deck project adds new footings for anything, like a shade cover, a low wall or an equipment shed, because the city's soils report policy covers any permit with new footings for any structure, no matter how small, and any project where the Building Official decides soil data is needed. If that covers your job, we'll know at the walk-through. The state licensing board describes a concrete contractor as one who forms, pours, finishes and installs flat concrete work, which is exactly what a pool deck is.

We're based in El Monte and work in the cities around it. A lot of backyards here have older pools with decks that have settled near the edge or slope back toward the house, and we see the same yards on jobs in Rosemead and Temple City. On those, we break out what's moving and start the base over.