Katella Anaheim Concrete pours drives, patios and walls in Brea, 20 minutes up the 57 from Katella Avenue. Every estimate is measured and written on site, drains traced first on a hill lot.
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Brea is built on a slope. Every pad north of Lambert Road was graded to shed its water to one drain, and a slab poured across that path floods the yard the first winter after it is laid.
A hillside tract lot in Brea carries drainage the builder engineered and the city approved. The pad falls to a swale along the back fence or the side of the house, the swale runs to an area drain, and the drain runs out to the street or into a terrace drain on the slope below. A patio poured flat across that swale turns the yard into a basin. Water then stands against the footing, soaks the fill at the edge of the pad, and the slab that caused it is the first thing to settle.
So on a Brea hill lot we find the drain before we set a form. The area drains are located and flow-tested with a hose, the new slab is set to fall toward them at a quarter inch to the foot, and where a swale has to cross under a patio we run a 4 inch pipe beneath the base and bring the grate up flush. The slab is 4 inches on 4 inches of compacted base with number 3 bar on an 18-inch grid, and the edge on the slope side is thickened so it bears on the pad and not on the fill.
Half of Brea is graded hillside and half is the old flat around Birch Street, and water leaves each in a different way. The eight jobs below are written for both, with the drain and the fall of every slab decided before the concrete is.
A Brea drive on a hill pad runs at a grade, so it is poured stiffer, formed to the slope and given a thickened edge where the pad meets fill. On the flat the job is an old narrow drive widened and its apron reset to the gutter. Both go 4 inches on compacted base, 5 at the apron.
A patio on a Brea hill lot is the one slab most likely to block the pad's drainage, so the swale goes under it in a pipe and the slab falls to a grate at its low edge. It is poured 4 inches thick on compacted base, jointed at 10 feet and doweled to the house slab.
Stamped concrete is asked for in the Brea hill tracts because the association wants the new patio to read with the builder's pavers at the front. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it integrally and seal it in 2 coats, and the drawing goes to the board first.
Brea walks on the flat are lifted by the street trees on the 1960s blocks south of Imperial Highway, and on the hills they are the side-yard path that carries the pad's drainage. We keep the swale beside the walk, prune roots where the city allows, and dowel new panels to old.
A Brea garage floor from the 1920s or the 1960s is thin and usually lower than the drive that dropped in front of it. We break it out, lay base and a 10 mil vapor barrier, pour 5 inches with steel, and bring the apron back up so water at the door runs out rather than in.
Exposed aggregate suits a Brea hill patio because the washed stone gives grip on a slab that has to carry a fall to its drain. We seed the stone into a 4 inch pour on base, wash it at the right hour and seal it, with a smooth band at the edge so the grate sits flush.
A retaining wall is how a Brea hill lot gets more flat ground, and the city treats one over 4 feet as a structure with a plan check. We foot it into firm material below the fill, drain it behind the stem to daylight or an area drain, and cap it level for the fence above.
An interior floor in Brea is most often a garage conversion or a casita on a hill pad, and both need a slab that stays dry. We pour over a 10 mil barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat for tile or polish it, and cut the joints on a grid that follows the room, not the crew.
Most of our Brea calls come from the hill tracts north of Lambert Road, on either side of the 57 and out along Carbon Canyon Road, where the pads were cut between the 1980s and the 2000s and the builders' flatwork is now old enough to be replaced. We drive up the 57 from Katella Avenue and come off at Lambert Road, about 20 minutes. Permits are the Building Division at the Brea Civic Center, and an approach or a public walk is an encroachment permit through Public Works.
The flat part of town is different water. The bungalow streets either side of Brea Boulevard and the tracts south of Imperial Highway drain across the surface to the gutter and on to Brea Creek and the dam basin below the city. A drive there falls to the street, and the only question is whether the apron still sits above the flow line of the gutter, which the oldest drives often no longer do. We reset the apron to the city's curb and gutter grade so the drive stops holding a puddle.
The slopes themselves are off limits to a slab. A hillside lot in Brea ends in a manufactured slope with a terrace drain across it, and the grading plan the city approved keeps that slope and its drain as the builder left them, so a pool deck or a patio stops at the top of the slope and a retaining wall is what makes more flat ground, with its own drain behind the stem. Hill lots also sit under an association in most tracts, and the board sees a drawing before the city does.
Four stages, one crew and one written figure. On a hill lot the drains are traced at the first visit and the fall of every slab is drawn on the estimate, so nothing about the water is decided on the day of the pour.
Omar Espinoza measures the yard, finds every area drain and swale on the pad, runs a hose to prove them and writes the figure there.
The old slab comes out, the subgrade is compacted, any drain line crossing the slab is laid, and 4 inches of base is compacted over it.
We file with the Brea Building Division, and with your association where the tract has one. You sign nothing at a counter.
Poured with the fall set to the drains, joints sawn the same day, walked on after 24 hours and driven on after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. Omar Espinoza measures the slab and traces the drains on your own lot, and the written figure costs nothing.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across north Orange County, Brea among them. The same crew and the same specification stand behind every one of them.
“Our drive was the one the house came with, and the sand under it had washed away at the gutter end. They dug ten inches deeper, brought angular rock in and packed it in lifts, then put down 560 square feet at a five inch depth. It has been through two winters now without a mark.”
“Half our garage stands on cut and half on fill, which nobody had ever mentioned to us. Omar probed until he found the line, dug the fill side deeper, and set a joint straight along it. The floor went in at 440 square feet, five inches thick, and it is still one flat plane.”
“A ficus root had pushed our frontage walk up into a step the postman kept catching. The crew cut the root, stood a barrier against it, laid fresh base and poured 84 feet at four inches, and they sorted the paperwork with the city themselves. Flat all year since.”
What Brea homeowners ask before they book, from what moves the estimate on a hill lot to who issues the permit, how the drains are handled and how long a slab is out of use.
The drains and the slope, before the area. A patio that has to carry a drain line under it, or a pad edge that needs a thickened footing on the fill side, adds hours of digging to the same square footage. Access is next, since a mixer cannot reach most hillside back yards and the concrete is pumped or barrowed. Every estimate is measured and written on site, on the lot, so those hours are in the figure early.
The Building Division at the Brea Civic Center for anything structural, a retaining wall over 4 feet, or a slab that changes the grade on a hillside pad, and Public Works for a driveway approach or any walk in the right-of-way. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs no permit, but on a graded lot the city's approved grading plan still fixes where the water goes, and we build to it.
Yes, if the swale goes under it in a pipe. The swale is the drainage path the pad was graded to, and burying it under a flat slab sends the water against the house. We lay a 4 inch drain line from the top of the swale to the existing area drain, bed the base over it, and set the slab to fall toward a grate at its low edge. The yard drains as it did and the patio stays dry.
About 20 minutes, up the 57 from Katella Avenue to Lambert Road or Imperial Highway. Brea is one of the closer towns we cover, and it is on the way to Yorba Linda and Chino Hills, so a Brea visit is usually booked in with one of those. We call back within 1 business day to fix the time, and the crew and the mixer come together on the day.
Three to four days on site for a full replacement, then 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car goes on it. A steep Brea drive adds a day, because the forms are set to a grade and the concrete is placed stiffer so it holds the slope while it is finished. Joints are sawn the same afternoon, which keeps the cracks in straight lines.
Yes. Placentia and Yorba Linda are next door on the 57 and Imperial Highway, La Habra is west along Lambert Road, and Diamond Bar and Chino Hills are over the hills. All of them are worked from the same yard on Katella Avenue with the same crew, so a lot on a city line gets the same specification whichever side it falls on.
Brea shares lines with Placentia, Yorba Linda, La Habra and Diamond Bar, and we cover each of them from the same yard on Katella Avenue. The page for each says what its own ground asks for, so if your street sits on a boundary, read the one next door too.
Open the Anaheim Office in Google Maps Call or send the form. We call back within 1 business day, write the figure on your own lot, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.