Katella Anaheim Concrete redoes the drive, walk and patio of a 1970s Cerritos house in one job, 25 minutes from Katella Avenue. Every estimate is measured and written on site, one sheet a lot.
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Everything poured on a Cerritos lot is the same age. The drive, the walk, the garage floor and the patio went in together in the 1970s, on the same silt, and they fail a few years apart.
Cerritos was built out in a single decade after it dropped the name Dairy Valley in 1967, by tract builders who poured a lot's flatwork in one visit on the graded pasture, with no base and no steel. So a drive that has broken into panels stands next to a patio and a walk a season or two behind it. Replacing the drive alone means a second tear-out through the same gate next year and a joint between new and old that opens as the old keeps moving. One job disturbs the ground once.
So a Cerritos estimate is written for the lot. Every slab that is due comes out in one tear-out, the silt is compacted once, and 4 inches of Class 2 base goes down across the whole area before a form is set. The drive is 4 inches with a 5 inch apron, the patio and walks 4 inches, all with number 3 bar on an 18-inch grid and one broom finish, so the lot reads as one pour. The wide Cerritos lots are why this works, since a mixer reaches the back on most and a lot is placed in two days.
Four in five Cerritos houses are owned rather than rented, so the call comes from someone who has kept the house for decades and wants the builder's flatwork done properly once. The eight jobs below are usually several of them at a time.
A Cerritos drive is a 1970s two-car slab being widened for the third car, and it is usually the first slab of the lot to go. We draw the wider approach for Public Works, break the old panels out, lay 4 inches of base and pour 4 inches with a 5 inch apron and sawn joints.
A Cerritos patio goes in with the drive, on the same base, and the lot is big enough for it to be a full room off the builder's 10 foot slab. The old slab comes out rather than being built on, and 4 inches is poured on base, jointed at 10 feet and doweled to the house.
Stamped concrete in Cerritos is usually the patio and the front walk in one pattern, so the lot reads as one finish. We cast ashlar or flagstone into a 4 inch slab on base, color it integrally and seal it in 2 coats, and the street-side part is drawn for the city first.
The walks on a Cerritos lot are the side-yard path and the front approach, and the public panel by the curb is the city's. We pour the private walks 4 inches on base with the rest of the lot, and replace a lifted public panel to the city's standard under its permit.
A 1970s Cerritos garage floor is thin, cracked where the water heater stood, and often the last slab the owner thinks of. Done with the drive, it comes out in the same tear-out and goes back 5 inches with steel over a 10 mil barrier, level with the apron and troweled flat.
Exposed aggregate suits a Cerritos lot done all at once, because one washed stone across the drive, the walk and the patio ties them together. 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 every edge.
Cerritos is flat, so a retaining wall here holds a raised bed, a planter along the drive or a step between two levels of yard, and it stays under 4 feet. We foot it 12 inches into compacted silt, drain it behind the stem and cap it level, poured with the rest of the lot.
An interior floor in Cerritos is the room added over the old side yard or the garage turned into a unit. We pour over a 10 mil barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat enough for tile or leave it to be polished, and cut the joints to the room rather than to the crew.
Cerritos is laid out on the old dairy grid, so the tracts off Bloomfield Avenue, Carmenita Road and Studebaker Road are straight streets of rectangular lots with a side yard a truck can use, which is why we take on the whole lot there. From the yard on Katella Avenue we go west to Valley View Street, north to the 91 and over Coyote Creek, the county line, about 25 minutes. Cerritos is in Los Angeles County, and the permit is the Building Division at City Hall on Bloomfield Avenue.
The city looks at the street side of a lot more closely than most. A driveway widened at the curb, a new approach or a change to the public walk is drawn and submitted to Public Works before it is cut, and the parkway is put back to the city's standard with the tree left as the city wants it. Behind the front line the yard is yours, and a patio or a side-yard slab at grade needs no permit, though the inspector who comes for the approach is welcome to look at the base under the rest.
Most of our Cerritos calls come from the tracts north of the 91 around Cerritos Towne Center and Cerritos Regional Park, and from the blocks south of it toward the Auto Square, where the 1970s two-car drives now hold three cars and a boat. Under all of it is the silt of the plain between the San Gabriel River and Coyote Creek, which softens when wet and stays wet because the city is flat. A compacted base keeps a slab flat on it, and one fall across the lot keeps it dry.
Four stages for the lot, one crew and one written figure. The visit measures every slab that is due, the tear-out takes them all, and the pours are sequenced so you keep a way in and out of the house.
Omar Espinoza measures every slab on the lot, marks which are due, checks the fall to the street and writes one figure for all of it.
The old panels and the roots under them come out, the silt is compacted, and 4 inches of base is laid and compacted across the lot.
We draw the approach for Cerritos Public Works and file the building permit where one is needed. The parkway goes back to standard.
Back yard first, then the drive, so you always have a way in. Walk on each after 24 hours, park after 7 days, joints sawn the same day.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. Omar Espinoza measures every slab that is due and writes one figure for the lot, and the visit costs nothing.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners in the towns we cover, Cerritos among them. Most are for a lot done at once, which is the work this page describes.
“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 a Cerritos owner asks before booking the lot, from whether doing it all at once saves anything to who issues the permit, the ground, the drive from Anaheim and how long the house is without a driveway.
Yes, per square foot, because the tear-out, the base and the mixer come once. The dumpster and the compaction are paid for by the drive alone if the patio waits a year, and paid for once if the two go together. The lot also ends up with one finish and no joint between new and old. Every estimate is measured and written on site, slab by slab, so you can see what each part of the lot adds.
Public Works, for the approach and the curb, and the Building Division at City Hall on Bloomfield Avenue for anything structural. Cerritos is in Los Angeles County, not Orange County, so the forms and the standards differ from those in Anaheim, and we hold the drawings on file. A patio, a side-yard walk or a garage floor inside your own lot needs no permit, and a retaining wall over 4 feet does.
On most lots, yes, and it is the reason a whole-lot job takes two days here. The dairy grid gave Cerritos rectangular lots with a side yard wide enough for a mixer's chute or a short pump line, so the patio is placed from the drive rather than barrowed through a gate. Where a side yard has been built over with a room, we pump, and that is written on the estimate as a line of its own.
About 25 minutes. We go west along Katella Avenue, north on Valley View Street to the 91 and over Coyote Creek, coming off at Shoemaker Avenue or Bloomfield Avenue. Cerritos is at the western edge of the towns we cover, so a visit there is booked as the first or the last of the day, and we call back within 1 business day to fix which.
Three to four days for the drive alone, and about a week for the whole lot, poured back yard first so the drive is the last thing out and the first thing back. Each slab takes 24 hours before it is walked on and 7 days before a car goes on it. The old 1970s panels come up in a morning, and the base under the new work is where the second day goes.
Yes. La Palma and Buena Park are across Coyote Creek on the Orange County side, Hawaiian Gardens is to the south and La Mirada to the north, and we work all of them from the same yard on Katella Avenue. Cerritos is one of the towns we cover in Los Angeles County, so the drawings and the permit forms for it are held apart from the Orange County ones.
Cerritos touches La Palma, Buena Park, Hawaiian Gardens and La Mirada among the towns we cover, and the creek that divides it from the first two is also the county line. Each town's page is written for its own lots and its own permit office.
Open the Anaheim Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day. One visit, one written figure for the lot, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.