Katella Anaheim Concrete pours drives, steps and walls on the hill lots of Diamond Bar, up the 57 from Anaheim, placed from the top down. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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A driveway in Diamond Bar often falls or rises a foot or more between the street and the garage door. Concrete placed on that grade wants to run, so the mix, the sequence and the finish all change.
The mix is stiffer than on a flat lot, because a wet mix slumps downhill before it can be screeded and leaves the top of the drive thin. The pour starts at the high end and works down, so the crew is never standing in fresh concrete above the screed line. The finish is broomed across the fall rather than along it, which gives a tire grip on a wet January morning, and the control joints go in closer than the usual 10 feet, because a slab on a grade is pulled downhill as it shrinks.
The low end needs the most thought. Where a drive falls to the garage, water runs at the door, so a trench drain is cast into the last panel and piped to the street. Where the drive rises to the garage, the apron at the curb is the low point, and it is thickened to 6 inches because it carries every wheel that turns in off the street and takes the runoff from the whole slab. Either way the base under it is 4 inches of compacted Class 2, keyed into the pad rather than laid on it.
Most of Diamond Bar was laid out on the ridges either side of Diamond Bar Boulevard between the 1960s and the 1980s, and few of its lots are level. The eight jobs below are the ones the slope asks for, in the order the calls come in.
A Diamond Bar driveway is rarely level, so it is poured from the high end down on a stiffer mix, broomed across the fall for grip, and jointed at 8 feet rather than 10. A drive that falls to the garage gets a trench drain cast at the door and piped out to the street.
Patios in Diamond Bar sit on the cut pad behind the house, and the pad ends where the slope begins. We hold the slab back from that edge, probe the fill along it, and pour 4 inches on compacted base so the corner nearest the slope does not settle as the fill does.
Stamped work on a sloping Diamond Bar drive is stamped after the top-down pour reaches the curb, so the pattern is walked uphill and never floods. A running bond or ashlar reads well down a grade, and a sealer with grit added keeps the surface from turning to glass in rain.
A walk in Diamond Bar often becomes steps part way along, because the front yard falls with the street. We pour the flat runs at 4 inches, set the risers at a height a visitor expects, and joint the walk every 5 feet so a hill lot movement shows as a line, not a crack.
A Diamond Bar garage below the street takes the drive's runoff at its door, so a floor here is checked for the damp line at the threshold before anything else. We cut and repour a failed slab, or grind and seal a sound one, and fit the trench drain the original builder left out.
Exposed aggregate suits a Diamond Bar hill lot because the washed stone gives a tire and a shoe grip on a grade that a smooth finish cannot. We wash the surface within hours of the pour, band the edges in smooth broom, and seal it so the stone stays sharp through summer sun.
Retaining walls hold most Diamond Bar yards where the pad meets the slope, and the older 1970s ones are timber or unreinforced block at the end of their life. We footing a new wall 18 inches into firm ground below the fill, drain behind it, and engineer anything over 4 feet.
Interior floors in Diamond Bar go into converted garages and additions on the pad, where the original slab is sound but not flat. We pour a new slab over a vapor barrier, trowel it to take tile or polish, and joint it on a grid drawn for the room rather than the pour.
Our yard is in Anaheim, and the crew takes the 57 north through Brea Canyon to the Diamond Bar Boulevard or Grand Avenue exits, about 25 minutes when the freeway is moving. Plans go to the City of Diamond Bar Building and Safety Division at City Hall on Copley Drive. The city only incorporated in 1989, so a drive poured before then was permitted by Los Angeles County, and its record, if there is one, is with the county rather than the city.
The tracts off Golden Springs Drive and along Brea Canyon Road were built in the 1960s and 1970s with the garage set below the street, so the drive falls in from the curb. The later houses up Grand Avenue and toward Chino Hills more often sit above the road, and the drive climbs. The two need different low ends, and we walk the drive with a level before the estimate is written so the drain or the thickened apron is already in the figure.
A mixer cannot chute uphill. On a drive that climbs more than a few feet the concrete is pumped from the street, which adds a machine and a morning but lets the crew place the whole slab in one pour instead of in lifts. Behind the house the pads are cut into the hill and held by a slope, and we pour patios there to the edge the grading plan drew and no further, since the fill at the edge of a pad is the softest ground on the lot.
Four stages, sequenced for a sloping lot. The grade is measured before the figure is written, because the fall of the drive decides whether concrete is chuted or pumped and where the water goes.
Omar Espinoza measures the slab, levels it from curb to garage, and notes whether a pump is needed. The figure is written on site.
The old drive is broken out and hauled, soft fill at the pad edge is dug and replaced, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is compacted in two lifts.
We file with the City of Diamond Bar Building and Safety Division for the approach, and with your association where the drive faces the street.
Concrete is pumped or chuted from the high end, broomed across the fall, and jointed at 8 feet. Walk on it after 24 hours, park 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 grade as well as the area, so the figure already carries the drain or the pump the slope needs.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across north Orange County and the hill towns beyond it. Diamond Bar is among them, and the work behind each is the work described above.
“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 homeowner on a Diamond Bar hill asks before booking: what the slope adds, who signs off the permit, whether a truck can get up the drive, and how long the slab is out of use.
A pump, closer joints and a drain, in most cases. Concrete cannot be chuted uphill, so a drive that climbs is pumped from the street, and a drive that falls to the garage needs a trench drain cast at the door. Both go into the written figure after the grade has been measured, not after the pour. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
The City of Diamond Bar Building and Safety Division at City Hall on Copley Drive. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs no permit, a new approach across the parkway does, and a retaining wall over 4 feet is engineered and inspected. Many tracts here also have an association, and we submit the drawing to it at the same time.
Usually not, and it does not need to. A loaded mixer weighs too much for most residential drives and cannot climb a steep one, so it parks at the curb and a line pump carries the concrete up. The pump adds a machine to the morning and takes nothing from the finish, and the truck never leaves the street.
Because it is on a grade with joints too far apart. A slab on a slope is pulled along its length by its own weight as it shrinks, and if the control joints are the usual 10 feet apart the crack finds its own line between them. New drives here are jointed at 8 feet or less and doweled at the apron, so the shrinkage has somewhere to go.
8 days from the pour. Walk on it after 24 hours, park on it after 7 days, and on a drive that climbs, keep off it in the first week's rain, since a wet new slab on a grade is the one place a car slides. The pour itself is one morning, and tear-out and base take 1 to 2 days before it.
Yes. Chino Hills and Brea are on the same freeway and the same crew covers them, and the whole of north Orange County is reached from our yard in Anaheim. Diamond Bar is the furthest north we go on the 57, and a job here is booked with the next day left open, so a pump delay never pushes the pour into the afternoon heat.
Diamond Bar shares a boundary with Chino Hills and, through Tonner Canyon, with Brea, and we cover both from the same yard. The other towns on the list below sit closer to Anaheim, and every one of them has its own page.
Open the Anaheim Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day. The visit and the figure cost nothing, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.