Katella Anaheim Concrete pours drives and walls in La Habra Heights, up Harbor Boulevard from Anaheim, on roads with no gutter to drain to. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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There is no gutter to send the water to. The roads in La Habra Heights were built without curbs, so a driveway meets the road at grade and what runs off the slab runs onto the road or down the drive.
On a lot that climbs from the road, the drive is the channel the whole slope drains through in a storm, and a slab poured flat across it turns the garage into the low point. So a drive here is crowned or pitched to one edge, with a swale or a drain along that edge to carry the water past the house and onto the ground below it. The last panel at the road is thickened to 6 inches and given a rolled edge, because without a curb the slab itself takes the wheel turning off the pavement.
The ground under the drive is the hill, and the hill is a mix. Most lots were avocado or citrus grove into the 1960s, so the top few feet are tilled, irrigated topsoil over the weathered rock of the Puente Hills, with old roots still rotting in it. We dig the drive line to firm material, which on a slope is deeper on the downhill side, compact 4 inches of base, and run steel through the slab, because a long drive on a hill is pulled along its length every summer.
La Habra Heights zones its lots at an acre and keeps its roads without sidewalks or streetlights, so every piece of concrete on a property is private and most of it is the drive. The eight jobs below are the ones the hill asks for, in order.
A La Habra Heights driveway is 100 feet or more on a grade with no gutter at the road, so it is pumped from the road, placed from the top down, crowned to shed water to a swale, and thickened to 6 inches at the road edge. Steel runs through the whole length on an 18 inch grid.
A patio in La Habra Heights sits on the cut pad behind a house on a slope, and the pad edge is fill. We probe that edge, hold the slab back from it or footing the outer edge, and pour 4 inches on compacted base pitched from the house toward a drain off the pad.
Stamped concrete on a La Habra Heights lot is the patio and the terrace by the pool, since a drive this long is kept plain. We stamp a 4 inch slab in flagstone, which suits the hill, seal it with grit in the coat so it holds a shoe when wet, and band the edge at the grove.
There are no public walks in La Habra Heights, so a walk here is the path from the drive to the door, often across a slope. We pour it at 4 inches on base, turn it into steps where the grade passes 1 in 12, and joint it every 5 feet so hill movement shows as a line, not a crack.
A La Habra Heights garage sits at the top or the bottom of a long drive, and either way the drive's water reaches its door. We cut a trench drain into the drive at the threshold, repour a settled door panel level with the rest, and seal a sound floor rather than replace it.
Exposed aggregate is the finish we recommend on a La Habra Heights drive because the washed stone grips a tire on a grade that broom cannot, and it hides the leaf fall from the grove. We wash the surface within hours of the pour and band each section in smooth broom.
Retaining walls in La Habra Heights hold the pad, the drive and the grove terraces, and the old ones are timber or dry block. We footing a new wall 18 inches into the rock below the topsoil, drain behind the stem to daylight, and engineer anything over 4 feet.
Interior floors in La Habra Heights go into additions and barn or garage conversions on lots with room for them. We pour a slab over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base cut into the hill, trowel it flat for tile or polish, and joint it to the plan of the room, not the crew.
Our yard is in Anaheim and Harbor Boulevard runs north from it through Fullerton and La Habra, then climbs into La Habra Heights and becomes Fullerton Road, so the drive-in is one street and about half an hour. Plans go to the City of La Habra Heights building counter at City Hall on Hacienda Road. The city incorporated in 1978 to keep its acre lots and its unlit roads, and its review looks hardest at drainage, since a drive that sends water onto the road sends it onto a neighbor.
The houses along Hacienda Road and the lanes off it are mostly custom-built between the 1950s and the 1970s, set well back on their acre with a drive of 100 feet or more, often on a grade and often the only flat concrete on the lot. Many still have grove above or below the house, and the drive runs past the trees. A job here begins with a walk down the whole drive, because the failed panel the owner rang about is rarely the only one moving.
A mixer reaches most lots on the paved roads, but a long drive means the truck parks at the road and the concrete is pumped up, or the pour is done in sections from the top down. There is no storm drain to tap, so the water a new drive collects is taken to a swale, a dry well or a pipe to daylight on the lot, and the estimate says which. The hill is brush country, and a concrete apron round the house is asked for as often as a firebreak as for the car.
Four stages for a long drive on a hill. The path of the water is decided before the base goes in, because with no gutter at the road the drive itself is the drain, and the figure carries that.
Omar Espinoza walks the whole drive, reads the fall with a level, and marks where the water will leave the slab. The figure is written on site.
The old drive is broken out and hauled, grove topsoil and old roots are dug to firm ground, and 4 inches of base is compacted along the length.
We file the drive connection and the drainage with the City of La Habra Heights counter on Hacienda Road and meet the inspector at the forms.
Concrete is pumped from the road and placed top down in sections, crowned and jointed at 8 feet. Walk after 24 hours, drive on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day. Omar Espinoza walks the whole drive on the visit, reads the fall, and writes a figure that already carries the pump, the swale or the drain the lot needs.
Reviews
Homeowners in the towns we cover from Anaheim, in their own words on Google and Facebook. La Habra Heights is one of those towns, and the drives behind these words were built as this page says.
“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 people in La Habra Heights ask before booking: what a long hill drive adds to the figure, who permits it, where the water goes with no gutter, what the groves left behind, and how long the drive is shut.
Length, then the pump, then the water. A drive of 100 feet or more on a grade is pumped from the road, and the water it collects has to be taken somewhere on the lot, since there is no gutter, so a swale or a drain is in the figure. The finish and the thickness at the road come after. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
The City of La Habra Heights, at the building counter in City Hall on Hacienda Road. A patio or walk on your own lot needs no permit, but a new drive connection to the road, a wall over 4 feet and any change to how a lot drains do, and the city reads the drainage before it stamps the plan.
Onto the lot, by design. With no curb or storm drain at the road, a new drive is crowned or pitched to one edge and the water is carried down a swale or a pipe to daylight below the house, or into a dry well where the ground takes it. What it must not do is run onto the road, because from there it runs onto the neighbor below.
Grove soil over rock. Most lots were avocado or citrus until the 1960s, so the top few feet are irrigated topsoil with old roots in it, over the weathered shale of the Puente Hills. The topsoil settles and the roots rot into voids, which is why an old drive here sinks in patches. We dig to firm ground before the base goes in.
Longer than a tract drive, because it is longer. Tear-out and base on 100 feet take 2 days, the pour is a morning or two from the top down, and then 24 hours before foot traffic and 7 days before a car. We pour in sections so one lane to the house is open through the cure whenever the width allows it.
Yes. La Habra is at the foot of the hill, Whittier is over the ridge to the west, and Brea is east along Imperial Highway, and one crew covers all of them from our yard in Anaheim. Hacienda Heights lies over the crest in the other direction and is not on our list, so the ridge is where our coverage ends.
La Habra Heights sits on the ridge above La Habra, with Whittier to the west and Brea to the east, and we cover all three from the same yard. Each has its own page below, and the one that names your city is the one written for your ground.
Open the Anaheim Office in Google Maps Send the form, we call back within 1 business day, and the walk down the drive is free. The work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.