Katella Anaheim Concrete replaces drives, walks and patios in La Palma, a finished city where every new slab butts a neighbor's, the city's or the house, 9 miles from our yard. Measured free.
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On a La Palma lot, every edge of a new slab touches something. The drive meets the neighbor's drive and the city walk, the patio meets the house and the fence, and none of those may move.
The city is 1.8 square miles of tract built in one push in the 1960s, and its lots are the standard of that decade, 60 feet wide with the drive against the side line. So when a drive comes out, the slab next to it stays, and a machine that undercuts the neighbor's edge by a few inches leaves it unsupported and cracked within a year, a dispute rather than a driveway. The same holds at the house, where a patio poured hard against the stem wall pushes on it every summer, and at the walk.
So the edges are detailed before the middle is. We saw cut the line against the neighbor's slab rather than break to it, so their edge stays clean and carried, and set an isolation joint of half inch fiber board against the house and the walk so the new slab moves on its own. At the walk the new apron is doweled and matched to the city panel within an eighth of an inch. The slab is 4 inches with bar on 4 inches of compacted base, but in La Palma the perimeter gets the morning.
La Palma has had no empty lot for 50 years, so no slab here is poured into open ground. Each one is fitted between things that already exist, and the fit is most of the job.
A La Palma drive is replaced beside a neighbor's that stays. We saw cut the shared line so their edge is not undermined, break ours out to the city walk, lay 4 inches of base and pour 4 inches with bar, then dowel the apron to the walk so the two panels never step apart.
A La Palma patio usually replaces two or three older pours at different heights. We take them all out, set one level that falls a quarter inch per foot away from the house, isolate the slab from the stem wall with fiber board, and pour 4 inches in 10 foot panels, jointed.
Stamped concrete in La Palma is mostly a front entry or a patio inset, because a 60 foot lot has no room for a whole stamped yard. We cast a flagstone or an ashlar into the 4 inch pour, color it through the mix so a chip does not show gray, and seal it in 2 coats against sun.
The path from the city walk to the front door is yours, the walk itself is the city's, and on a La Palma lot they meet at the same panel. We pour the path at 4 inches with a broom finish, and where the city's panel has lifted, we file the encroachment permit and replace it flush.
A 1960s La Palma garage floor is one slab with the drive, poured thin, and it cracks where the two meet. We break it out to the door line, pour 4 inches over a vapor barrier, trowel it flat enough to coat, and cut a doweled joint at the threshold so floor and drive move apart.
Exposed aggregate goes down on La Palma drives where a plain broom would show the oil marks of two decades of parked cars. We wash pea gravel proud of the matrix on the evening of the pour, hold a smooth border along the neighbor's line, and seal it so the stone stays clean.
La Palma is flat, so a wall here holds a raised bed or a planter against a fence rather than a slope. We footing it 12 inches below grade, gravel and drain the back, cap it level, and keep it clear of the fence posts, since a wall leaning on next door's fence is their complaint.
Garage conversions and rear additions are how a 1960s La Palma house gains a room, and each needs a slab to live on. We pour 4 inches over a 10 mil barrier, tie it to the existing footing with epoxied dowels so the two do not step, and trowel it flat enough for tile to go down.
We reach La Palma without a freeway, west on Lincoln Avenue and north on Valley View Street, about 9 miles from our yard on West Katella Avenue, so the crew is on site inside half an hour and a second trip for a forgotten form is not the end of the morning. Permits go to the City of La Palma at its own building counter at City Hall on Walker Street, and because the whole city is under 2 square miles, the counter is a 3 minute drive from any job in it.
The 91 is the north edge of the city and Coyote Creek is the west, and beyond the creek is Cerritos and Los Angeles County, so a La Palma lot is on the county line without looking it. The houses are the ones the 1960s tracts left, single and two story on 60 foot lots, and 15,722 people live in them with a median age of 42, which is to say the owners have stayed. Most calls are from someone replacing a slab they have watched fail for 20 years, and they know where it cracked first.
That long ownership shows in the yards. A La Palma back yard has usually been added to twice, a patio in the 1980s and a side path or a shed pad later, poured by different hands at different heights, and the job is often to take all of it out and pour one slab at one level that drains one way. Central Park on La Palma Avenue is the one large open space in the city, and the tract streets around it are where most of that work is.
Measured at the lot, written there, dug and poured by one crew. In La Palma the neighbors' edges are marked at the visit, so nobody is surprised by where the saw goes.
Omar Espinoza measures the slab, marks the neighbor's line, the walk and the house edge, checks the fall and writes the figure at the lot.
The shared line is saw cut, the old slab broken out, the loose top foot removed, and 4 inches of Class 2 base compacted on firm ground.
A new apron across the city walk goes to La Palma City Hall on Walker Street. We file it and meet the inspector at the curb.
Four inches with bar, isolated from the house, doweled to the walk, jointed the same day. Walk on it in 24 hours, drive on it in 7 days.
Call or send the form and Omar Espinoza will answer within 1 business day with a time. He measures the slab and its edges at your house, writes the figure there, and it does not change once the neighbor's drive turns out to be lower than yours.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by the people we have poured for across the towns we cover. La Palma is one of them, and the drives and patios above are the jobs behind the words.
“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.”
The questions that come up at a La Palma visit, on what moves the figure for a slab hemmed in on every side, the permit for an apron across the city walk, the drive from Anaheim, and what the ground is like.
The edges, more than the area. A La Palma drive is broken out beside a neighbor's slab and a city walk that both stay, so the demolition is saw cut and careful rather than fast, and that is crew hours. The width and the thickness set the material, and the apron across the walk adds the permit and a doweled joint. Omar Espinoza measures the slab and its three edges at the visit and writes the figure at the house.
Yes, for the apron, because it crosses the city's walk and curb. The drive inside your lot line needs none. The permit comes from the City of La Palma at its building counter at City Hall on Walker Street, and the inspector checks the apron matches the walk before it is poured. A wall over 4 feet or a slab carrying a cover also needs one. We file it, and the counter is minutes from any street in the city.
On surface streets, in about 25 minutes. Our yard is on West Katella Avenue, and the crew goes west on Lincoln Avenue and north on Valley View Street, about 9 miles with no freeway on ramp in it, which matters on a morning the 91 is stopped. A visit is booked within 1 business day of your call or form, and a La Palma job is scheduled once the written figure is agreed, usually inside 2 weeks.
Because the two were poured as one, then cut. The tracts poured pairs of drives together and sawed the line after, so there is no dowel and no filler between yours and next door's, and 50 years of one car heavier than the other has stepped them apart. The fix is to replace your side to a clean saw cut, carry their edge on compacted base, and pour yours 4 inches thick with bar so it does not follow theirs down.
About 9 days, and the neighbor keeps theirs the whole time. The break-out, base and pour take 2 days on site for a 2 car drive, then the slab is walked on after 24 hours and driven on after 7 days. Because the shared line is saw cut rather than broken, the neighbor's drive is never blocked, and the city walk is closed only for the morning the apron is poured.
Level, and firm below the first foot. La Palma was pasture before it was tract, and the graders left the ground flat with a foot of loose topsoil over firm silt loam. That top foot is what the 1960s slabs were poured on, and it is why they settled. We dig through it to firm material, compact, lay 4 inches of Class 2 base, and pour 4 inches with bar, so the slab bears on what has not moved since the cows left.
La Palma touches Buena Park to the north and east and Cypress to the south, and Cerritos is across Coyote Creek to the west. We cover all three from the same yard in Anaheim, and each has a page of its own on how the work differs there.
Open the Anaheim Office in Google Maps Send the form or call and we will reply within 1 business day to fix the visit. The measure and the written figure are free, and the finished job carries a written workmanship guarantee.