Katella Anaheim Concrete pours pool decks, wide drives and patios in Los Alamitos, one road west of our yard, under the marine layer that sets the pour day. The measure is free.
5.0 Stars Rated by Anaheim customers · Google, Facebook and the BBB
Los Alamitos is the one town we cover where the ocean sets the weather. It is 5 miles from the coast and a few feet above it, and the marine layer sits over the town most mornings from May to July.
That changes how concrete cures, and the cure is what the slab will be for the next 30 years. A pour under a gray sky at 62 degrees holds its water longer and sets slower, so a finish that would be broomed at 10 in the morning in Anaheim is not ready here until after noon, and a crew that works to the clock instead of the slab tears the surface. In August the town runs 10 degrees cooler than the yard we leave from, which helps, because the slab is not fighting the heat for its water.
So a Los Alamitos job is timed to the slab, not the schedule. In the gray months we pour mid morning once the damp has burned off the forms, wait for the bleed water to leave before the broom goes on, and keep the slab wet for 7 days under a curing compound. In summer the pour is early and covered by afternoon. The base under it is the same 4 inches of compacted Class 2, and the slab is 4 inches with bar, but the hours it is worked are the ones this end of Katella allows.
A Los Alamitos house is worth more than most in the county and sits on a lot with room around it, so the work is a pool deck, a drive widened for a third car, and a patio scaled to the yard rather than squeezed into it.
A Los Alamitos drive gets wider, not longer. The third car is the reason, so we cut the lawn back, pour the added width at 4 inches on 4 inches of base with bar, dowel it to the original slab, and file the city's permit for the wider curb cut before the walk is touched.
A patio behind a Los Alamitos ranch house can be 400 square feet without crowding the yard, so it is poured in 10 foot panels with joints cut the same day, at a fall of a quarter inch per foot away from the door. Under a marine sky the broom goes on late, once the sheen has gone.
Stamped concrete goes down as a pool surround or a front entry in Los Alamitos, where a slate or flagstone pattern suits a ranch house better than plain gray. We stamp the 4 inch pour in a cool morning, color it integrally, and seal it in 2 coats so the pattern reads for years.
The front walk on a Los Alamitos lot is long, because the house sits back from the street, and the city walk at the curb is separate. We pour the path to the door at 4 inches, broomed in square panels, and file the encroachment permit where a lifted city panel needs replacing.
A two car garage from the 1960s in Los Alamitos was poured at 3 to 4 inches and has taken 60 years of cars and damp coastal air. We break it out, pour 4 inches over a vapor barrier so ground moisture does not rise through it, and trowel it flat enough for a coating to bond.
Exposed aggregate suits a Los Alamitos pool deck because it is barefoot safe and stays cooler than a dark slab. We seed the surface with river pebble, wash it proud the evening of the pour, and leave a smooth band at the coping so the edge is the pool's line, not a texture.
Los Alamitos is level ground, so a wall here edges a raised bed or holds a planter beside a pool rather than a hillside. We pour it on a footing 12 inches below grade, drain and gravel the back, and cap it flat, because a wall holding damp coastal soil will lean in a wet winter.
Additions and garage conversions on a Los Alamitos lot need a floor someone will live on. We pour 4 inches over a 10 mil barrier, which matters more here than inland because the ground stays damp, tie the slab to the footing with epoxied dowels, and trowel it flat for tile.
Katella Avenue leaves our yard in Anaheim, crosses Stanton and Cypress, and arrives at Los Alamitos City Hall about 8 miles on without a freeway or a turn. That is the road the crew drives, and the building counter is at the end of it, so a permit filed in the morning does not cost the afternoon. The Joint Forces Training Base takes the middle of the city, and the houses run around it in a ring, which is why a town of 11,603 people is a short drive from any side to any other.
The houses are 1950s and 1960s ranch tracts on lots larger than the county norm, single story, wide at the front, with a two car garage and a drive that was poured for two cars and now holds three. Nearly every job here starts with the same question, how far can the drive spread over the lawn, and the answer is the city's, because the new curb cut is in the public walk. Behind the house there is room for a pool, and a deck poured 40 years ago is the slab most often replaced.
Rossmoor, on the far side of Los Alamitos Boulevard, looks like the same town and is not. It is unincorporated, so its permits come from Orange County rather than the city, and a homeowner on the wrong side of the line files with the wrong office. We check the parcel before we file. Coyote Creek marks the west edge of the city and the Los Angeles County line with it, and the 605 runs beside the creek, the route we use when a load comes from a supplier to the north.
The visit, the written figure, the dig and the pour follow the same order everywhere. In Los Alamitos the pour day is set by the sky as much as the diary, and the sheet says so before you sign it.
Omar Espinoza drives Katella west, measures the slab, checks the pool coping or the curb line, and writes the figure at the house.
The old deck or drive is broken out, by hand near a pool, the subgrade compacted, and 4 inches of Class 2 base laid and plate compacted.
A wider approach goes to Los Alamitos City Hall on Katella, a Rossmoor lot to Orange County. We file the right one and meet the inspector.
Four inches with bar, broomed once the sheen has gone, cured for 7 days. Walk on it after 24 hours and drive or swim from it after 7.
Call or use the form and Omar Espinoza will reply within 1 business day with a time. The measure is done at your house, the figure is written there, and the pour is scheduled for a morning the marine layer will not spoil.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by people we have poured for across the towns we cover. Los Alamitos is the western end of them, and the pool decks and drives 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 Los Alamitos homeowners put to us at the visit, on what moves the figure for a pool deck, whose permit a wider drive needs, how the weather sets the pour day and what is under a ranch tract.
The area of the old deck and what is under it. A 1970s deck in Los Alamitos is broken out around a pool that stays full, so the demolition is done by hand near the coping and by machine away from it, and that split sets the crew hours. Then the finish, since exposed aggregate and stamped cost more in labor than a broom. Omar Espinoza measures the deck and the access at the visit and writes the figure there.
Yes, for the curb cut. The added width inside your lot line needs no permit, but the wider approach across the public walk does, and it goes to the building counter at Los Alamitos City Hall on Katella Avenue. If your house is in Rossmoor across Los Alamitos Boulevard, it is unincorporated and the permit comes from Orange County instead. We file with the right office and meet the inspector on the day.
Yes, and we plan for it. Under a gray May morning the slab holds its bleed water an hour longer than it would inland, and a finish put on too early traps that water under the surface, which is what flakes a slab in its first winter. So we pour later in the morning, wait for the sheen to go before the broom, and cure the slab under a compound for 7 days. Summer is cooler than Anaheim and easier on the concrete.
Two to three days on site, then the wait. A drive widening or a patio is dug, based and poured in 2 days, and a full pool deck takes 3 because the demolition around the coping is by hand. The slab is walked on after 24 hours, driven on after 7 days, and a pool deck is back in use once the sealer has cured, which is 48 hours after it goes on. In the gray months we add a day between the pour and the sealer.
About 8 miles down Katella Avenue, and no. Our yard is on West Katella in Anaheim and the road runs through Stanton and Cypress straight to Los Alamitos City Hall, so the crew is on site in 20 minutes on a weekday morning. The figure on the sheet is the measured job, and the drive is not a line on it. Los Alamitos is the far end of what we cover to the west, and we are here most weeks for pool decks alone.
Old farm ground that stays damp. The tracts went in on flat fields a few feet above sea level, and the water table is close enough that a hole dug in February holds water at the bottom by morning. So the subgrade is compacted, the base is 4 inches of Class 2 laid on it, and every interior slab goes over a vapor barrier. A slab poured on the raw soil here does not sink, it sweats, and the coating on it lifts.
Los Alamitos shares a boundary with Cypress to the north, sits beside Hawaiian Gardens across the county line, and is a short run from Stanton and Westminster. One crew covers all of them from Anaheim, and each town's page says what changes there.
Open the Anaheim Office in Google Maps Send the form or call, and we reply within 1 business day to set the visit. The measure and the written figure are free, and the finished slab carries a written workmanship guarantee.