Katella Anaheim Concrete pours drives, walks, steps and walls in Whittier, 13 miles from our Anaheim yard up Beach Boulevard. A Whittier address is not always the city, and we check first.
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A Whittier address covers two kinds of lot. Inside the city the Building Division checks the plans. In South Whittier and Los Nietos the same address is county ground, on the county's own code.
That matters because the two counters do not ask for the same things. They differ on what needs a permit, how a retaining wall is drawn and who comes to see the footing before it is poured, and a plan filed at the wrong one is a week lost. So the first thing we do on a Whittier job is look the parcel up. Then the house tells the rest. Uptown and the streets round Whittier College are the oldest, 1900s to 1920s, with the thin walks and porch steps they were built with.
East of Painter Avenue and up into Friendly Hills the houses are 1950s and 60s and the drives are the originals, cracked where a 3 and a half inch slab met a root or a wet winter. Those come out whole. The hill streets add the ground. The Puente Hills are clay over old sea floor, and a slab on a graded hillside pad has fill under one side and cut ground under the other. We probe for the line between the two and joint the slab on it, so the halves can move without tearing each other.
Whittier is a city of 86,838 in Los Angeles County wrapped in a ring of county ground that shares its name. The work is the same on both sides, the walks and steps of a 1920s house, the drive of a 1950s one, and the permit is what changes.
A Whittier drive south of Whittier Boulevard is a 1950s slab on river sand, replaced whole on 4 inches of compacted base and jointed every 10 feet. In the hills the same drive is probed for the cut and fill line first and jointed on it, so the two halves move without cracking.
A patio behind a Whittier house is poured to the fall of the lot, and in Friendly Hills that fall is real. We strip to firm ground, replace soft fill at the outer edge, compact 4 inches of base, and pour 4 inches with a joint where the ground changes from cut to fill under it.
Stamped concrete in Whittier goes on the back patio and the pool surround, in a flag or slate pattern colored to the house, not on the front of a 1920s bungalow where it would fight the porch. We stamp it the day of the pour and seal it twice against the hill sun.
A Whittier walk is often older than the house next door, and in Uptown it is formed to match the panel beside it, width, grain and all. A public walk inside the city is replaced under a permit to the city's section, in the county ring to the county's, and we know which first.
A 1950s garage floor in Whittier is checked for a displaced crack from the 1987 earthquake before anyone talks about a coating, because an epoxy over a moving crack fails in a season. A sound slab is ground and coated. A broken one comes out and is repoured 4 inches on base.
Decorative work at a Whittier Craftsman is the finish, not the pattern, an exposed aggregate walk or a broomed field with a smooth border in a color close to old cement. On a 1960s house in East Whittier a colored field suits it. We sample the color on the lot in the sun.
Retaining walls in Whittier hold graded hillside pads off Turnbull Canyon Road and in Friendly Hills, where a yard steps 3 or 4 feet at the fence. A wall over 4 feet is engineered, permitted by the city or the county, footed below the fill into firm clay, and drained.
An interior slab in Whittier is an ADU behind a 1950s house or a converted garage, and state law lets one onto most lots on both sides of the line. We pour 4 inches over a 10 mil barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat for tile, and set the joints under the walls.
Beach Boulevard runs north from our yard in Anaheim through Buena Park and La Habra to Whittier Boulevard, and a crew is in Uptown about 30 minutes after it leaves, 13 miles. Whittier was laid out in 1887, incorporated in 1898, and permits inside the city go to the city's own Building Division on Penn Street. The ring outside it, South Whittier and West Whittier-Los Nietos among the named parts, is permitted by Los Angeles County Public Works, and the parcel decides which.
Uptown is the old Quaker grid around Greenleaf Avenue and Philadelphia Street, and the Craftsman and Spanish houses on it carry the oldest flatwork we work on, porch steps and front walks from before 1930. We form a new step to the riser and the nosing of the old one and broom the tread to the old grain, because a modern step on a 1915 porch is the first thing a buyer sees. South of Whittier Boulevard the lots are 1940s and 50s bungalows on the sand of the San Gabriel River plain.
The hills are the other Whittier. Friendly Hills and the streets off Turnbull Canyon Road sit on graded pads cut into clay, and a patio on the downhill side has fill under its outer edge that was placed for the house. We probe that edge and step the base to firm ground. The other date is October 1987, when the Whittier Narrows earthquake cracked foundations across the city, so a 1950s garage floor here is checked for a displaced crack before a coating is quoted.
Four stages, and the first is a parcel lookup, because a Whittier job is filed with the city or with the county and a week is lost by guessing. The figure is measured and written on the lot on the same visit.
Omar Espinoza looks the parcel up, walks the lot for fall and access, measures the work and writes the figure before he leaves.
Old concrete is broken and hauled, roots cut back, hillside fill probed and replaced, and 4 inches of base placed and compacted.
Flatwork at grade needs no permit. A wall, a footing or a cover goes to Penn Street inside the city and to the county outside it.
Most Whittier jobs are 2 or 3 days on site. Joints are sawn the day of the pour, feet go on at 24 hours, a car at 7 days.
Call or send the form and Omar Espinoza calls back within 1 business day with a time. Every estimate is measured and written on site, the parcel is looked up before we arrive, and the run up Beach Boulevard costs you nothing.
Reviews
Our own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across north Orange County and the Los Angeles County towns beside it. Whittier is the north end of that run.
“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 Whittier owners ask before a job is agreed, on what moves the figure, on whether the city or the county holds the permit, on the drive from Anaheim, on the hills, on the old steps in Uptown and the wait.
Which side of the line the lot is on, then what comes out. A county permit and a city permit are timed and charged differently, and a footing or a wall carries one. Then the old concrete, because a 1920s walk in Uptown breaks up in an hour and a 1960s drive in Friendly Hills with wire in it takes a morning. Then the hill, where a truck cannot back onto a pad. The tape settles the rest, on the lot.
The county assessor's parcel map says, and we check it before anything else. Inside the city line the Building Division on Penn Street takes the plans. South Whittier and West Whittier-Los Nietos carry a Whittier address but are unincorporated, and Los Angeles County Public Works permits and inspects there. A lot on a boundary road can be either, and the mailing address is no guide.
No. It is 13 miles up Beach Boulevard, about 30 minutes, and a step or a walk is a day's work, so the drive is made twice and the job is done. You hear from Omar Espinoza within 1 business day, the visit is fixed for that week, and once a job starts the crew is on your lot each day until it is finished rather than split between towns.
Matched. A Craftsman porch in Uptown was built with its steps, and a new set with a different riser, a squared nosing or a smooth tread reads as a repair from the street. We measure the old profile before it is broken out, form the new risers to it, broom the treads to the old grain, and cure it slowly so the color comes out close to the old cement gray.
Because the outer edge is on fill. A pad in Friendly Hills or off Turnbull Canyon was cut into the slope on the uphill side and built up on the downhill side, and the built up part settles for decades. A patio poured across both without a joint at the line cracks there. We probe for the line, dig the soft fill out at the edge, step the base down to firm ground and put a joint where the ground changes.
Yes. La Habra and La Habra Heights are on the way up Beach Boulevard, and La Mirada is a turn off Imperial Highway, so all three are served from the same yard on the same day as a Whittier job. Santa Fe Springs and Pico Rivera to the west are not on our list. A lot on a city line gets the same crew and the permit counter of whichever side it stands on.
Whittier borders La Habra and La Habra Heights on the Orange County line and La Mirada to the south, and we cover all three from the same yard in Anaheim. A street on the county line, or between the city and its county ring, is covered either way.
Open the Anaheim Office in Google Maps Send the form, hear from us within 1 business day, and get the figure written on your lot, city or county. It carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.