Katella Anaheim Concrete pours footings for additions, conversions, covers and walls, dug to the depth of the footing already there and pinned to it. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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How a footing is set here
A new footing fails by moving differently from the one it is joined to. The house on the lot was set on a shallow footing in the sand sixty years ago and has finished settling; the addition beside it is new, on new ground, and will settle a fraction more in its first year. Dug to the same depth as the old footing, on bearing that has been proved, and pinned to it with dowels drilled and set in epoxy, the two move as one and the wall between them never opens.
Katella Anaheim Concrete has trenched and poured footings from West Katella Avenue since 2016, and Omar Espinoza checks every trench against the drawing before the inspector is called, after 22 years setting forms for other people's additions. Most of what is added in Anaheim now is added to a house from the 1950s to the 1970s, a second story, a room across the back, a garage turned into a unit under the state's ADU law, and each starts with a footing tied to the old one.
Footings are built to the California Residential Code in Seismic Design Category D under a CSLB C-8 license, with liability insurance on every job. Every one is on a permit from the city's Planning and Building Department, and the trench is inspected open, steel tied and depth measured, before a yard of concrete is ordered. Hillside walls step down the slope as the code asks. Each carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Sooner or later
A property line wall in Anaheim goes up on a poured footing or it goes over. Block set on a shovel-width strip of concrete an inch or two into the sand leans within a decade, and once it is off plumb the only repair is to take it down. A wall of any height is a footing first.
An aluminum or wood cover bolted to a 4-inch patio slab is standing on nothing rated for the lift of a wind. The post pulls at the slab corner, the slab cracks out from the bolt, and the cover racks. A post footing dug below the slab and tied to it holds through the Santa Ana winds.
The footing under a single-story tract house was sized for one floor and a light roof. Adding a floor puts more onto it than it was poured for, and the plans will call for the old footing to be widened or deepened along that wall before framing goes up. It is a footing job first.
A garage floor is a slab, not a foundation, and a conversion that adds a bathroom, a kitchen or a bedroom wall needs a footing under any new bearing line. The city's plan check will ask for it, and the trench along the inside of the garage wall is cut through the old slab first.
In every footing
Eight things are in every footing at no separate line, each answering what an addition beside an Anaheim house asks of it: a footing already there to be met, sand that bears well and stands badly, and an inspector who sees the trench before the truck does.
Where the trench runs under a patio, a walk or a garage floor, the concrete is sawn and lifted first, and hauled off the same day.
The existing footing is dug out along the join so its depth and width are known, not guessed from the year the house was built.
The trench is dug to the depth the plan and the old footing set, and the bottom is cleaned to firm ground rather than left as loose spoil.
Anaheim sand slumps off a vertical cut, so the trench is formed in plywood where it does, and the width on the drawing is the width poured.
Bars are drilled into the existing footing and set in epoxy at the spacing the engineer calls for, so the two footings act as one.
The cage is tied to size and held on chairs at 3 inches of cover, with the bolts and holdowns wired in place before the inspection.
The city's inspector sees the trench with the steel in it and signs the card, and only then is the concrete ordered and placed.
The footing is walked against the plan, depth, width, steel and bolts, and the written guarantee is handed over on the day.
What can be built
Four kinds of footing poured on an Anaheim lot, set against what stands on them and how they meet the house already there. The dig and the inspection are the same in all four, so the table is about the concrete and the steel.
| Option | Carries | Size and steel | Meets the house | Back to work |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Continuous strip footing | A room addition or a full ADU | 12 by 18 inches, two number 4 bars | Doweled into the old footing | Framing at 3 days |
| Pad footing on a post | Patio covers, carports, decks | 24-inch square, bars both ways | Stands clear of the slab | Post set at 3 days |
| Underpinned strip footing | A second story on a tract house | Poured in 4-foot bays with dowels | Carries the old wall on it | Framing at 7 days |
| Block wall footing | Property line and garden walls | Vertical dowels into the first course | Kept clear of the house footing | Block laid at 3 days |
A pad footing is the least concrete of the four and the quickest to inspect; the underpinned strip beneath a second story is the one that cannot be skipped.
Ground and house
Two things set a footing here, and neither is on the engineer's drawing: what the house next to it already stands on, and how the sand behaves the moment the trench is open.
A tract house on the flat side of the city stands on a footing poured to the code of its decade, often 12 inches deep and no wider than the wall, in sand that has carried it without complaint. That sand bears well because it drains and does not swell, but it will not hold a cut face, so a trench dug in the morning has slumped by the afternoon and a footing poured into the slump is the wrong size. The sides are boxed the day they are dug, and the pour follows the inspection by a day.
East of the 55, on the graded pads of Anaheim Hills, the trench is a different job. Clay holds a cut face but swells when it wets, so the footing is taken below the depth that seasonal moisture reaches, and a wall running down a slope is stepped so every length bears level. Where a pad was cut on one side and filled on the other, the footing on the fill side goes deeper until it reaches native ground. The retaining wall at the back of such a pad is poured on the same visit.
From plan to pour
Five stages, the same crew at each, and the person who measures the old footing is the one who calls in the inspection. Nothing is dug until the permit is issued and the drawing is in hand.
Omar Espinoza reads the engineer's drawing, digs a hole beside the house to measure what it stands on, and writes the figure at the property.
You pick the week, the permit is pulled from the Planning and Building Department, and the concrete is not ordered until the card is signed.
Any slab in the way is sawn out, the trench is dug to the depth on the plan, and the sides are formed in plywood where the sand will not stand.
The cage is tied on chairs, the dowels are drilled into the old footing, the bolts are placed, and the inspector sees all of it open.
The concrete goes in the day after the inspection, the forms come off at 2 days, the trench is backfilled, and the paperwork changes hands.
Behind the number
The trench length starts the figure and the join to the house finishes it. Two footings from one drawing can differ by a day of work once the old one is exposed, so nothing is quoted from a plan alone. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A single-story addition is a strip footing on three sides, doweled into the old footing at both ends, in sand that has to be boxed first.
The trench is cut through the garage slab along the new bearing walls, so sawing and hauling are in the figure before the digging starts.
Underpinning the existing wall footing in short bays, one at a time, takes more days on site than a new trench of the same length.
Footings stepped down the slope and deepened on the fill side are more concrete and more inspections than the same wall on the flat.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and the call to set a time for it comes within 1 business day. (657) 220-6196 or send us a message.
Send the form or call, and someone rings back within 1 business day to set a time. Omar Espinoza reads the plan, exposes the old footing and writes the figure at the property, and there is no obligation on the figure once you hold it.
Footings we poured
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a footing rather than a slab or a drive, and each naming the addition it now carries or the inspection it passed first time.
“We added a bedroom across the back of our 1962 house in West Anaheim. The trench slumped the first afternoon and they boxed it in plywood the same day, drilled the bars into the old footing, and the inspector signed it without a note. Two years on and the join has not cracked.”
“Converting the garage meant cutting the slab along two walls for footings. Omar measured what the house stood on first, dug to match it, and had the city inspection passed on a Tuesday and the concrete in on the Wednesday. The unit has been rented out since last spring.”
“Our block wall on the slope in Anaheim Hills had leaned and had to come down. They stepped the new footing down the hill in four lengths and went deeper on the fill side, and the inspector remarked on the steel. One wet winter on it and it is dead plumb.”
Before you book
What moves the figure on a footing, how long the trench is open, which drawings the city wants, and what is guaranteed on concrete nobody will ever see again, answered for a lot here.
What the trench runs through and what it joins, more than how long it is. A trench through a garage slab is sawn and lifted before it is dug. A trench in the sand on the flat side is boxed in plywood, which is a day of forming a clay trench in the hills does not need. A footing that underpins an existing wall is poured in short bays rather than one run. Each is seen at the visit, measured, and written down.
One or two days, and never over a weekend. The trench is dug and boxed on the first day, the steel is tied and the dowels are set on the same day or the next, the inspector is called for the following morning, and the concrete is placed the day the card is signed. Leaving a trench in Anaheim sand open for a week means digging it twice. Forms come off at 2 days and framing can start on a strip footing at 3.
The inspection is, the engineering usually is not. The permit fee, the call for the footing inspection and the time on site with the inspector are in the figure. The structural drawing that sizes the footing comes from your engineer or designer, because the city's plan check wants a stamp on it, and if you do not have one yet we say so at the visit and name who we work with. The number you sign is billed.
Any footing that carries part of a building, an addition, a conversion, a second story, and any footing under a patio cover or a carport attached to the house. All of those go through the city's Planning and Building Department and are inspected open. A garden wall is exempt below a height the code sets; above it the wall is engineered and permitted too. We pull the permit and meet the inspector at the trench.
Almost never. Settlement, a leaning wall and a footing that was undersized when it was poured are maintenance to a carrier, not a sudden loss, and the owner pays for the new one. What may be covered is the cause when it was sudden: a broken water line that washed the sand out from under one corner, or a vehicle that took a wall down. Photograph it before anything is dug, and ask the carrier before you book.
How it was built: the depth dug, the width poured, the bar tied at the cover the drawing calls for, the dowels set into the old footing and the bolts placed where the plan shows, with those terms on the estimate. It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Ground moving beyond what the footing was engineered for, and anything the framer does above it, sit outside it.
A 2,500 to 3,000 psi ready-mix placed the day it is batched, number 4 bar tied at 3 inches of cover, and epoxy-set dowels of the same bar into the existing footing, with the anchor bolts and holdowns the plan calls for wired in before the pour. The mix, the bar size and the spacing are named on the estimate, so what is in the trench can be checked against what you signed.
No, and the inspector would rather you were not in the trench. You are needed for the measurement at the start and the walk-through at the end. In between the crew needs the gate open, water, and the side yard clear for the spoil and the concrete truck. The inspection card stays on site, and if a note is written on it we call you the same day with what it says and when it will be cleared.
Towns we pour in
The eight nearest towns on the list, with the straight-line distance from the office on West Katella Avenue beside each. Every footing is measured beside the house before a figure is written.
Four jobs that are booked with a footing or grow out of one, by the same crew and on the same permit where the city allows it, and itemized on the one written estimate.
The slab for the ADU or the addition, poured inside the footing once it has cured.
The wall at the back of a hillside pad, on a footing keyed into the slope it holds.
The flight up to the new door, on its own footing so it cannot pull away from the house.
The straight cut through a garage slab or a patio where the trench has to run under it.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say what is being built, whether there is a drawing yet, and what year the house went up, and the visit can be booked for a day inside the same week.