Katella Anaheim Concrete replaces pool decks with the suction, return and light lines beneath them pressure tested before concrete goes back over them. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
5.0 Stars Rated by Anaheim customers · Google, Facebook and the BBB
Under the deck
Every pipe a pool has runs under its deck. The skimmer line, the returns, the main drain run and the conduit to the light all leave the shell below the coping and cross to the equipment pad under the concrete, so the deck is the lid on the pool's plumbing. Taking the deck off is the one time in a pool's life those lines can be seen, tested and replaced without cutting concrete to reach them, and a deck poured over an untested line is poured over the next leak.
Katella Anaheim Concrete was opened in 2016 by Omar Espinoza, who spent 22 years on other crews first, and he is at the pool for every pour. Pools here went in with the tracts, and a pool from the 1960s or 1970s is often on its first set of lines, copper for the water and steel conduit for the light. Both corrode in damp ground, and a deck that has been replaced once already usually had its new concrete poured straight over them.
Decks are built to the California Residential Code under a CSLB C-8 concrete license, with liability insurance on every job. A deck inside the yard around a pool that already exists is a repair, but any change to the barrier, the gates or the bonding is inspected, and the deck's steel is tied into the pool's bonding grid as the California Electrical Code asks. The finished deck carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Repair or replace
One place on the deck stays dark an hour after the rest has dried in the sun, and it is always the same place. Water is reaching it from below, from a return or a skimmer line weeping into the sand under the slab, and no sealer over the top will stop what is coming up through it.
Air in the pump basket and a pump that needs priming each morning point to a suction leak, and the suction line runs from the skimmer under the deck. A leak on that side draws air rather than losing water, so the pool level does not give it away. The deck over it is where the fix is.
A deck panel sunk away from the coping, leaving a lip to catch a toe, has lost the ground under it. On the sand side of the city a leaking pipe carries the sand off with the water, and the slab spans a void till it breaks. Mudjacking fills the hole, but the pipe keeps emptying it.
A pool losing more than evaporation, with a wet band on the deck between the pool and the equipment, is losing it through a line under the concrete. A bucket test on the step tells you it is not the sun. Every day it runs, more of the base under the deck goes with the water.
In every deck
Eight things are in every deck at no separate line, and each answers what lies under a deck in this city. Pipes on their first fifty years, sand that leaves with the water, and a shell that must not be touched by the saw.
The old deck is cut free along the coping and the bond beam before the breaker starts, so nothing hits the shell and the tile stays on the wall.
The skimmer, return, drain and light lines are exposed where they cross under the deck, walked and photographed before anything is decided.
Each line is plugged and held under pressure, and any that drops is replaced in PVC while the trench is open rather than concreted over.
Backfill over the lines and the ring around the shell is compacted in lifts and plate tested, because that ring is where every deck settles.
The deck's mesh is tied to the pool's bonding conductor with a listed lug, so a swimmer stepping out is at the same potential as the water.
A mastic joint the full depth of the slab between the deck and the coping, so the deck moves on its ground without pulling on the shell.
The slab is graded a quarter inch a foot away from the pool to a deck drain or the lawn, so splash and rinse water never head back to the coping.
We walk the deck with you against the estimate, joints, fall, finish and the test results, and hand over the written guarantee.
Four faces
Four ways to finish a deck once the ground and the pipes under it are settled, set against bare feet, wet feet and what each asks for later. Everything under the surface is the same in all four, so the table is about the face alone.
| Option | Barefoot in July | Wet footing | Kept up by | Swim again |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light broom, pale gray | Warm by three, still walkable | Good, the broom lines hold a wet foot | A sealer as it fades | 7 days after the pour |
| Rock salt finish | Cooler, the pits shade themselves | Good, pitted across the face | Sealer as it dulls, pits swept | 7 days after the pour |
| Exposed aggregate | Warm, dark stone holds the sun | Surest, the stone stands proud | A wash down, no coating to renew | 7 days after the pour |
| Textured acrylic overlay | Coolest, the pale colors most | Good while the texture lasts | Recoated as it wears through | Walked on the next day |
A broom finish costs least and shows the least; exposed aggregate costs most to place and is the one that never needs recoating.
Pipes and ground
A pool in this city is usually as old as the tract around it, and what fails first is not the shell or the deck but the lines running between them under the concrete.
On the flat, the deck sits on the same river sand the rest of the yard does, and sand does something clay does not. It travels with water. A return line weeping a cupful an hour under a deck makes no puddle, it carries the bedding away grain by grain toward wherever the water goes, and the slab above spans a hollow it cannot see. The first sign is a panel dropping at the coping, and by then half the bedding can be gone. Filling the void without finding the line buys the next one.
On the pads up the canyon the equipment often sits below the pool, so the lines run downhill under the deck and through fill placed when the pad was cut. That fill settles for decades, and a rigid pipe crossing from the shell, which does not move, into fill, which does, shears at the line between them. We lay new lines with a sweep across that line. A deck that also holds the slope is built with its retaining wall.
From call to swim
Five stages, the same crew at each, and the person who tests the lines is the person on the float at the pour. The pool stays full the whole way through, because an empty shell in wet ground can lift.
Omar Espinoza measures the deck, runs a bucket test and puts each line under pressure from the equipment pad, and writes the figure there.
You set the finish and color against a sample, place the drain, and take a date. Any barrier or gate change is filed with the city first.
The deck is sawn clear of the coping, broken out and hauled, and the lines under it are exposed along their whole run and tested again in the open.
Any failed line is replaced in PVC, trenches and ring compacted in lifts, the mesh bonded to the grid, and the deck poured on a fall to the drain.
Joints sawn the same day, the slab kept damp seven days, the coping joint filled, and the test results handed over on the walk-through.
Behind the number
The area of the deck starts the figure and what is under it finishes it. Two decks the same size can be days apart in work once the lines are tested, which is why nothing is quoted from a photo. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A deck on sand. How much bedding a leak has carried off, and how many of the lines fail the test and are replaced while the trench is open.
Equipment set below the pool means long runs through fill, a deck on two levels, and often a wall at the low edge, each measured as its own area.
A small lot puts the deck against the fences, so the old slab leaves and the new arrives by barrow through a side gate, which is measured in days.
A broom finish is the base line. Salt and exposed aggregate add placing time, and an overlay adds a second visit once the slab has cured.
The visit, the pressure test and the written figure cost nothing, and the call to arrange them comes within 1 business day. (657) 220-6196 or send us a message.
Ring or send the form and someone comes back to you within 1 business day with a time. Omar Espinoza measures the deck, pressure tests the lines from the equipment pad and writes the figure at the pool, with nothing owed for any of it.
Decks we replaced
Three reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB, each about a pool deck rather than a patio, and each naming what was found under the old one before the new one went down.
“Our pool in West Anaheim was losing an inch a week and two firms had already quoted to mudjack the sunken corner. Omar tested the lines and the return under that corner failed straight away. New pipe, compacted, broom finish, and the pool has held its level since spring.”
“Pool from 1971, deck from 1971, copper lines. He found two pinholes with the deck off and ran everything new in PVC before pouring a salt finish. The inspector checked the bonding lug and passed it. It is the first summer the pump has not needed priming in years.”
“Small yard, deck on three sides, and everything went out and came in through a side gate. They kept the pool full the whole time, graded the new deck to a drain along the fence and put an overlay on it that stays cool. My kids are on it barefoot in August.”
Before you book
What decides the figure on a deck with old lines under it, how long the pool is out of bounds, what the city inspects, and what is guaranteed once the mastic is in, answered for a pool here.
What the pressure test finds. The concrete for a deck is set by its area and finish and changes little between two yards, but a line that fails the test is dug along its whole run, replaced and backfilled, and a deck where three lines fail is a different week from a deck where none do. The other mover is the ground, which on the sand side of the city may have left with the water. Both are measured at the pool.
About ten days, and the water stays in the whole time. Two days to cut, break out and uncover the lines, a day or two to test and replace them, a day to compact and pour, then seven days of curing before the deck is walked on. The pool is never drained, since an empty shell in damp ground can float, and the pump is off only while its lines are open. An overlay adds one visit after the cure.
The test is, and the replacement is its own line. Pressure testing every line from the equipment pad is done at the visit and again once the deck is off, at no charge, because it decides everything else. Any line that fails is priced per run on the estimate, so you see what a return or a skimmer line adds before you sign. What sits outside the figure is named at the visit, such as a light niche corroded through.
Not for the concrete alone. Replacing the deck around a pool that already exists, inside the yard, is repair work under the Residential Code and the city does not ask for a permit for it. What the city does inspect is anything the new deck changes about the barrier, the gates and the bonding, since the Swimming Pool Safety Act sets the fence and the Electrical Code sets the grid. A deck that moves a gate is filed.
Sometimes for the leak, rarely for the deck. A policy here often covers finding a leak and the cost of opening concrete to reach it, but treats a slab that settled over years of seepage as wear rather than a sudden loss, and the deck is then yours to replace. Keep the leak detection report, photograph the sunken panel before we cut it, and ask your carrier what the access part covers.
How it was built. The compaction, the depth poured, the steel through it, the bonding, the fall to the drain and the finish, with those terms printed on the estimate before you sign, are covered by a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built. Staining, a chemical spill, and ground moving beyond what the joints control sit outside it. Where the fault is ours we put it right.
A 3,500 psi mix placed the morning it is batched, Class 2 base under it, welded mesh through it tied to a listed bonding lug, and schedule 40 PVC for any line replaced, solvent welded and held under pressure before it is buried. The joint at the coping is a self-leveling polyurethane mastic over a foam backer, and the sealer is a penetrating silane rather than a film. Every product is named on the estimate.
For the test at the start and the walk-through at the end. In between the crew needs the gate unlocked, power at the equipment pad and the pump left off while the lines are open. Children and dogs stay indoors on the days the deck is off, because the ring around the pool is open trench then, and we fence it each evening. If the deck is your only way to the back door, say so and it is poured in two halves.
Pools we pour at
The eight nearest towns on the list, with the straight-line distance from the office on West Katella Avenue beside each. Every deck is measured and every line tested at the pool before a figure is written.
Four jobs that are usually booked with a new deck or in the same yard, on the same base and the same fall, by the same crew, and itemized on the one written estimate.
The slab the deck runs into, poured with it on one fall so the two meet flush.
A deck or the patio beside it stamped in stone or slate and colored pale to stay cool.
The wall that holds a hillside pad above or below the pool, poured on its own footing.
The steps down from the house to the deck, poured to the same tread and the same finish.
Call or send the form and you hear back within 1 business day. Say how old the pool is and whether it is losing water, and the visit, with the pressure test, can be booked for a day inside the same week.