Concrete contractor in El Monte, CA - slabs that drain on flat, older lots

A lot of El Monte houses are older single-story homes on narrow lots, with the garage out back and one long driveway running past the house to reach it. That driveway carries every car, trash bin and moving truck the house ever sees, and the old ones were often poured thin, so we find them cracked through and broken up near the street. Getting a crew and material down a strip that narrow takes planning, and I'd rather wheel concrete in a load at a time than pour a slab we can't finish right.

The city designs buildings to one of California's higher earthquake categories unless a soils report for your lot sets a different one, and that matters when the job is a slab or footings for a back-yard unit or an addition. We pour those to the approved plans, with rebar, the steel bars that hold the concrete together if it cracks, set where the plans put it.

In El Monte, the city's Building Department is the main stop for plan review, permits and inspections, and its counter staff tell you which other departments your project touches. Work on public property, which usually includes the strip where your driveway meets the street, needs a permit from Public Works before anyone starts. The city asks for proof of a valid contractor license, a City of El Monte business license and insurance that names the city before it issues that permit, so those are fair things to ask any bidder for. We're fully licensed and insured, and when a job goes through the city's review and inspection, we set the start date around them instead of promising one we can't keep.

What moves the price here is mostly what's underneath and how we get to it, meaning how much old concrete comes out, how much the subgrade, the soil the slab sits on, needs digging out and packing, how far we wheel material down a side yard, and the thickness and finish you pick. The schedule turns on the permit, if there is one, and the weather, and your own number goes on paper in the written estimate after I've seen the ground. We come over on the 10 from Pomona, and on streets lined with parked cars we plan where the mixer truck sits before pour day. The same crew pours in West Covina and out east in Jurupa Valley.

El Monte is one of the busier cities we work in, with apartments and shops along its main streets and blocks of older houses behind them. Our calls here come mostly from homeowners replacing worn driveways or adding a slab for a back-yard unit, with property managers mixed in for walks and parking areas. It's the same work we do from our base in Pomona and across the cities around it.

The ground is flat and the houses have had decades to settle, so on most El Monte jobs the hard part isn't the pour, it's getting water off the slab. That's why our flatwork, the driveways, patios and walks that sit on the ground, starts with where the water runs.