Fontana Concrete Pro pours drives, slabs and walls on the acre lots of El Sobrante, down the 15 from Fontana and off at Cajalco Road. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
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El Sobrante sits on the granite hills between Lake Mathews and the Gavilan Hills, and the ground is decomposed granite that drains fast and carries a slab well, until it meets rock or an old cut.
The lots were sold as acreage from the 1970s on, and many pads were cut into a hillside by the owner rather than a tract engineer. That leaves a pad that is native granite at the back and pushed fill at the front edge, where the drive and the turnaround usually go. Decomposed granite compacts hard when it is placed properly and slumps like sand when it is not, so the same lot can carry a slab for thirty years at one end and drop it in the first wet winter at the other.
So the pad is read before the forms go up. We probe the front edge for pushed fill and take it out to firm granite, scab the rock down where it stands proud, and lay 4 inches of Class 2 base plate-compacted so the slab bears on one surface. A drive that carries a horse trailer or a boat gets 5 to 6 inches with number 4 steel on an 18-inch grid, and the joints are cut within 12 hours so any crack the ground induces runs straight.
El Sobrante is horse property and ranchettes on the hills around Lake Mathews, not a tract, so a job here is measured in hundreds of feet of drive rather than a slab at the back door. The ground is decomposed granite over rock.
A driveway in El Sobrante runs from the road to a house set back on acreage, so it is poured in sections, 4 inches for cars and 5 to 6 under a trailer, on compacted base over the granite, with the edges thickened wherever the drive faces a bank.
Patios in El Sobrante face the hills and the lake basin, and most sit on a pad the owner cut rather than a tract engineer. We probe for pushed fill at the edge of the pad, base it, and grade the slab to send water into a swale instead of over the bank.
Stamped concrete in El Sobrante replaces the gravel aprons and loose pavers that wash out on these slopes. The pattern is cast into a 4 inch slab and sealed in 2 coats, and a stone or ashlar pattern sits well beside the granite outcrops on the lots.
Most El Sobrante roads have no public sidewalk, so the walks here are the paths from a parking pad to the door and from the house to the barn. We pour them 4 inches thick with a broom finish for grip, because they slope, and cut a joint every 10 feet.
Garage and shop floors in El Sobrante carry a tractor or a lifted truck as often as a car, so they are poured 5 inches thick with number 4 steel. Over granite the vapor risk is low, but we still test a slab for moisture before any coating goes down on it.
Decorative concrete on a lot in El Sobrante is an entry court or a pool deck facing the Gavilan Hills. We pour a light integral color with a salt or broom finish, because a dark slab is too hot to stand on by afternoon through the summer on these hills.
Retaining walls hold the cut behind a pad or the fill under a drive on most El Sobrante lots. A wall here is footed into the granite rather than into the pushed fill, drained behind the stem, and permitted through Riverside County once it passes 4 feet.
Interior slabs in El Sobrante go under barns, shops and the ADUs state law allows on acreage. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier, size the thickness to what will stand on it, and trowel a house slab flat enough to take tile straight on it.
Our yard is in Fontana and the drive is the 15 south to Cajalco Road, then east toward the lake, about 25 miles, so a crew and a pump are on site early. El Sobrante is unincorporated, and plans do not go to a city. They go to the Riverside County Building and Safety Department, and a wall or a footing here is inspected by a county inspector, which adds a few days to the calendar. A Riverside mailing address does not change that, and we say so on the first visit.
The lots along El Sobrante Road and Cajalco Road run from half an acre to several, with the house set back from the road and a long drive up to it. That drive is the biggest job on most properties, and it is where the previous owner's gravel or asphalt has washed out. Toward La Sierra Avenue and the Riverside line the parcels tighten up and the houses are newer, and on the Corona side there are tracts where the side yard is the same 5 feet it is anywhere else.
Water and rock run the calendar. Lake Mathews is a fenced reservoir, so the land around it is open hillside that sheds its rain onto the roads and down the drives, and every slab we pour here is graded to move that water off its length and into a swale. The summers pass 100 degrees on these hills, so from June to September we pour at first light, and in the wet months a long drive is poured in sections so a storm never catches a whole pour open.
Four stages, with the county inspector written into the calendar. A long drive on acreage is measured by its length and the load it carries, so the first visit walks all of it and the written figure covers all of it.
Andre Whitfield walks the drive end to end, probes the front edge for pushed fill, checks for rock in the cut and writes the figure on site.
Flatwork needs none. A wall over 4 feet or a footing goes to the Riverside County Building and Safety Department, and we file it for you.
Loose fill comes out, rock is scabbed flat, 4 inches of Class 2 base is compacted, and the steel is tied to match the load the slab carries.
A long drive is poured in sections from the road end, joints cut within 12 hours. Walk on it at 24 hours and drive on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we call you back within 1 business day to set the visit. Measuring a long drive on acreage takes a while, it is free, and we are down the 15 most weeks of the year.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover from Fontana. The acreage work behind some of them is in El Sobrante, and it is the work described above.
“Our house south of Valley is one of the old steel-town builds and the driveway had never been replaced. They broke out 520 square feet, screened the cobble out of the base and poured 5 inches. Andre cut the joints himself before he left.”
“We are in one of the newer tracts up north and the builder patio was cracked across the middle in three years. Fontana Concrete Pro dug it out, put a proper base under it and poured 320 square feet with joints on a 10-foot grid. No cracks after two summers.”
“The slope at the back of our lot in Jurupa Hills was moving every winter and taking the fence with it. They poured a 40-foot wall on footings to 24 inches with drainage behind it. Two wet seasons on and there is not a crack in it anywhere.”
What people in El Sobrante ask before booking, from the county permit counter and the granite under the pad to the load a drive must carry, the time a slab is out of use and the towns we reach nearby.
Length and load, before anything else. A drive on an acre lot in El Sobrante can run a few hundred feet, and one that carries a horse trailer is poured thicker with heavier steel than one that carries a car. Rock in the cut adds hours. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the figure comes off the walk and not off a table.
Riverside County, because El Sobrante is unincorporated and not part of Riverside or Corona. The Riverside County Building and Safety Department takes the application for a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing under a cover or a barn slab, and a county inspector comes out. Flatwork at grade on your own land needs no permit, and we tell you which you have on the first visit.
Not if it bears on one material. Decomposed granite compacts hard, and the cracks come where a slab crosses from it onto pushed fill or onto a boulder standing proud. We dig the fill to firm ground, scab the rock, compact 4 inches of base over the whole length, and cut the joints within 12 hours so whatever movement the ground still has ends up in a straight line.
5 to 6 inches, with number 4 steel on an 18-inch grid. A car drive is 4 inches, but much of El Sobrante is horse property where a two-horse trailer or a boat on a tandem axle comes up the drive, and 4 inches under that load breaks along the wheel lines within a few years. The extra thickness is what makes the drive last as long as the rest of the property.
A patio or a pad is 2 to 3 days on site. A long drive on acreage is poured in sections and runs 4 to 5 days, because a section has to be jointed and covered before the next is set. Each section takes foot traffic after 24 hours and a vehicle after 7 days, and we sequence them so you can always reach the house from the road.
Yes. Lake Mathews next door is county land like El Sobrante and gets the same county inspector, and Norco and Eastvale across the 15 are covered from the same Fontana yard, each with its own page. The ground changes across the freeway, from granite on the lake side to the flat fill of the old dairy land, and each page says what that does to the work.
El Sobrante sits between Lake Mathews, the south edge of Riverside and the east side of Corona, with Norco and Eastvale across the 15, all reached from Fontana. If your property is on a line, read the page for the place your permit goes through.
Open the Fontana Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day. The walk and the written figure are free, and every job carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.