Fontana Concrete Pro builds driveways, patios and garage slabs in Highland, east of our Fontana yard on the 210, on creek cobble and sand. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Highland is the fan of the San Bernardino Mountains. City Creek and Plunge Creek have spread sand and cobble across the city, so a slab here sits on ground that drains fast and holds nothing together.
That ground is good and bad at once. It never heaves, because water runs straight through it instead of sitting in it, so the winter cracking that follows a clay yard is rare in Highland. But loose sand and river rock shift under a chute and a wheelbarrow, and a slab poured onto them as found ends up with a hollow along one edge inside 2 or 3 seasons. On the older streets the rock is near the surface, and a drive there often has a cobble bed under it that was never compacted.
So the subgrade is worked, never taken as found. Loose sand is wetted and plate-compacted until a probe stops, the larger rock is picked out of the top 6 inches, and 4 inches of Class 2 base goes down over it. Steel runs on an 18-inch grid through the slab. Where the fan drops toward the Santa Ana River the fall is steep, so a patio is stepped rather than sloped, and each step gets its own footing into firm material.
Highland holds two towns in one. The citrus-era blocks around Palm Avenue and Base Line need slabs replaced, and the tracts of East Highlands Ranch need yards finished on ground a grader built.
A Highland driveway on the old streets is usually a replacement, because the original was poured thin over loose cobble and has broken into plates. We break it out, pick the rock from the subgrade, compact, and pour 4 inches on 4 inches of base, 5 where an RV parks.
Patios in Highland are asked for on both halves of the city, the East Highlands Ranch yard handed over bare and the old-town yard where a grove once stood. On the fan the fall is real, so a patio is often 2 levels with a step between, each poured on its own compacted pad.
Stamped concrete in Highland is mostly a pool deck or a front entry, and the mountain sun is the reason we steer the color. A dark stamped slab on a south-facing Highland yard is too hot to cross by noon in July, so we cast the pattern in a light integral tone and seal it twice.
Sidewalks on the old streets around Palm Avenue were laid by the county before the city existed, and parkway tree roots have lifted many of them. We saw-cut at the joint, remove the lifted panel, prune the root with the city's consent, and dowel the new panel to its neighbors.
Garage floors in Highland are one of two jobs. In East Highlands Ranch the 1990s slab is sound and needs grinding and a moisture test before a coating. On the old blocks the garage was a shed or a carport once, and the floor is a 2-inch skim that comes out and is repoured at 4.
Decorative work in Highland leans toward exposed aggregate, because the local rock is what the town is built on and it reads right at the door. We seed the surface with washed pea gravel, wash it back at the right hour, and seal it so the mountain dust does not settle into it.
The fan drops from the mountains toward the river, so Highland yards step. A retaining wall here holds fast-draining sand, which pushes less than clay but washes through any gap, so we back it with filter fabric and drain rock, and set the footing 18 inches into firm ground.
Interior slabs in Highland are garages turned into rooms and casitas on the deep old-town lots. We pour over a vapor barrier even though the sand drains, because the creek gravel carries moisture up in the wet months, and trowel the surface flat enough for tile or a polish.
Our yard is in Fontana, about 20 miles west along the 210, so a crew reaches the Base Line Street exit in under 30 minutes and is on site before 8. Plans go to the City of Highland Community Development Department, which issues building permits. The city was only incorporated in 1987, so a permit on an older house is often the first the county or the city has ever recorded for that lot.
The blocks south of Base Line and around Palm Avenue are the old town, with packing-house era cottages and 1950s houses on deep lots that once held groves. Their drives are thin, poured before the modern base rule, and the citrus irrigation lines are still under many yards. East Highlands Ranch, laid out through the 1980s and 1990s, is the other half, where every yard was graded once and the association has to see the plan.
The Santa Ana winds come down the mountain front here harder than anywhere else we work, and a pour on a wind day skins over before it can be finished. We check the forecast for the wind before the truck is booked and hold a job if a warning is posted. Summer is the other constraint. From June to September the pour starts at 6 and is finished before the slab gets direct sun.
One crew from Fontana, a measured figure before anything is agreed, and a subgrade that is compacted because the sand under Highland will not do it on its own.
Andre Whitfield drives out from Fontana, measures the area, probes the sand for depth to firm ground, and writes the figure on site.
We file with the City of Highland Community Development Department where needed, and with the East Highlands Ranch association where it shows.
Loose sand is wetted and compacted, the larger cobble is picked out, and 4 inches of Class 2 base goes down and is plate-compacted.
The pour starts at 6 in summer and is held on a wind day. Walk on it after 24 hours, park after 7, and the yard is swept behind us.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to set a time. Andre Whitfield measures the job on the day, and the written figure costs nothing. We are on the east side of the 210 most weeks.
Reviews
Our own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover from Fontana. Highland is one of them, and the jobs behind these are the jobs 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 a Highland homeowner wants settled before booking, from what the fan ground does to a slab, to the city permit counter, to what the old citrus lines under a yard mean for the work.
The subgrade, more than anywhere else we work. A Highland yard on the fan has loose sand and cobble that must be compacted and part-replaced before base goes down, and a driveway on the old streets has a broken slab and a rock bed to remove first. Size, thickness and finish come after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the figure comes from the tape, not the phone.
Not for a patio, a walk or a driveway at grade inside your own lot. Yes for a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing that carries a roof, and any work in the city right-of-way, which includes the sidewalk and the drive approach. We file with the City of Highland Community Development Department and meet the inspector, and in East Highlands Ranch we submit to the association as well.
Because the edge was poured on loose sand. The fan ground under Highland is mostly creek deposit, and the last foot of a slab often sits on material a shovel pushed aside rather than compacted, so it drops and the slab breaks along the line. We compact the whole pad, thicken the edge to 8 inches, and run steel through it.
We find it before we dig. Lots south of Base Line held groves into the 1960s, and the concrete standpipes and clay lines are still in many yards. We probe the run of the slab, expose any line we hit, cap it or route it, and photograph it for you. A line left under a drive is the usual reason an old-town slab has a soft spot in the middle.
Two to 3 days on site for most yards, and 4 for a full pool deck or a long driveway. Then the slab needs 24 hours before anyone walks on it and 7 days before a car goes on it. In a Santa Ana wind we hold the pour, because the surface dries before it can be finished, so a job booked in October or November may move a day.
Yes, in the ground and in the paperwork. East Highlands Ranch is graded fill with an association that reviews anything visible from the street, so the job starts with a plan and a second approval. The old town around Palm Avenue is natural fan ground with rock near the surface, no association, and a thin original slab to remove.
Highland shares a boundary with San Bernardino to the west and Redlands across the river to the south, and Loma Linda is a short run down the freeway. We cover all of them from the same Fontana yard, so pick the page for your own town.
Open the Fontana Office in Google Maps Send the form, we call back within 1 business day, and the measured estimate is free. The work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.