Fontana Concrete Pro pours drives, pads and retaining walls on the acre lots between Cajalco Road and the reservoir. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
5.0 Stars Rated by our customers · Google, Facebook and the BBB
Lake Mathews is granite country. The hills around the reservoir are the weathered rock of the Perris Block, and most lots are decomposed granite over bedrock, with boulders where the rock held.
Decomposed granite is close to the ideal subgrade. It drains, it compacts hard, and it does not swell when the winter rain arrives, so a slab poured on it stays where it was poured. The trouble is what sits on top of it. Lots here were graded once, when the house went up, and the ground a hundred feet from the house is loose surface material, fill from an old cut, or a pocket of rock a compactor cannot reach. A drive placed on that without a look underneath has a firm end and a soft end.
So we open the ground before we trust it. The subgrade is probed along the full run of a drive, loose material is dug to the firm granite and replaced with 4 inches of Class 2 base, and a boulder that breaks the line is cut or built around rather than bridged. Drives and pads that will carry a trailer or a truck go in at 5 inches with number 4 steel on an 18-inch grid, and joints are cut every 10 feet so the slab cracks where we chose.
Nothing in Lake Mathews is a standard size. A drive runs the length of a lot, a garage is built for a trailer, and a yard steps down a granite slope, so every job here is sized off the property rather than off a tract plan.
A drive in Lake Mathews is a road, not an apron, since the house can sit 200 feet back from Cajalco Road or a shared private lane. We pour it 5 inches thick in sections on 4 inches of compacted base, with number 4 steel where a trailer turns, and crown it to shed the rain.
A patio here faces the reservoir or the Gavilan Hills, and often steps down a granite slope to reach the view. We terrace the pad rather than fill the drop, pour each level 4 inches on compacted base, and grade it away from the house so the rain runs back into the ground.
Stamped slate and flagstone patterns suit Lake Mathews because they read as the rock already on the lot. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab in an earth color that sits with the granite, seal it in 2 coats, and it needs neither the sanding nor the weeding laid stone does.
There are no public sidewalks on the acre lots around Lake Mathews, so a walk here is the path from the parking pad to the front door and the barrow route to the barn. We pour it 4 inches thick on compacted decomposed granite, wide enough for 2, and broom it for grip.
A Lake Mathews garage holds a truck, a trailer or a tractor, so the floor is sized for the load and not for a sedan. We pour it 5 inches thick on a 10 mil barrier over compacted base, with steel on an 18-inch grid, and trowel it flat enough that a jack rolls without catching.
Decorative work in Lake Mathews matches the ground rather than standing out from it. We use integral earth tones, a salt finish or an exposed aggregate of local sand, and keep the color light, because a dark slab on a south slope here is too hot to stand on by 2 in the afternoon.
Retaining walls are the job Lake Mathews needs most, because almost every lot has a slope and a cut that was never held back. A wall here is footed into firm granite, drained behind the stem, and goes to the Riverside County Building and Safety Department once it passes 4 feet.
Barns, workshops and detached garages are what a Lake Mathews lot has room for, and each needs a floor a horse, a lift or a saw can live on. We pour over a 10 mil barrier on 4 inches of compacted base, 5 inches thick where a vehicle stands, and cut the joints to suit the stalls.
Lake Mathews is unincorporated, so a permit here is not a city matter. Plans go to the Riverside County Building and Safety Department, and anything that moves earth on a slope needs a grading permit from the county as well, which we apply for with the plans. We get here from our yard in Fontana by taking Interstate 15 south to Cajalco Road and heading east, a drive of about 28 miles, so a Lake Mathews job is booked in full days rather than half days.
The lake itself is Metropolitan Water District ground, the end of the Colorado River Aqueduct, and the community sits on the slopes above it between Cajalco Road and El Sobrante Road. Houses were built one at a time on lots of an acre and up, many of them horse properties, so a drive can be 200 feet long and the last stretch of it is often still gravel. We measure that run with a wheel, not a tape, and write the figure for the whole length so there is no second number later.
Access is the other thing a plan has to settle. A mixer can reach almost any point on a Lake Mathews lot, which cuts the labor of a big pour, but it arrives on a dirt track or a shared private road, and a loaded truck rutting it in February is a complaint we would rather avoid. Between December and March we pour on days the road has dried, and from June to September we start at 6 in the morning, because the granite holds the heat and noon concrete sets before it is finished.
Four stages, one crew from Fontana, and one written figure that includes the county permit. The job is measured on the lot before anything is agreed, because a plan drawn from an aerial photo does not show the rock.
Andre Whitfield wheels the full run, probes the subgrade for loose granite and old fill, and checks where a mixer can stand and turn.
Plans go to the Riverside County Building and Safety Department, and a grading permit is added where a wall or a cut is on a slope.
Loose material comes out to firm granite, boulders in the line are cut or built around, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is compacted.
A long drive is poured in sections over 2 or 3 days. Walk on it after 24 hours and drive on it after 7, and we grade the track behind us.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. The measure and the written figure cost nothing, and we group Lake Mathews visits with our work in El Sobrante so the drive down is never the reason a job waits.
Reviews
Our own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover. The acre lots around Lake Mathews are among them, and the drives and walls behind these words are the ones 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 on the acre lots around the reservoir ask before booking, covering cost, the county permit, the drive from Fontana, the granite underfoot, how long a job takes and what else we cover.
Length first, because a Lake Mathews drive is measured in hundreds of feet, then thickness, since a slab a horse trailer crosses goes in at 5 inches rather than 4. Rock moves it after that. A boulder in the line of a drive is cut or built around, and that is hours we can only count once we have probed the ground. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the figure comes off the lot and not off a map.
Riverside County, because Lake Mathews is not inside any city. Flatwork at grade on your own lot needs no permit. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing that carries a roof, and any cut or fill on a slope go to the Riverside County Building and Safety Department, and a slope job usually carries a grading permit as well. We draw the plans, file them and meet the inspector.
About 28 miles, down Interstate 15 to Cajalco Road and east from there. That is the longest run we make, so we book Lake Mathews in full days, load the truck the night before and pair the visit with work in El Sobrante where we can. Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to set a date for the measure.
It helps more than it hurts. Decomposed granite drains and compacts hard, so a slab on it does not heave in a wet winter the way one on clay does. What changes is the digging. Where the rock is close to the surface the cut for base is slow, and a boulder in the line is either cut, which is loud and takes a morning, or the slab is shaped around it. We tell you which on the site visit.
A long drive runs 3 to 4 days on site, poured in sections so the mixer never waits, and a patio, a pad or a barn floor runs 2. After the pour the slab wants 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a truck or a trailer crosses it. Joints are cut within 12 hours, which is what keeps the cracks in the lines we chose rather than across the drive.
Yes. El Sobrante is the next community north along the same road, Norco and Eastvale are back up Interstate 15 on the way home, and we cover all three from the yard in Fontana. A property on Cajalco Road that is technically in Mead Valley or Woodcrest is measured the same way, since the ground and the county are the same on both sides of the line.
Lake Mathews sits between El Sobrante to the north and the Gavilan Hills to the south, with Norco and Eastvale back along Interstate 15, and we cover all of them from Fontana. If your street sits on a county line, the page next door is the one you want.
Open the Fontana Office in Google Maps We call back within 1 business day, the estimate is free and written on the lot, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.