Fontana Concrete Pro pours driveways, barn slabs and RV pads across Norco from our Fontana yard, straight down Interstate 15. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
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Norco is built on the floodplain of the Santa Ana River. The flats between Hamner Avenue and River Road are sand the river laid down, loose and free draining, and a slab set straight on it moves.
Sand carries a load well when it is confined and badly when it is not. A drive poured onto bare ground in Norco holds up in the middle and breaks at the edges, where tires roll off the slab and the sand beside it washes into the trail after a wet winter. Horses make it worse. A corral fence, an arena drag and a wash rack all send water and hooves to the same edge of a slab, and the sand under that edge goes first. The 1960s ranch houses on the flats show it in a dropped garage apron.
So on the flats we confine the sand before we pour on it. The subgrade is wetted and plate-compacted, a thickened edge is formed on every side a vehicle or an animal will cross, and 4 inches of Class 2 base goes down under a 4 inch slab with number 3 steel on an 18-inch grid. In Norco Hills, east of Interstate 15, the ground is decomposed granite over rock and the work is the opposite. Fill is stable there, and the slab needs drainage more than base, because water runs off the hill.
A Norco lot is a half acre by ordinance, so the concrete on it is long and spread out. A drive that reaches the barn at the back, a wash rack that drains, a pad for the trailer, and a patio the sandy flats will not carry without base.
A Norco driveway is long, because the lot is half an acre by ordinance and the barn is at the back of it. We pour the run 4 inches thick on compacted base, thicken the edge where the trailer swings off it, and stop the apron at the trail line the city keeps in front of the house.
Patios on the flats go on river sand that drains overnight and moves at the edge, so we compact the subgrade wet, lay 4 inches of Class 2 base and joint the slab every 10 feet. On a 1960s ranch house we dowel the new patio into the old back-door slab so the two move together.
Stamped concrete in Norco is asked for in flagstone and wood-plank patterns, to sit beside the board fences and barns on a Norco lot. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab and seal it in 2 coats, and we keep the texture shallow enough to sweep clean of the sand an arena throws.
Norco has horse trails where other cities have sidewalks, so a sidewalk here is usually a path on your own lot, from the drive to the door or the house to the barn. We pour it 4 inches thick with a broom finish a shod hoof can stand on, and never pave across the trail.
Garage floors under the 1960s ranch houses on the Norco flats were poured thin on bare sand, and a good many have cracked and dropped at the door. We break out the failed slab, compact 4 inches of base under a new 4 inch floor with steel, and pour it flat enough for epoxy later.
A dark slab on a Norco lot is too hot for a bare foot or a hoof by early afternoon from June to September, when the flats run into the mid-90s. We pour a light integral color with a broom, salt or exposed aggregate finish, which stays cooler underfoot and hides arena dust.
Retaining walls in Norco are a hills job. The pads in Norco Hills, east of Interstate 15, were cut and filled into the slope, so a yard steps 3 or 4 feet at the fence. We set the footing 18 inches into firm decomposed granite and drain behind the stem, since water is the load.
Interior floors in Norco are barns, tack rooms and workshops as often as rooms in the house. We pour a barn floor 4 inches thick over compacted base with a coarse broom finish, and a tack room or converted garage over a 10 mil vapor barrier, troweled flat enough for tile.
Our yard is in Fontana, up Interstate 15, so a crew reaches Norco in under half an hour at the Second Street or Sixth Street exit. Plans go to the City of Norco building department in Riverside County. Norco keeps rules of its own over and above the California Residential Code, and the one that matters most to concrete is the trail. Nearly every street has a dirt horse trail where another city would have a sidewalk, so a drive apron is drawn to stop at the trail line.
Old Town along Sixth Street and the flats west of Hamner Avenue are the 1950s to 1970s ranch houses on half-acre lots, with a barn, a corral or an arena behind the house and a drive that runs 150 feet to reach it. That length is the job. A mixer can drive most of it, so the pour is chuted rather than barrowed, and the slab is jointed every 10 feet so it cracks where we cut. Norco Hills, east of the freeway, is 1990s and 2000s tract housing on graded pads, nearer our work in Eastvale.
The river fixes the drainage and the calendar. Lots on the flats fall toward River Road and the Santa Ana, and a slab is graded the same way, so a wash rack or a patio sheds toward the river side of the property rather than back at the house. Winter is short and wet, and we pour through it on sand that drains overnight rather than clay that stops work for a week elsewhere. From June through September the flats hold heat past dark, so we batch early and pour by 7.
Four stages, one crew, one written figure. Andre Whitfield measures the whole run from the street to the barn before anything is agreed, so the number covers the lot as it is, trail crossing included.
Andre Whitfield walks the run from the street to the barn, probes the sand, notes the trail crossing and writes the figure on the spot.
We draw the apron to the trail line and file with the City of Norco building department where the work needs it. No counter for you.
Sand is wetted and plate-compacted, 4 inches of Class 2 base goes down, and every edge a truck or a horse will cross is formed thicker.
Chuted from the mixer where the drive allows, joints cut within 12 hours. Walk on it after 24 hours, drive or lead a horse on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the visit costs nothing. We are in Norco most weeks, and the barn run is measured with the drive.
Reviews
Our own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover from Fontana. Norco is one of them, and the slabs behind these reviews are the ones 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 Norco ask before booking, covering what moves the estimate on a half-acre lot, the permit counter, the sand under the flats, how long a slab is out of use and the trail in front of the house.
Length first. A Norco drive runs from the street to a barn at the back of a half-acre lot, so the run is the largest part of the estimate before thickness or finish enter it. Then the edges, because a thickened edge on every side a truck or a horse crosses is more concrete than a plain slab of the same area. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the figure comes off a tape and not off the phone.
Not for flatwork at grade in your own yard. Yes for a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing under a cover or a barn, and anything that touches the street, the trail or the public right-of-way. We file with the City of Norco building department in Riverside County and meet the inspector, and where a drive crosses the horse trail the city looks at that crossing too.
Because the sand under it is only strong while it is held in. The flats between Hamner Avenue and the Santa Ana River are river sand, and when tires roll off the edge of a slab, or water from a wash rack runs along it, the sand beside the slab washes out and the edge drops. We form a thickened edge, compact the subgrade wet and lay 4 inches of base, which holds the sand in place.
Yes, and it is half of what we do here. A barn slab is poured 4 inches thick with a broom finish coarse enough for a shod hoof, and a wash rack is graded to a drain at one fall so water leaves the way it should rather than pooling at the stall. Both are jointed on a 10 foot grid. The drive out to them is measured as one job with them, because it usually is one.
Most jobs run 2 to 3 days on site, and a long drive to the barn with a pad at the end runs 4. Concrete takes 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a vehicle or a horse goes on it, so a corral that shares the slab is fenced off for that week. Joints are cut within 12 hours of the pour, which is what keeps the cracks on straight lines.
Yes, in the ground and in the lot. Norco Hills, east of Interstate 15, is 1990s and 2000s tract housing on graded pads over decomposed granite, so the ground is firm and the work is closer to a slab in Eastvale, with drainage off the hill as the thing to design for. The flats are river sand on half-acre lots, where the base, the thickened edge and the length of the run set the job.
Norco shares its northern line with Eastvale, across the Santa Ana River, and we cover Eastvale from the same Fontana yard, with Chino and Chino Hills beyond it. If your street sits on a city line, the page next door is the one you want.
Open the Fontana Office in Google Maps Send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to book the measure. The estimate is free. The work has a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.