Fontana Concrete Pro pours driveways, patios and garage floors in San Dimas, 20 miles west of our yard on the 210. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
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San Dimas is the fan of the San Dimas Wash. The flats between Foothill Boulevard and Arrow Highway are sand, gravel and cobble carried out of the canyon, and they drain as fast as they were laid.
That ground bears well and holds no water, which is why a 1960s slab here almost never sinks. What fails it is the cobble itself. The tract crews scraped the pad and poured thin over rock the size of a fist, and every winter since, water moving through the gravel has worked the stones against the underside of the slab. The cracks in a San Dimas drive run from the cobbles up, and the panels rock rather than settle, which is why a patch never holds for more than a season.
So we take the old slab out to the rock and rebuild the bed. The cobble is leveled, 4 inches of Class 2 base is spread and plate-compacted over it so the slab sits on a flat bed rather than on points, and the new pour goes down at 4 inches with number 3 steel on an 18-inch grid. On the hillside streets of Via Verde and north of Foothill Boulevard the bed is cut into the slope, and the downhill edge takes a thickened footing so the slab cannot creep.
San Dimas was built out in the twenty years after it incorporated in 1960, so most concrete here is the builder's original. The work is replacement, a drive rocking on cobbles, a patio the sprinklers undermined, a garage slab that dusts.
A San Dimas drive from the 1960s sits on cobble and rocks rather than sinks, so we take it out to the rock, level the bed, compact 4 inches of Class 2 base and pour 4 inches with steel through it. On the lemon-era lots off Bonita Avenue the drive runs the depth of the lot.
Patios in San Dimas go behind 1960s ranch houses whose back yards were left as lawn, and the sprinklers have run on that lawn for sixty years. We strip the turf and wet topsoil to the gravel, compact base, pour 4 inches jointed every 10 feet, and dowel it to the house slab.
Stamped work in San Dimas is mostly the front walk and the drive apron, where owners want the flagstone look of the older houses on Bonita Avenue without loose stones. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it integrally and seal it in 2 coats against the summer sun.
The sidewalk in front of a San Dimas house is the city's, and the strip between it and the curb is where a 1960s street tree has lifted the panel. We replace the panel with the city's approval, cut the root only as far as the tree can take, and dowel the new panel flush.
A San Dimas garage floor from the 1960s was poured thin over the same cobble as the drive, so it cracks in a map rather than in lines. We break it out, bed the rock under 4 inches of compacted base, pour 4 inches with steel on an 18-inch grid, and trowel it flat enough to coat.
Decorative concrete in San Dimas is asked for at the front, where the lemon-era houses set a standard of stone and the tracts want to match it. We do exposed aggregate with the rounded stone the wash carries, and salt and broom finishes in a light color that stays cool.
Retaining walls in San Dimas are a hillside job, in Via Verde and on the streets north of Foothill Boulevard where the lots step toward the canyon. Over 4 feet the wall is engineered and permitted at the City of San Dimas Building and Safety Division, and drained to the toe.
Interior floors in San Dimas are the ADU and the garage conversion, since the lemon-era lots are deep enough to take a second unit at the back. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base, trowel it flat enough for tile, and cut the joints to the walls of the room.
Our yard in Fontana is 20 miles east on the 210, so a San Dimas job is a 30 minute run each way and the crew is on site by 7. Permits go to the City of San Dimas Building and Safety Division at City Hall on Bonita Avenue, and the counter is one room, which is where we take a flatwork question before we draw anything. Los Angeles County has no part in it unless the lot sits outside the city line up San Dimas Canyon Road, where the county issues the permit instead.
The town has three kinds of lot. Along Bonita Avenue and the old downtown the houses date from the lemon years before 1960 and stand on deep lots with a detached garage at the back, so a drive runs the full length of the property. The tracts between Arrow Highway and Foothill Boulevard are the 1960s and 1970s, single story on a flat lot with the garage forward. Via Verde, on the hills south of Bonelli Park, is 1970s hillside, and the lots step.
Everything drains south. The San Dimas Wash comes out of the canyon at the north end of town and runs through it toward the 10, and the streets fall the same way, so a slab graded to shed toward the street is shedding downhill in San Dimas rather than fighting the lot. The calendar is the valley's. We pour before 7 from July to September, when the afternoon passes 100 degrees, and we wait out the handful of winter storms the wash was channeled to carry.
Four stages and one crew, and the figure is written at the first of them. Andre Whitfield measures the job on site before anything is agreed, so the number on the sheet is the number on the invoice.
Andre Whitfield measures the slab, probes beside it to find the cobble and the depth of the old pour, and writes the figure before he leaves.
The old slab is broken out and hauled, the cobble is leveled, and 4 inches of Class 2 base is spread and plate-compacted over it. One day.
Walls over 4 feet and anything at the curb go to the City of San Dimas Building and Safety Division. We file it and meet the inspector.
The pour takes a morning. Joints are cut within 12 hours, you walk on it after 24 and park on it after 7 days, and we sweep the drive behind us.
Call or send the form and we call back within 1 business day to fix a time. Andre Whitfield comes out, measures, probes beside the old slab and leaves you the written figure. It costs nothing, and we are on the 210 to San Dimas most weeks.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google and Facebook by homeowners across the towns we cover from Fontana. San Dimas is one of them, and the work behind these words 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 San Dimas ask before they book, covering what moves the estimate, which counter issues the permit, how far we drive, what is under the lawn and how long the drive is out of use.
The old slab first. Nearly every job in San Dimas begins with breaking out and hauling sixty years of concrete, and a drive that runs the depth of a lemon-era lot is twice the tear-out of a tract apron. Then the area, then the finish. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the figure comes off a tape and a probe rather than a phone call.
Not for a drive, a patio or a walk at grade on your own lot. Yes for a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing that carries a roof, and any panel in the public right-of-way. We take those to the City of San Dimas Building and Safety Division and meet the inspector ourselves. A lot in the canyon outside the city line goes to Los Angeles County instead.
20 miles, straight west on the 210, and no. The crew leaves Fontana at 6 and is on site by 7, and San Dimas jobs are scheduled in runs so the drive is made once for a week of work rather than once a day. You are called back within 1 business day whichever town you are in.
Gravel and cobble, a few inches down. The city sits on the fan of the San Dimas Wash, so under the topsoil the ground is the rock the canyon carried out, which drains in minutes and bears a slab well. The trouble is that a thin 1960s slab poured straight onto it rocks on the stones, which is why we level and base the bed before we pour rather than pouring on the rock.
About a week. Tear-out and base take a day, the pour takes a morning, and then the slab needs 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car goes on it. Joints are cut within 12 hours of the pour, which is what keeps the cracking in straight lines rather than where the cobble wants it.
Yes, and the method changes. On the flats between Arrow Highway and Foothill Boulevard a mixer backs to the form and the pour takes a morning. In Via Verde and up San Dimas Canyon Road the lots step, so the bed is cut into the slope, the downhill edge is thickened, and where the truck cannot reach the concrete is pumped.
San Dimas shares its lines with Glendora, La Verne, Covina and Pomona, and the same crew covers every one of them from the Fontana yard. If your street sits on a boundary, the page for the town next door says how the work changes there.
Open the Fontana Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day. The figure is written on site and free, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.