Fontana Concrete Pro screens Lytle Creek cobble out of your subgrade, compacts imported base in layers and pours 4 to 6 inches to whatever stands on it. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Why Fontana calls us
A driveway here sits on what the mountains sent down: sand, gravel and rounded cobble off the Lytle Creek fan. It drains faster than any clay bed will, which is the good half. The other half is that moving water laid it, so soft seams run through it where the old washes went, and a slab poured straight onto them spans air until something heavy stops on top.
Fontana Concrete Pro was founded in 2019 by Andre Whitfield, who had 18 years on Inland Empire crews behind him, and he cuts the joints on every drive himself. Fontana is two cities of housing on one map: steel-town blocks laid out before 1960 south of Valley Boulevard, and tracts poured since 1990 north of the 210. A driveway on each fails for its own reason, and neither is fixed from the top.
Drives are built to the California Residential Code under a CSLB C-8 concrete license, with liability insurance on every job. Anything that reaches the curb or crosses the public walk is filed with the Department of Engineering through the Build Fontana portal, and we meet the inspector ourselves. The finished drive carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Warning signs
A pair of dips in line with the wheels is the slab pressing down into a soft seam of the fan, not the surface wearing out. It shows up first under a pickup left in the same spot or a trailer tongue on a jack. Sealing the ruts changes nothing underneath.
Drives poured before 1960 south of Valley Boulevard were run straight to the dirt, with no formed edge and no thickening. Tires cutting the corner take the arris off an inch at a time, and once that edge has gone water walks in from the side and stays.
A step you feel through the steering between the drive and the garage floor means one of the two has moved. On this ground it is nearly always the drive, dropping as fines wash out from beneath the apron. Grinding the lip flat leaves the cause exactly where it sat.
Concrete that thuds or rocks as a wheel crosses it is bridging a void. Water has carried the sand out from under that panel and the slab is now spanning nothing at all. It holds until something heavy parks there, and then it goes in one piece.
What is included
Standard on every drive, with none of it held back as an extra. Each one answers a Fontana condition: ground that will not compact as it lies, frontages carrying pickups and RVs, and afternoons in the mid-90s from July into August.
The subgrade is opened on the estimate visit, so the depth we have to dig is measured at your curb rather than guessed at the pour.
Seventy-year-old concrete is broken out and hauled off the same day, down to soil. Nothing new is ever poured on top of an old drive.
Cobble off the fan rolls under a plate compactor instead of locking, so it is screened off the site and graded crushed base brought in.
Class 2 base goes down in 4-inch lifts and every lift is plate-compacted, so the bed is proved before a form board is set on it.
Cars take 4 inches; a pickup, a trailer or an RV takes 5 to 6, and the depth chosen for your frontage is printed on the estimate.
Where wheels cut the corner off the street the slab is deepened and the edge tooled by hand, which is the part that breaks first without it.
Saw-cut inside 12 hours, spaced 2 to 3 feet per inch of depth, which puts the shrinkage where somebody drew it rather than where it likes.
Through the summer the truck comes before 8 AM and the surface is kept damp for seven days, which is what a Fontana August asks.
Your options
Four ways we build a drive here, set against what actually stands on it. This is a city of pickups, boat trailers and RVs on residential frontages, and the load picks the row. All four sit on the same screened and imported base.
| Option | Carries | Reinforcement | Ready for load | Best on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4-inch car drive | Two cars and the odd light trailer | Fiber in the mix, no mesh | 7 days for a car | Tract frontages with a sedan and a hatchback |
| 5-inch truck drive | A pickup or a work van parked nightly | Wire mesh through the slab | 7 days for cars, 28 for the truck | Steel-town blocks south of Valley Boulevard |
| 6-inch RV pad | An RV, a fifth-wheel or a boat trailer | Rebar mat tied on chairs | 28 days before the RV stands on it | Wide north Fontana lots with a side pad |
| Rebuilt apron | Delivery trucks and the bin lorry at the curb | Rebar doweled into the drive | 28 days, inspected before backfill | Frontages where the approach has dropped |
Going from 4 inches to 6 is half as much concrete again and three more weeks before the RV stands on it, and it is the one part of a drive nobody can add later.
Local knowledge
Two things decide a drive in this city and neither of them is the mix: what the mountains left under it, and what you reverse onto it at the end of a shift.
Rounded stone is the first. Crushed rock keys together under a compactor and stays where it is put; cobble off the fan rolls, leaves voids and lets a drive settle in wheel tracks within a few winters. So the stone is screened off before base is ordered, the base that goes back is graded and imported, and it is compacted in layers rather than one lift. That work is invisible the day the forms come off and it is the half that decides the next thirty years.
The frontage is the second. Fontana parks its trailers, pickups and RVs at home, and a tract drive north of the 210 was poured 4 inches for two sedans, so it splits under a load it was never built for. South of Valley Boulevard the drives are original to the steel-town blocks and now 70 years into a 30 to 40 year life. We pour in Sierra Lakes, Coyote Canyon, Village of Heritage and Southridge, and down the older streets either side of Sierra Avenue.
Our process
Five stages, one crew, and the same person at the measurement and at the pour. Any permit for work at the curb is filed through Build Fontana before the saw starts, and the date you are given is the date the trucks arrive.
Andre Whitfield measures the drive, checks the fall to the street and digs a test hole to see what the fan actually left on your lot.
You choose the thickness for what stands on it and the finish, and a week is booked. Curb work is filed through Build Fontana first.
Day one the drive comes out and goes to the crusher, the subgrade is dug open, and the rounded stone is screened off before base is ordered.
Imported base goes down in lifts and is plate-compacted, forms are set to the fall you need, and the pour and broom finish start before 8 AM.
Joints saw-cut inside 12 hours, the slab kept damp a week, the frontage swept, and the written guarantee handed over on the walk-through.
What moves the estimate
Square footage sets the floor and everything after it is underneath the concrete. Two drives of the same size on the same street can be a full day apart in work once the test hole is open. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
Screening and hauling rounded cobble, then importing graded base to take its place, is the largest variable on a lot out on the fan.
A pickup, a boat trailer or a fifth-wheel takes 5 to 6 inches and steel. Every added inch is more concrete and more base beneath it.
Stopping at your property line is one job. Reaching over the public walk puts it in city right-of-way: a permit, and an inspector before backfill.
A frontage running back toward the house needs a channel drain at the threshold, and a steep one needs the fall rebuilt before forms go down.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and you hear back within 1 business day of the form arriving. (909) 555-0168 or send us a message.
Send the form or call the office on Sierra Avenue. Andre Whitfield comes out, opens the ground and writes the number at your property before he leaves, and you are free to put it in a drawer.
Reviews
Three drives, three streets, and what the owners wrote afterward on Google, Facebook and the BBB. Each of them names the thickness we poured, which is the one part of a driveway nobody can check once it is finished.
“Ours was one of the original steel-town drives and it had ruts where the truck sat all week. Two loads of round stone came off before any base went down, and they poured 5 inches over the top of it. Eighteen months and one hot summer on, it is still flat.”
“We tow a fifth-wheel and the tract drive up at Sierra Lakes had cracked right across it in two places. Fontana Concrete Pro poured 6 inches with a rebar mat and thickened the edge where I swing in off the street. The rig has stood on it all season without a mark.”
“The lip between the drive and the garage floor had got bad enough to scrape a bumper on. They took the apron out, found the sand washed away underneath it and poured that section back at 6 inches. The step has gone and it has not moved since.”
FAQ
Loads, cobble, summer pours, the permit counter and what the guarantee actually covers, answered for a driveway in this city rather than for concrete anywhere.
6 inches with a rebar mat tied on chairs, and the same under the section a fifth-wheel or a loaded boat trailer stands on. A motorhome puts more weight through four points than a family car spreads over a whole drive, and a 4-inch slab under it cracks in a ring around the jacks. Tell us at the measurement where the rig parks and that part is built for it.
Because rounded stone will not compact. Crushed rock has faces that lock into each other under a plate; the cobble the Lytle Creek fan left here is smooth and it rolls instead, so the bed keeps closing up under load long after we have gone. We screen it off, haul it and bring in graded base, which is why a Fontana driveway estimate has a line on it that a flat-country one does not.
Yes, starting before 8 AM. Above about 95 degrees the surface dries before the concrete beneath it has gained strength, and the shrinkage tears the top into a crazed pattern that never goes away. An early truck, a wind break and seven days of keeping the slab damp is the answer the Portland Cement Association sets out, and it is what we do from June through September.
Not for the part inside your property line, which the Residential Code exempts. The approach, the curb and the public walk are city right-of-way and take an encroachment permit from the Department of Engineering, applied for through the Build Fontana portal and inspected before backfill. We file it, we book the inspection and we meet the inspector.
Cars after 7 days, and anything with a load rating after 28, which is when the concrete has reached the strength it was mixed for. Walking on it is fine at 24 to 48 hours. A truck parked at day ten does not crack it that morning; it presses the slab into a base still taking up load, and the crack turns up the following spring instead.
Usually because it is carrying more than it was poured for. Builders north of the 210 laid 4 inches on thin base for two family cars, and the frontage now holds a pickup, a trailer and sometimes an RV. Add a subgrade that was bladed rather than screened and compacted, and the slab bridges the soft spots until a wheel finds one. Rebuilding it means going deeper, not thicker only.
Only where the ground under it is sound, which out on the fan is the exception rather than the rule. An overlay is bonded to whatever it is laid on, so ruts, a rocking panel or a dropped apron all read through it before a second winter is out. It lifts the surface an inch or more as well, and on a frontage that already runs back toward the house that is a puddle at the door. We say so at the test hole.
It is a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built, and its terms are printed on the estimate you sign: the depth we dug, the base we compacted, the thickness we poured, the joint spacing and the finish. It does not cover oil staining, tire marks or wear. If the failure is in our work, we come back and put it right.
Service area
Eight towns within reach of the office on Sierra Avenue, ordered by how far each sits from Fontana. The same crew and the same base specification travel 25 miles out in every direction.
Four jobs that most often go in with a driveway or straight after it. Same screened base, same crew, and both halves itemized on one written estimate rather than two.
The slab your drive runs into: 5 inches, jointed on a grid and sealed so oil hoses off.
The public walk across your frontage, with the encroachment permit filed and the inspection met.
Where a drive is cut into a bank, a poured wall on footings keeps the slope off it.
The same build with a pattern pressed into the surface, resealed every 2 to 3 years.
Call the office on Sierra Avenue or send the form, and you hear back within 1 business day. Tell us what parks on the drive and roughly how old the house is, and the visit can be booked for a day inside that week.