Fontana Concrete Pro pours pool decks 4 inches thick on compacted base, with a bond break along the coping and the fall carrying water out to the garden. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Why Fontana pool owners call us
A surround here goes at the shell before it goes anywhere else. The ground is Lytle Creek fan gravel, which takes a winter storm away in an hour and suits a deck, but it hides the soft seams where the old washes ran. One strip of the deck drops onto a seam, the rest of it holds, and the line at the coping opens up.
Fontana Concrete Pro was started in 2019 by Andre Whitfield, who had 18 years on Inland Empire flatwork crews behind him, and he digs the trial hole beside the shell himself. Most of the pools we deck sit behind north Fontana tract houses from the 1990s and 2000s, where a side gate wide enough for a skid steer means the old surround is out and hauled inside a morning.
Deck work is carried out under a CSLB C-8 concrete license with liability insurance on every job, to the California Residential Code. The pool barrier has to stand while the concrete is out and be closed again before anyone swims, and where a drain line or a raised deck needs filing it goes through the Build Fontana portal. The work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Warning signs
An open line between the coping and the deck is the surround pulling away from the pool. Water runs straight down it into the backfill against the shell wall, which washes out the very ground the deck edge is sitting on, so the gap you caulk each spring is wider by the next one.
A deck should carry hose water and rain out to the garden, never back over the coping. Once a surround has settled toward the shell, every bit of dust and leaf litter the wind drops on it ends up in the water, and the filter run times are usually what tells you first.
Two slabs at different heights either side of a cut joint mean one of them has lost the base under it. At a pool that is a bare-foot catch on the busiest edge of the garden, and grinding the lip level buys one season, because the seam that dropped is still down there moving.
A deck nobody can stand on at three in the afternoon is a dark or heavily sealed face, not something you have to live with. Fontana runs in the mid-90s through July, and a slick sealed slab sits well above air temperature while a light broom face on the same mix stays walkable.
What's included
Standard on every surround, with no separate line against it on the estimate. Each one answers something this ground, this sun or an open pool in a back garden does to a deck.
The failed deck is broken out to soil and hauled the day it lifts, with the water sheeted over before the first breaker starts.
We open the ground beside the shell and probe for the soft wash seams the fan gravel hides, while finding one still costs nothing.
Four inches of graded base, wetted and rolled in layers, so a deck on ground that drains this fast is still resting on something firm.
Poured 4 inches thick in a 3,500 psi mix from a San Bernardino County plant and finished light, so it holds a wet foot.
An expansion joint with a bond breaker runs the full coping line, letting the deck move through a hot summer without loading the shell.
Forms are set to a quarter inch per foot out to the lawn or a deck drain, and the finished fall is flooded and checked before we go.
The pool fence stays standing, or is re-hung each evening where the deck runs under it, for every night the job is open.
Curing compound goes down the same afternoon and the deck is rinsed clean, and you walk the finished job with the owner before anyone leaves.
Your options
The same 4-inch slab wearing four different faces. The first column is what decides it in this town, because a surround is the one slab people walk on barefoot in the worst heat of the afternoon. Stamped work is measured on the same visit.
| Option | Barefoot in July | Grip when wet | Lifespan | Upkeep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broom finish | Coolest of the four, nothing on top holding heat | Good, and better still across the fall | 30 to 40 years | Reseal every 4 to 5 years |
| Salt-finish slab | Cool, the pitted face lets go of heat | Best of the four under a wet foot | 25 to 30 years | Rinse the pits out each spring |
| Exposed aggregate | Warmer than broom, cooler than a sealed face | Grippy, and hard on knees | 35 years or more | Reseal every 4 years |
| Bonded overlay | Warmest, and the sealer over it is why | Fine dry, slick unless grit is broadcast | 10 to 15 years | Reseal every 2 years |
An overlay is the only one that can go over a sound deck rather than replace it, and the only one that will not see out the pool it surrounds.
Local knowledge
Two things shape a surround in this town, and neither is the pool. What the creek laid down under the garden decides whether it stays flat, and the afternoon sun decides whether anyone uses it.
Fontana sits on the Lytle Creek alluvial fan, so a back garden is sand, gravel and rounded stone dropped by water. That drains, which is why nobody here fights the swelling clay that lifts decks in other towns, and it is also why a surround can sit on a buried wash channel that was never as tight as the ground either side of it. We dig beside the shell before quoting, and where a seam shows up it is dug out and made up in compacted lifts rather than bridged.
The other half is temperature, and it is the reason people replace decks that are not even cracked. Air in the mid-90s through July and August puts a sealed, dark surround far higher again, and a pool nobody crosses at four in the afternoon is a pool nobody uses. A light broom or a salt face on the same slab reads several shades cooler underfoot, and it is a choice made before the truck comes, not after.
Our process
From the hole we dig beside your shell to the morning you swim again. One crew, one written figure, and the ground read before the estimate rather than after the machine is through the gate.
Andre Whitfield measures the surround, watches where the water runs now and digs beside the shell to read the base. The estimate is written there.
You choose the face and we agree where the water is sent, the lawn, a deck drain, or both, because that is what the forms are built to.
The old deck comes out to soil and goes for crushing, the water stays covered all day, and the barrier is closed again each evening.
Graded base compacted in lifts, forms set to a quarter inch per foot of fall, and the bond-breaker strip run along the coping line.
Poured and finished in a morning, joints cut the same afternoon, and you swim at 7 days with the guarantee already handed over.
What moves the estimate
How much deck there is moves the figure first, then what has to come off before any of it goes back. A wrap-around surround on a north Fontana tract pool runs 500 to 700 square feet more often than not. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
A 4-foot walk round three sides is a different job to a full surround with a sun shelf, since forms, joints and edges all follow the outline.
Bare ground round a new pool is the clean start. An old bonded overlay has to be chipped off the deck under it before anything is measured.
Most north Fontana tracts have a side gate a skid steer clears. A 3-foot path means the whole break-out leaves the garden by barrow.
A lawn to fall onto costs nothing. A deck boxed in by the house and a block wall takes a drain line cut through and run out to daylight.
The figure comes out of the hole dug beside your own shell rather than off a chart, and a call back within 1 business day puts a date against it. (909) 697-3243 or send us a message.
Send the form or call, and someone rings you back within 1 business day to fix a time. Andre Whitfield measures the surround, digs beside the shell and writes the figure at the poolside, and it costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Reviews
Left on Google and Facebook by people whose pool surrounds this crew poured. All three are deck jobs rather than drives, patios or garage floors.
“The deck round our Sierra Lakes pool had dropped at one corner and there was a half-inch lip by the steps. They took the whole thing out, found a soft strip of old wash under it and packed it back properly. Two summers on it is flat and the water runs to the lawn.”
“Nobody could cross the old sealed surround in August without shoes. Andre talked us out of stamping and into a salt finish, and it is a different garden now, the kids go over it barefoot at four. He also reset the fall so the dust stops washing into the pool.”
“They got a machine down the side gate off Citrus and had the old surround out in a morning. The fence went back across the pool every evening they were here, which mattered with a four-year-old. 620 square feet poured, joints cut the same day, sealed at a month.”
FAQ
What pool owners here ask before booking a surround, answered with the figures we build to rather than a range written to fit any town in the state.
Area decides it first, and a full surround here is commonly 500 to 700 square feet. After that it is what comes off, bare ground round a new pool is quick, an old bonded overlay is a day of chipping, then whether a machine gets down the side, and whether a drain line has to be cut to daylight because there is no lawn to fall onto. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
Three to four days on site for most gardens. Break-out and haulage take the first day, the dig and the compacted base the second, and the pour and finish a single morning. Joints are cut that same afternoon. Keep off it 24 hours, stay out of the water for 7 days, and leave sealing until 28 days.
Not while the crew is on site. The water is sheeted over from the first breaker to keep broken concrete and base dust out of it, and the pump runs as normal underneath. Once the slab is poured, stay out for 7 days, washwater and curing compound are not things you want the shell or your chemistry dealing with.
Often nothing for a flat surround replaced at grade inside your own lot line, but that is a question we put to the city's building counter before the estimate is written rather than a promise made on the doorstep. A raised deck, or a new drain line tied into site drainage, is filed with Building & Safety through the Build Fontana portal. The pool barrier is separate and is never optional.
With the face, not with the mix. A light broom or salt finish left unsealed, or sealed with a matte penetrating sealer rather than a wet-look film, is the cooler option on a Fontana afternoon, and a pale surface reflects more of it. Dark integral color and a gloss film are what put a deck out of use from June to September.
Because the surround has settled toward the shell, which is where the backfill against the pool wall was always the least compacted ground in the garden. It is not fixed by re-caulking the coping joint. A new deck is formed to a quarter inch per foot the other way, out to the lawn or a drain, and we flood it before the crew leaves to prove the fall.
Only if what is under it is sound. A bonded overlay needs a slab that is flat, still tight to its base and cracked nowhere that is moving, it copies whatever it is laid on, so a settlement crack comes through within a season. Where the trial hole shows a soft wash seam, an overlay spends money on a deck that is going to drop again.
a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built, handed over at the walk-through. It covers the compaction, the joint layout, the bond break at the coping and the fall away from the shell. It does not cover hairline shrinkage along a cut joint, which is exactly where a joint is meant to take it, or coping stones and tile that were already loose when we arrived.
Service area
Every town this crew takes pool deck work in, ordered by how far the truck runs, out across 4 counties from San Bernardino. Tap a name for that town's own page.
Four jobs measured on the same visit as a surround, and two of them poured the same morning where the deck runs into them.
The seating area beyond the coping, poured to the same fall and jointed to meet the deck.
A pattern pressed into the surround itself, chosen with the summer heat in mind.
Steps from the back door down to the deck, cast to an even 7-inch rise.
A low wall holding the bank where a garden drops away behind the pool.
A free estimate, written at the poolside before we leave, with a call back within 1 business day. Nothing is owed once you have it, and the figure is yours to take to anyone else.