Fontana Concrete Pro presses the pattern and puts the color in on pour day, chosen against the hardscape on your block, then seals the slab at 28 days. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Decided before the truck arrives
Stamped work is the one concrete job that is finished being decided before the concrete is. The mats go into the surface inside a window of roughly 40 minutes, and the color is either mixed through the load at the plant or broadcast onto the wet slab by hand. Neither can be revised later without breaking the slab out, so the part of this job that decides how it looks happens at your kitchen table a fortnight ahead.
Fontana Concrete Pro was founded in 2019 by Andre Whitfield, with 18 years on Inland Empire crews behind him, and he sets the pattern out and picks the release himself. Most of this work goes into the tracts north of the 210, Sierra Lakes, Coyote Canyon and the Village of Heritage, where a builder already put in a hardscape and the association keeps an approved palette, so what you can choose is partly set by what the street is wearing.
Slabs are stamped under a CSLB C-8 concrete license with liability insurance on every job, to the California Residential Code. A pattern does nothing for what is beneath it, so the ground is opened and the base built as it would be for a plain pour. Where a pattern continues over the public walk at the front, that strip sits in city right-of-way and goes to Building & Safety first. The slab carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.
Warning signs
Color that has gone light across the part of the slab the afternoon reaches has been bleached out of the top eighth of an inch, which on a hardener is all the color there ever was. A fresh coat darkens it for one season and then the band comes back exactly where it was.
Grout lines rounded off at the edges and a face you can no longer feel through a shoe mean the relief has been walked and hosed away. The mats pressed it in about a quarter of an inch deep, and once that is gone there is nothing underneath it to bring back up.
A chalky haze sitting down in the grout lines is salt carried up through the slab and left behind as the water leaves. It returns after each wet winter. Sealing before that bloom has been washed off locks it under the coat, where no amount of scrubbing reaches it.
Cloudy patches peeling off like a film are a coat that went down on a damp slab or over an older one nobody stripped. A frontage taking the full afternoon drives moisture up beneath it, the film breaks, and every coat added on top of that fails sooner than the one before.
What's included
Standard on stamped work, none of it priced as an extra. Each item is either about the ground the pattern sits on or about the short window a crew has to press it in once the concrete starts to set.
Rounded fan gravel is screened off and graded base compacted in lifts, since a pattern conceals nothing that shifts below it.
Color chips are laid on the hardscape you already have, outdoors, because a shade that reads well indoors turns yellow against tract stucco.
Mats are walked over the forms before the truck is ordered, so the joint lines land where you want them rather than where they fall.
Poured 4 inches in a 3,500 psi mix from a San Bernardino County plant, and deeper again under any part a vehicle stands on.
Either mixed through the load or broadcast and floated in on site, with the choice written on the estimate rather than left to the day.
Control joints are saw-cut along the grout lines the mats leave, so the cut reads as one of them instead of a line across the face.
The slab is washed and given its first coat only once it has cured a full 28 days, which is when the color has stopped moving.
Release powder washed off, the site left swept, and the workmanship guarantee given to you in writing when we walk the finished slab.
Your options
The pattern is one decision and the color is a separate one. These four differ in how far the color goes into the concrete and what shows when an edge chips. All four take the same base, the same mats and the same 28-day wait.
| Option | Color depth | Face wear | Resealing | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Integral color | Right through the 4 inches | Same as plain concrete | Every 3 years | Shaded patios and side paths |
| Color hardener | Top eighth of an inch | The hardest of the four | Every 2 to 3 years | Drives and pool surrounds |
| Both together | Full depth, worked top | As hard as a hardener alone | Every 3 years | West-facing front yards |
| Release only | Grout lines and texture | Chips read gray at once | Every 2 years | Small pads out of the sun |
A hardener leaves the toughest face; integral is the one that shows no gray core when a corner takes a knock. On a drive we generally put both in.
Local knowledge
Two things shape this job in this city: a palette your tract settled on before you moved in, and how few minutes a crew gets with the mats once the air is past 95.
North of the 210 the builders finished their tracts with hardscape already in place, and the associations at Sierra Lakes, Coyote Canyon and the Village of Heritage keep a list of finishes a homeowner may add to it. That narrows the color to a handful of tans and buffs. We photograph what the builder laid, match chips to it in daylight and put the reference on the estimate, so the slab is judged against the street rather than a catalog page.
Heat is the other half, and it is why a summer stamp costs more in labor than a winter one. A slab has to be firm enough to hold an impression and soft enough to take one, and above 95 degrees that window shuts fast. From June to September we start at first light and put six hands on it instead of three, so the mats keep moving. The base under it gets what a plain slab gets, cobble screened out and rock compacted in layers, because a pattern only looks as flat as what carries it.
Our process
Five stages, and the two that decide how the slab looks both happen before any concrete is ordered. The same person who measures the job is on the mats on the day, which on stamped work is the part that cannot be handed off.
Andre Whitfield measures the area, opens the ground to see what is under it, and photographs the hardscape the builder already left on the lot.
Samples are compared outdoors against that hardscape. Where an association keeps a palette, the reference goes to the board before a date is set.
The old surface comes out, the subgrade is opened, rounded stone is screened off and graded base is compacted in layers to depth.
Forms and fall set, concrete placed and floated, color worked in, then the mats go on in sequence while the slab is still taking an impression.
Release washed off after a day, the slab kept damp a week, then the first sealer coat at 28 days and the walk-through with the guarantee.
What moves the estimate
Area sets the floor and the finishing sets everything above it, because stamping is hands on wet concrete inside a fixed window. Two slabs of identical size can be a crew member apart once the pattern and the month are known. The estimate is measured on site.
A running ashlar repeats and moves quickly. Random flagstone has to be fitted piece by piece at every edge, which is hands and time.
One base color is a single decision at the plant. A contrasting border, a banded apron or hand-tinted joints each add a pass on the wet slab.
June through September the stamp window shortens, so the crew doubles and starts at first light. The same slab in January takes half the hands.
A rectangle is all straight mat runs. Curves round a bed, a pool or a bay window mean cutting the pattern in and tooling every edge by hand.
The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and you hear from us within 1 business day to put a date against the work. (909) 555-0168 or send us a message.
Send the form or call the office on Sierra Avenue. Andre Whitfield brings the samples out, looks at them next to what is already on your lot, and leaves the figure with you in writing before anything is ordered.
Reviews
Three stamped jobs in this city, and what the owners wrote afterward. Each names the part of the decision they were least sure about at the start, which on this job is nearly always the color.
“Our association keeps a short list of finishes and I expected an argument. He photographed the entry the builder put in, brought four chips out and held them against it in the afternoon light. The board passed it first time and the front path matches the apron.”
“August pour, so they were on site at five in the morning with six lads and had the whole 420 square feet stamped before the sun came over the roof. He put the color right through the mix as well as on top. A trolley took a corner in the spring and it is still tan underneath.”
“The old stamped surround at the back had gone pale on the west end and the sealer was peeling in sheets. They stripped the lot, washed the bloom out of the joints and put two coats on at the end. Told us three years, not one, which is longer than the last firm claimed.”
FAQ
Color, heat, sealing and what an association will let you lay, answered for a stamped slab in this city rather than for decorative concrete anywhere.
Area first, then the finishing. A running pattern in one color across a square area is the quick end; random flagstone, a contrasting border and curved edges are all hands on wet concrete inside a window that will not wait. The month matters too, since a June pour takes a larger crew than the same slab in January. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
No, not honestly. Color is either in the load that left the plant or broadcast into the surface while it was open, and the pattern went in the same afternoon. What can be changed later is the tone, by using a tinted sealer, and that sits on top and wears with the coat. Anything more than that means taking the slab out, which is why the sample board comes before the date.
Every 2 to 3 years for most of the city, and nearer 2 on a frontage that faces west. The sealer is what holds the color and the sheen, and ultraviolet is what takes it off, so a slab getting the full afternoon from May to October gives up a coat faster than a shaded back garden does. We tell you which yours is when we hand it over.
Integral goes through the whole 4 inches, so a chipped corner is the same tan as the face. A hardener is broadcast on top and worked in, giving a denser surface that stands up to tires and pool furniture, but the color stops an eighth of an inch down. On anything vehicles use we usually put both in and price it that way.
Yes, on an early start with more people. Concrete has to be firm enough to hold the impression and soft enough to take it, and past 95 degrees that window is short enough that a three-man crew runs out of slab. From June to September we book the truck for first light and double the hands, keeping the surface damp for a week afterward as the Portland Cement Association sets out.
In the north tracts that is the first thing we check, not the last. Sierra Lakes, Coyote Canyon and the Village of Heritage each keep a list of finishes, and the builder's own hardscape is usually the benchmark the board judges against. We photograph it, match chips to it outdoors and put the reference on the estimate so what goes to the association is a specific color and pattern.
It is, if the sealer is the wrong one. A gloss coat on a wet stamped surface is genuinely slick, which is why anything within reach of water gets a grit additive stirred into the sealer and a texture chosen with a coarser face. Say at the measurement that it is a pool surround and the specification changes before it is priced.
Only onto a slab that is sound underneath. An overlay is stamped into a bonded layer around half an inch thick, so it copies what it is stuck to: a settled corner or a slab rocking over a void reads through it inside a couple of winters, and it lifts the surface enough to matter at a door threshold. We open the ground at the visit and say which you have.
Service area
The towns this crew stamps in, ordered by distance from the office on Sierra Avenue, across 4 counties. The same mats and the same color library travel to all of them, and each name opens that town's page.
Four jobs that most often carry the pattern on past the slab you started with, measured on the same visit and itemized on one written estimate rather than quoted twice.
The plain 4-inch build behind the house, broom finished and jointed on a 10-foot grid.
The surround, textured for bare feet and sealed with grit stirred through the coat.
Bands, saw-cut patterns and exposed aggregate where a mat is not the right answer.
The frontage under it, poured to the depth whatever you park on it actually needs.
A free estimate, measured on the lot with the samples in hand and written before we leave, and a call back within 1 business day. Tell us which tract you are in and whether an association has to see it.