Riverside Concrete Pro pours drives, patios and walls on the granite lots of El Sobrante, 11 miles from our yard on Chicago Avenue. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
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El Sobrante is decomposed granite. The ground is the weathered top of the same granite that stands up as boulders around Lake Mathews, and it drains and compacts in a way the clay of the valley floor never does.
Decomposed granite is the friend of a slab and the enemy of an open trench. Compacted, it is as firm a subgrade as we work on anywhere in the county, which is why drives poured decades ago on the older lots have outlasted the houses beside them. Disturbed and left loose, it washes. A cut left open through one December storm carries its fines downhill and undercuts whatever was poured above it, and on the lots that fall toward the lake a patio can sit on a cut at one side and a fill at the other.
So we cut to firm granite and pour on what we find. Where the native ground is solid we compact it, lay 4 inches of Class 2 base and pour on that. Where a tract grader built a pad from fill we dig the fill out to the granite and bring the base back up in compacted lifts, so the slab sits on one material rather than two. Number 3 steel runs through every slab on a 24-inch grid, and a boulder that will not lift is cut below the base and poured over, because it is firmer than anything we could truck in.
El Sobrante splits two ways. The gated tracts off El Sobrante Road want the yard finished that the builder left as graded dirt, and the acre lots toward the lake want a drive long enough to reach the house from the road and a floor for the barn.
Drives on the acre lots in El Sobrante are long, and a long drive on decomposed granite is a slab that must shed water sideways or wash out at its low end. We crown it, pour 5 inches where a trailer or a horse rig uses it, and cut a joint every 10 feet.
A patio in the tracts off El Sobrante Road is the yard the builder graded and left, and on the older lots it is the dirt under a patio cover that was never finished. Either way we cut to firm granite, lay 4 inches of base and pour a 4 inch slab on a 24-inch steel grid.
Stamped patterns are asked for in El Sobrante where a slab meets a pool or looks toward the lake, because a broom finish reads as a driveway and the yard is the point of the lot. We stamp a flagstone or slate pattern into a 4 inch slab and seal it in 2 coats.
El Sobrante has no city sidewalk, so a walk here is a path from the drive to the door or out to the arena, and it is private ground with no right-of-way to permit. We pour it 4 inches thick, broom it for grip on a slope, and grade it to run water off rather than along it.
Garages on the acre lots in El Sobrante are workshops and tack rooms as often as parking, and the floor takes a jack, a lift and a hose. We pour them 5 inches on compacted base, cut the joints on a grid, and slope the slab toward the door so a wash-down leaves on its own.
A pale slab is the decorative choice that matters most in El Sobrante, where an afternoon on open granite ground runs past 100 degrees and a dark patio cannot be stood on. We pour integral color in a sand tone with an exposed aggregate finish, which holds less heat.
Lots on the south side of El Sobrante fall toward the lake, and a wall there holds a cut in decomposed granite that stands dry and slumps wet. We foot it 18 inches into firm granite, drain behind the stem with perforated pipe in gravel, and take any over 4 feet to the county.
An interior slab in El Sobrante is a barn, a workshop or a casita, and on granite ground the issue is not moisture so much as rock at grade. We cut to a level plane, pour over a 10 mil barrier on 4 inches of base, and trowel it flat enough to take a coating or tile.
El Sobrante is not inside the City of Riverside, though the mail says Riverside and the 92503 code is shared with La Sierra. It is unincorporated Riverside County, so a permit here is filed with Riverside County Building and Safety, the county's own counter on Lemon Street downtown, and a county inspector signs the card. We drive it from our yard on Chicago Avenue west along Arlington Avenue, down Van Buren Boulevard and onto El Sobrante Road, about 11 miles.
The lots come in two sizes. Off El Sobrante Road and around Victoria Grove the houses are 2000s tract stock on pads a grader cut, with narrow side yards, a short drive, and an association that reviews anything visible from the street. West toward La Sierra Avenue and south toward the reservoir the parcels run to an acre or more, older, on septic, with an arena or an outbuilding behind the house and a drive that is the longest slab on the property.
Lake Mathews takes the Colorado River Aqueduct at the end of its run, and the Metropolitan Water District keeps the land around it closed, so the south edge of El Sobrante is open granite hills that will stay open. Runoff off those hills comes down through the community every winter, which is why a drive here is graded to shed to the road and never toward the house. We pour through the wet months whenever the ground is dry enough to compact, and start at first light from June to September.
Four stages and one crew, with one written figure agreed before the first cut. Out here the measure also settles the two things that change a job most, how far down the firm granite is and where a mixer can stand.
Marco Delgado walks the lot, measures every slab, probes for rock and fill, and writes the one figure before he leaves.
Topsoil and loose granite come out, fill is dug to firm material, and 4 inches of Class 2 base goes in and is plate-compacted.
A wall, a footing or a lived-in slab is filed with Riverside County Building and Safety. We file it and meet the inspector.
Poured in a morning and jointed the same day. Walk on it after 24 hours, drive on it after 7 days, and we rake the yard behind us.
Call or send the form and we will call back within 1 business day to set a time. Marco Delgado comes out to the lot, measures, probes for rock and writes the figure there, and it costs nothing whether or not you book.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google by homeowners across the towns we cover, El Sobrante among them. The jobs behind them are the drives, patios and walls described on this page.
“Our 1920s place in the Wood Streets had a driveway that was more crack than concrete. They took out 480 square feet, dug the old fill out to firm ground and poured 5 inches. Marco was there for the pour and the joints were cut the same afternoon.”
“The city tagged the sidewalk panel outside our house on Magnolia. Riverside Concrete Pro pulled the encroachment permit, met the inspector and poured the 5-foot section to the cross slope the city wanted. I never had to go to the counter myself.”
“We wanted a patio behind the house in Canyon Crest that would take the afternoon sun. They poured 380 square feet in a broom finish, cut the joints on a 10-foot grid and sealed it at 28 days. Two summers on it has not moved a millimeter.”
What people here ask before they book, from which county office issues the permit to how far down the granite is and whether a mixer can reach a lot at the end of a dirt road.
Distance and depth before anything else. A drive on an acre lot in El Sobrante is longer than most patios are wide, so area is the first number, and then it is how far we dig to find firm granite and whether a mixer can stand at the pour or the concrete is pumped. Thickness, steel and finish move it after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the figure comes off the lot itself.
Riverside County. El Sobrante is unincorporated, so nothing goes to the City of Riverside even though the address says Riverside. Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs no permit at all. A retaining wall over 4 feet from the bottom of its footing, a footing under a roof, and a new slab someone will live on go to Riverside County Building and Safety, and we file it and meet the inspector.
Anywhere from the surface to a few feet down, and it changes across one lot. The weathered granite grades from loose sand at the top to rock you cannot dig by hand, and a pad cut by a tract grader may sit on 3 feet of fill at one corner and bare rock at the other. We probe before we quote, and the slab is set on compacted base over firm material wherever that turns out to be.
Usually, and when it cannot we pump. A loaded mixer is heavy enough to rut a graded dirt drive in winter and to sink at a soft shoulder, so on the older El Sobrante lots we walk the road first and decide whether the truck comes to the pour or parks at the pavement with a line pump. The pump changes the setup, not the slab, and the choice is made before the figure is written.
Seven days for a car and longer for a horse trailer. The pour itself is 1 or 2 days once the base is in, then 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a vehicle. A rig with a loaded trailer waits the full 28 days the concrete takes to reach its design strength. Where a house has only one way in we pour a long drive in two halves so you are never cut off from the road.
Only at the edge. The Metropolitan Water District owns the reservoir and the land around it, and the hills beyond that are habitat under the county's conservation plan, so a lot that backs onto either has a line that no cut or fill may cross. Inside your own fence a slab is a slab. We check the parcel map before we grade, because that line is not always where the fence runs.
El Sobrante has Lake Mathews along its southern edge, Temescal Valley over the hills to the southwest and Norco down the river to the northwest, and each has its own page here. If your lot sits on a line, the page next door says how the ground changes.
Open the Riverside Office in Google Maps Send the form and we will call back within 1 business day. The estimate is free and written at your lot, and every job carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.