Riverside Concrete Pro pours driveways, patios and slabs across Lake Elsinore, 25 miles from our Riverside yard down Interstate 15. Every estimate is measured and written on site, free.
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Lake Elsinore sits in a basin on its own fault, with the largest natural lake in Southern California at the bottom. Near the water the ground is silt and clay. On the hills it is decomposed granite.
The silt is the problem. The lake has risen and fallen for as long as the town has stood, flooding the flats in wet years and drying back in droughts, and the ground it leaves holds water, shrinks when it dries, and moves a slab poured straight onto it. The older streets below Graham Avenue and out toward Lakeland Village sit on it. In Canyon Hills and Tuscany Hills the pads were graded into granite, which drains and holds, and the trouble there is the fill at the edge of a cut lot.
So on the flats we build the slab to float and to drain. The silt is dug out to firm material, 6 inches of Class 2 base goes in compacted in 2 lifts, the slab is poured 5 inches with number 4 steel at 18 inches, and every joint is cut within 12 hours so the movement shows in straight lines. On the granite hills the base is 4 inches and the steel is the same, and the extra attention goes to the fill at the downhill edge of the pad, which we probe and dig out before it is built on.
Lake Elsinore is two towns in one. The old grid around Main Street and the lake sits on lakebed silt, while Canyon Hills, Tuscany Hills and Rosetta Canyon are this century's tracts on graded granite. The work changes at the freeway.
Driveways on the flats of Lake Elsinore fail from below, where lakebed silt swells and shrinks by season. We dig the silt out, compact 6 inches of Class 2 base, and pour 5 inches with number 4 steel through it, so the drive floats on the base rather than riding the ground.
A patio in Canyon Hills or Rosetta Canyon starts as the builder's graded pad with a small slab at the slider. We pour 4 inches on compacted base, dowel the new slab into the builder's so the joint stays flush, and barrow the concrete through the side gate where no truck fits.
Stamped concrete around Lake Elsinore is asked for as a flagstone or a slate pattern, because the hillside tracts came with stone-look pavers at the door. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab, color it through the body, and seal it in 2 coats against the dust off the hills.
A walk on the old grid near Main Street is often the original sidewalk, lifted by silt and roots, and the strip between curb and lot line is the city's right-of-way. We check who owns it before we cut, and dowel the new panel into the old so the joint never opens into a step.
Garage floors in the older streets of Lake Elsinore were poured thin on silt and have cracked and heaved, so they are replaced rather than coated. We break out the old slab, put compacted base under the new one, and finish it flat enough to take a coating later if you want one.
A dark slab in a yard in Lake Elsinore is unusable by early afternoon from June to September, when the basin runs past 100 degrees. We pour a pale integral color with a broom or salt finish, which stays cooler underfoot and hides the fine dust that blows off the dry lakeshore.
Retaining walls in Lake Elsinore hold the cut behind a Tuscany Hills pad or the steep lots of Country Club Heights, where owners stacked block with no footing. We pour a stem wall on a footing set into firm ground, drain it with gravel and pipe, and permit any wall over 4 feet.
Interior floors in Lake Elsinore are the garage conversions and detached units the newer tracts have room for, and on the flats the slab has to keep the lakebed damp out of the room. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base and trowel it flat enough for tile.
Our yard is on Chicago Avenue in Riverside and the drive in is the 91 to Interstate 15, then off at Railroad Canyon Road for the east side of town or at Main Street for the old grid. Permits go to the Building and Safety Division at the City of Lake Elsinore on Main Street, and a job in Lakeland Village on the southwest shore goes to Riverside County instead, because that side of the lake was never annexed. We file with whichever counter owns the address.
The old grid between Main Street and the lake was laid out in the 1880s, when the town sold hot springs and lake air to visitors from Los Angeles, and the lots are small, flat and close to the water. Country Club Heights above it was subdivided in the 1920s into tiny hillside lots on streets that were never all paved, and getting a mixer to a slab there is the job before the job. We walk the street first, and barrow where a truck cannot turn.
East of Interstate 15 the town is new. Canyon Hills along Railroad Canyon Road, Tuscany Hills above it and Rosetta Canyon to the north were graded and built after 2000, on pads cut into granite with side yards too narrow for a truck, so a back patio there is barrowed through the gate. The summer sun runs past 100 degrees in the basin from June through September, and we pour from first light and cover the slab so it does not dry before it cures.
Four stages, one crew and one written figure. The job is measured on the lot before anything is agreed, because a slab on the lake flats and a slab in Canyon Hills are two different builds under one name.
Marco Delgado measures the area, probes the ground for silt or fill, checks the fall from the house and notes which counter the permit goes to.
Soft silt or loose fill comes out to firm material, and Class 2 base is laid and plate-compacted, 6 inches on the flats and 4 on the hills.
We file with the City of Lake Elsinore, or with Riverside County for Lakeland Village, and meet the inspector on site. No counter for you.
Most Lake Elsinore jobs take 2 to 3 days on site. Walk on the slab after 24 hours, park on it after 7, and we sweep the street behind us.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to set a time. The measure and the written figure cost nothing, and we are in Lake Elsinore most weeks, on one side of the freeway or the other.
Reviews
Our own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners in the towns we cover from Riverside. Lake Elsinore is one of them, and the work behind them is the work above.
“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 in Lake Elsinore ask before booking, covering cost on silt against granite, which permit counter owns the address, the lake and its water, and how long a slab is out of use.
The ground first, then access. A slab on the flats near the lake needs the silt dug out and more base under it than one on granite in Canyon Hills, and a lot in Country Club Heights that a mixer cannot reach is barrowed by hand. Area, thickness and finish move it after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, so the figure comes off what we find in the ground, not off a map.
Flatwork at grade in your own yard needs none. A retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing carrying a roof, and anything in the public right-of-way all do. Inside the city we file with the Building and Safety Division at the City of Lake Elsinore. In Lakeland Village and the rest of the unincorporated shore the permit is Riverside County's, and we file there instead.
Up to the flood line the city and the county set, and we check that line at the counter before we quote, because the lake has covered the low streets in wet winters before. Above it, a slab on the flats is built on 6 inches of base with a fall away from the house, so water from a high year drains off it rather than sitting underneath.
Silt under it, most often. The flats around the lake are old lakebed, and that ground takes on water in winter, swells, then shrinks back in summer, so a slab poured straight onto it lifts at one edge and drops at another until it breaks. The fix is to take the silt out to firm material, replace it with compacted base, and pour a thicker slab with steel through it.
Most jobs run 2 to 3 days on site, and a large driveway or a foundation slab runs 4. Concrete then needs 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car goes on it, and in the basin's summer heat we cover the slab for the first 3 days so it cures rather than dries. Joints are cut within 12 hours of the pour.
Yes, in the ground and the access. Canyon Hills and Tuscany Hills sit on graded granite behind narrow side yards, so the ground is firm and the concrete is barrowed through a gate. Downtown and along Lakeshore Drive the lots are flat and open, a mixer backs straight in, and the silt underneath is what takes the time. Same crew, same specification, different day.
Lake Elsinore borders Canyon Lake behind its gates to the east, Menifee past that, and Temescal Valley up Interstate 15, and we cover all three from the same yard in Riverside. If your address is in Lakeland Village, this page is still yours.
Open the Riverside Office in Google Maps Send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day. The visit costs nothing, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.