Riverside Concrete Pro replaces driveways and garage floors in Montclair, 20 miles west of our Riverside yard by the 60 and Central Avenue. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Montclair is built on the fan that San Antonio Creek spread out of the mountains, and the ground under every yard is coarse sand, gravel and cobble that drains before a hose is turned off.
That is the easiest ground in the Inland Empire to build a slab on and one of the hardest to dig. There is no clay to swell in winter and shrink in summer, so a slab here does not heave the way one in Chino does, and the cracks in a Montclair driveway come from the slab itself, poured 3 inches thick in the 1950s with no steel and no base, and from the roots of the trees the tracts were planted with. A footing trench, though, hits cobble the size of a football a foot down.
So on a Montclair job the specification goes into the slab rather than the ground. The old panel comes out to native gravel, the subgrade is proofed with a plate and any cobble over 3 inches in the top layer is picked out, because a stone at the surface of the subgrade is a point the slab bears on and cracks over. Then 4 inches of concrete with number 3 steel on an 18 inch grid, joints cut at 10 feet, and a broom finish. For a wall or a footing the breaker comes on day one.
Montclair was laid out in one push after the war and incorporated in 1956, so most of its slabs are original and past their life. The work here is replacement on a small lot, on ground that drains so fast the problem is only ever the thin slab.
A Montclair driveway is a 1950s slab poured 3 inches thick with no steel, cracked across every panel, on a lot with a single width drive down the side of the house. We break it out to native gravel, widen it to 2 cars where the setback allows, and pour 4 inches with steel.
Patios in Montclair are poured behind a house that came with a 10 foot square of concrete at the back door and a small yard around it. We tie the new slab to the old with dowels so there is no step at the seam, pitch it south with the fan, and cut the joints to match the house.
Stamped work in Montclair is asked for on the front walk and the entry, because a stucco tract house on a straight street gets most of its character from the path to the door. We cast a flagstone or plank pattern into a 4 inch slab, release it in a second color and seal it.
Sidewalks on the tract streets are city panels, and the rolled curb along most of Montclair means a lifted panel is the tree in the parkway rather than the ground. We confirm with the city who owns the panel, cut the root, dowel the new panel to the old and match the broom.
Garage floors in Montclair are the detached garage at the end of the drive, poured thin, cracked into a map and often lower than the drive. We break it out, compact the gravel, pour 4 inches over a vapor barrier at the new driveway's height, and trowel it flat enough to coat.
Decorative work in Montclair is a light integral color and a salt finish on the patio, because a plain gray slab on a south facing yard on the fan is too hot to stand on by 2 in the afternoon in July. We match the color to the trim of the house and score it to the lot lines.
Retaining walls are short in Montclair, because the fan falls evenly and a wall here holds a planter or a 2 foot step at a side yard rather than a hillside. The footing is dug through cobble with a breaker, poured 12 inches into native gravel, and drained behind the stem.
Interior floors in Montclair are nearly all a detached garage being converted into a rental unit under the state's ADU law. We pour a 4 inch slab over a 10 mil vapor barrier at the level the plans call for, tie it to the footing with epoxied dowels, and trowel it flat for tile.
The crew reaches Montclair from our yard in Riverside on the 60 west and Central Avenue north, 20 miles across the county from the Santa Ana to the county line. Permits go to the City of Montclair Community Development Department, which sees very little flatwork because a patio or a driveway at grade needs none, and sees every retaining wall over 4 feet and every converted garage, because those are structures.
The town is a grid of postwar tracts between Arrow Highway and Phillips Boulevard, cut by Holt Boulevard, which carried the old highway west to Pomona before the 10 opened along the north edge. The lots between Holt and Mission are 6,000 square feet with a single width driveway and a detached garage down the side, so half the driveways we replace here are widened to 2 cars at the same time. North of the 10 the streets near the TransCenter are being rebuilt around the Metrolink line.
Every lot in Montclair falls to the south with the fan, about a foot in a hundred, and the older streets have a rolled curb rather than a gutter, so a driveway here is graded to carry water to the street and never toward the garage. Summer heat comes off the fan early, so from June through September the first truck arrives at 6 in the morning and the slab is covered by noon. Winter is when the Santa Ana wind dries a fresh pour too fast, and we tent the slab on those days.
Four stages and one written figure. A Montclair lot is measured, the old slab sounded and the trees noted on the first visit, so the tear-out, the base and the steel are decided before anything is agreed.
Marco Delgado measures the slab, sounds the old concrete for hollows, notes the trees and the fall to the street, and writes the figure there.
The old slab comes out to native gravel in one day, cobble over 3 inches is picked from the subgrade, and it is plate compacted flat.
A wall, a footing or a garage conversion goes to the City of Montclair Community Development Department. We draw it and meet the inspector.
The pour is day 3 on most Montclair jobs, joints are cut that evening, and you walk on it after 24 hours and park on it after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we will call you back within 1 business day to set a time. The visit and the written figure cost nothing, and Montclair is a run we make most weeks along the 60.
Reviews
Our own reviews, left on Google and Facebook by homeowners in the towns we cover from Riverside. Montclair is one of them, and the driveways behind these words were built the way this page describes.
“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 Montclair homeowners ask before they book, covering what moves the estimate on a tract lot, which jobs the city permits, how far we drive, what the fan under the town does to a slab, and how long it takes.
Tear-out first, then digging. Nearly every Montclair job starts with breaking out a 1950s slab, and a driveway that was widened once already takes longer to remove than one that was not. A footing through the cobble under the town takes a breaker and adds crew hours, where a slab at grade sits on ground that compacts in a pass. Area and finish come after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
Not for the driveway on your own lot. The City of Montclair Community Development Department permits a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing that carries a roof, a garage converted to living space and any work in the parkway or the curb, and the last of those includes a new driveway approach across the sidewalk. We draw it, submit it and meet the inspector, so the only counter you visit is your own kitchen's.
About 20 miles west, by the 60 and Central Avenue north through Chino, and it is one of the farthest towns we cover. That is why we call back within 1 business day and then group Montclair, Upland and Chino jobs into the same weeks, so a crew that has driven across the county stays on the west side until the work there is done. The same crew is on your job each morning until it is finished.
Gravel, sand and cobble, laid down by San Antonio Creek off the mountains, and it does not crack slabs. It drains, it compacts well and it does not swell, so the cracks in a Montclair driveway come from the slab being poured 3 inches thick with no steel, and from the roots of a parkway tree. Cobble is the difficulty. A footing trench a foot down hits stones the size of a football, so the crew brings a breaker.
Three days on site for a single driveway, 4 if it is being widened to 2 cars and the garage floor goes with it. Day 1 is the break-out and haul, day 2 the base, the forms and the steel, day 3 the pour, with the joints cut the same evening. Walk on it after 24 hours and park on it after 7 days, and a car that goes on it sooner marks the edge of the apron for good.
Upland to the north and Chino and Chino Hills to the south, all from the same Riverside yard. Pomona and Claremont are over the county line in Los Angeles County and are not on our list, so a job on the west side of Montclair is the edge of where we go. On those streets the ground and the houses are the same as the rest of the town, and only the permit changes if a parcel turns out to be in Pomona.
Montclair sits on the county line, with Pomona and Claremont to the west, Upland to the north, Ontario east and Chino south. We cover Upland, Chino and Chino Hills from the same Riverside yard, so a street on one of those lines is on the next page as well.
Open the Riverside Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call you back within 1 business day. The measure is free, and the work carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.