SkyVale Jurupa Valley Concrete lays drives, walks and patios in Claremont, 16 miles northwest of our Limonite Avenue yard. The city keeps over 25,500 trees of its own, and on this ground they set the terms.
The city looks after more than 25,500 trees of its own, many of them past 100 years old, and its written policy is that the tree outranks the concrete beside it.
That is not a sentiment, it is a specification. Any root over two inches has to be cleared by the city arborist before it is cut, no more than a third of a root system may be removed, and what is cut must be taken back at least four inches from the new hardscape and backfilled the same day. Where a root cannot be lost, the manual gives three ways out: taper the walk to no less than 42 inches, ramp it over the root at no more than a foot of rise in 12 feet, or bend it around the trunk.
Working to that is what separates a panel that lasts from one the city takes issue with. We mark the trunk, expose the roots by hand before a saw goes anywhere near them, and set the pour depth off what we find rather than off a standard detail. Where the frontage sits in public right-of-way the city ramps a trip hazard in asphalt first and repairs it permanently later, and where a city tree has damaged concrete on private ground the owner can put a claim to the City Clerk.
Three homes in four here were finished before 1980, so almost nothing we pour is a first pour. It is a replacement, and most of it sits inside the root plate of a city tree.
Drives on the older streets were poured for one car, at 4 inches with no steel and often no base, and the parkway tree has since lifted the approach. Replacing the run without replacing that approach leaves the fault in place, so we take both and rebuild the base under them.
Lots here are deep and shaded, which changes what a patio has to do. Concrete under a canopy stays damp, holds algae on a smooth trowel and never dries out after a wash, so we finish with a broom or a light exposed aggregate that grips wet and does not show leaf stain.
Brick and tile are the local reference, from the Village storefronts to the college quadrangles, and a stamped running bond in an integral color answers them without the joints a brick apron opens up. It is cast into a 4 inch slab and sealed twice, so nothing needs resanding.
A lifted panel in front of a Claremont house is almost always a root, and the tree policy puts its health before the concrete. The walk can be tapered to no less than 42 inches, ramped at no more than a foot of rise in 12, or curved around the trunk. We build whichever fits.
Detached garages behind the pre-war houses were built on a thin slab straight onto fan gravel, and 70 years of oil and settlement show as a surface that dusts and spalls. We break it out, put in the base and the vapor barrier that were never there, and pour back at 4 inches.
The gravel under this town is its own decorative material. A seeded or washed exposed aggregate finish shows the same rounded fan cobble the lot is founded on, which sits better beside a 1920s bungalow than a polished slab does, and it holds its grip on a shaded, damp path.
North of Base Line the land tilts up toward the canyon mouth and yards step in terraces. Walls here are footed into the coarse wash rather than onto it, and drained behind the stem with gravel and a pipe. Move more than 50 cubic yards and the city wants a grading permit as well.
Garage conversions and rear units are the growth here, and each begins as a floor. A 10 mil barrier goes under the slab and the base is compacted below that, and moisture is checked before any coating, because a slab under a canopy reads wetter than the weather suggests.
The ground is a fan, not a valley floor. The soil survey maps most of the built-up town as a gravelly Palmview and Tujunga complex, and north Claremont as Soboba - a sandy-skeletal wash soil, meaning better than a third of its volume is rock. That is free-draining and strong once compacted, but a trench through it hits cobbles all day, and a base laid on it has to be graded rather than simply rolled.
Both counters sit at 207 Harvard Avenue. The Building Division takes plan sets by email and opens 7:00 to 5:30 Monday to Thursday on 909-399-5477. Engineering, on 909-399-5465, issues the encroachment permit, and its own scope reads construction or repair of curbs, gutter, sidewalks, and driveway approaches, mail boxes, garden walls and fences. We file both.
Then the age of the house. Of 12,530 homes counted here, 1,099 date from 1939 or earlier and the 1950s and 1960s account for 5,494 between them, which puts most original flatwork at 60 to 75 years old - twice the 30 to 40 years a well-poured slab is built for. Around the Village and the colleges the frontages are narrow and the parkway is planted, so the truck stays in the street and the pour is barrowed in.
Four stages. The tree is surveyed before the concrete is measured, because on this side of the county line what can be cut decides the shape of the slab, not the other way round.
Daniel Reyes measures the pour, marks every trunk within reach of it and notes which roots will be in the way.
Old concrete comes up, roots are exposed by hand, and anything over two inches waits for the city arborist to clear it.
Building takes the plan set by email and Engineering issues the right-of-way permit. You open no account and chase nothing.
Base graded over the cobble, slab poured and jointed, backfill the same day. On it on foot at 24 hours, a car at 7.
Call or send the form and we will come out with a tape and look at the trees as well as the concrete. Every estimate is measured and written on site - the tape comes out on the visit and the figure is left with you.
Reviews
These are our own, written by the people whose jobs this page describes: frontage panels rebuilt around city trees, and drives taken out right through to the approach.
“They measured our driveway on a Tuesday and handed me the written estimate before they left. The crew was on site four days, poured 540 square feet at 5 inches in one morning, cut the joints that afternoon, and after its first summer over 100 degrees there is not a crack in it.”
“A tree root had lifted the same sidewalk slab three winters running. They cut the root back, set a root barrier, poured the new section 4 inches on compacted base and pulled the right-of-way permit themselves. Ten months on it is still flat.”
“Our patio was original to the house, 1980s and crumbling. Daniel walked the base prep with me before they started: they dug out the clay, packed gravel in layers, poured 300 square feet in ashlar slate and sealed it at 28 days. It looks like cut stone.”
Six answers for a town of old houses, deep parkways and a tree policy with numbers in it, rather than six answers that would fit anywhere in Los Angeles County.
Whatever has to come out before anything goes in. Sixty-year-old concrete with no base under it is a full breakout and a rebuilt subgrade, and a root plate under the frontage adds hand digging and an arborist visit that a bare lot never needs. Area, thickness and finish follow. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
Two divisions at one address. The Building Division at 207 Harvard Avenue takes the building permit; Engineering, in the same building, permits anything sitting in public right-of-way, and its own list of that reads curbs, gutter, sidewalks and driveway approaches, mail boxes, garden walls and fences. Move over 50 cubic yards and a grading permit joins them.
Usually, and the city publishes the three ways. The walk can be tapered down to 42 inches, ramped over the root so long as the rise is under a foot in 12 feet, or curved around the trunk where the easement is wide enough. A root over two inches is only cut once the city arborist has cleared it, and never more than a third of the root system. It is the sidewalk work we are asked for most.
Because that end of town is the toe of a canyon wash. The soil survey calls it Soboba, a sandy-skeletal soil, which means rock fragments make up better than a third of its volume - rounded cobble carried down and dropped. It drains beautifully and compacts hard, but it slows a trench, and it is why a base here is screeded to level rather than rolled flat.
It can, and the finish is where that is decided rather than the mix. A washed exposed aggregate picks up the same rounded fan gravel the town sits on and reads close to period flatwork; a smooth power trowel does not. On a frontage the city also has a say in width and line, so we agree the finish on the visit and confirm the geometry with Engineering.
Two to three days on site for a drive or a frontage, with the walk barriered rather than closed wherever the width allows it. You can use the new slab on foot after 24 hours and park on it after 7 days. Root work is what stretches a job here, so we book those days consecutively rather than coming back for an afternoon.
Twenty towns across four counties are worked from one yard, and Claremont is one of the four we reach inside Los Angeles County. Where a boundary runs down a street, go by which city the lot itself is in.
Open the Jurupa Valley Office in Google Maps One message naming your street and the job is enough to start. You hear back within 1 business day, the visit is free, and nothing is owed if you decide against it.