SkyVale Jurupa Valley Concrete pours drives, patios and shop slabs across Highland, 19 miles east of our Limonite Avenue yard, on a cobbly fan City Creek was building long before the town had a name.
Both the north and south branches of the San Andreas cross Highland, Alquist-Priolo zones run over its northeast, and the city maps liquefaction across nearly all of its southeast and its west.
None of that is what a homeowner is calling about, but it is why the ground here has been studied and written down rather than assumed. What it describes matters to a slab. The dry, coarse fan that City Creek and the Santa Ana Wash have piled against the mountain front is pebbly and cobbly sand, coarsening upstream into gravel, and it drains so fast that a base course on it never holds water. South of that the same basin holds fine material the city maps as liquefiable, the opposite job.
So the same driveway is 2 different digs depending on which end of town it sits at. Up on the fan the work is breaking and screening cobble, then compacting 4 inches of Class 2 base over ground that needs no help draining. Down on the flats it is taking out soft, fine material to something firm before any base goes in. Both carry the same slab, 4 inches with number 4 bar at 18 inches both ways, cut inside 12 hours, but the figure is set below the forms.
One in 5 houses here was finished before 1960 and rather more went up in the 1980s, so a street can hold citrus-era concrete and tract concrete within a block of each other. Both are represented below.
A drive here is dug rather than scraped, because the City Creek fan runs to cobble and a run can turn up stone the size of a football at 18 inches. We take the excavation to sound material, screen and reuse what we can, and pour 5 inches over 4 inches of compacted base.
The 1980s and 1990s tracts on the east side handed over a covered slab at the back door and a graded pad past it, so a patio here is the first thing built on that pad. We joint at 10 feet, dowel into the builder's slab and pitch away from a house that sits high on its lot.
The old townsite around Palm Avenue and Main Street was listed on the National Register in 1990 as a citrus town, and a plain grey apron reads badly against that stock. Pattern goes into a 4 inch slab, colour through the mix and 2 coats of sealer, so nothing sits on top to peel.
The walk on the depot-era blocks was laid when the pepper and citrus trees beside it were young, and those roots are what lifted it. We cut roots over an inch back, set a 24 inch barrier where a trunk stands within 5 feet, and pour 4 inches jointed every 4 feet on compacted base.
Detached garages behind the older houses sit on slabs poured 3 inches thick straight onto fan gravel, and a shop built later usually got no better. A replacement is laid on compacted base over a 10 mil barrier, 5 inches thick under a hoist, and pitched to the door.
Elevation across Highland runs from about 1,200 feet on the valley floor to past 2,500 in the foothills, and the light up there is hard on a surface coating. Exposed aggregate puts the stone in the slab rather than on it, so 10 summers later it still reads the same.
East of the city the ground climbs toward the mountain front, and a level pad above Base Line usually means holding 4 or 5 feet of fan gravel that drains fast and carries nothing. We foot into sound material, drain the back of the stem, and file anything over 4 feet.
Garage conversions and back rooms are how these lots gain space, and the new floor has to land on a slab whose level was set long ago, sometimes 80 years ago. We dowel into that slab, lay a 10 mil barrier over 4 inches of base, and trowel the pour flat enough for tile.
Our yard is on Limonite Avenue and this is 19 miles east of it, the far end of what one crew covers, so Highland is scheduled in whole days rather than squeezed round a morning call. The Building and Safety Division at 27215 Base Line takes the building permit, Monday to Thursday from 7:30 to 5:30, issuing until 5. Public Works and Engineering, at the same address, runs street opening and encroachment through a portal, in San Bernardino County.
The city is younger than most of its concrete. It incorporated on 24 November 1987, but the place grew out of settlements that go back to Cram's arrival in 1856, and the Santa Fe railroad's Kite Loop in 1892 is what fixed the depot names still in use at East Highlands. A fifth of the housing predates 1960 around the old townsite, while East Highlands Ranch and the tracts beside it are 1980s and later on graded pads. The two need different crews' habits, not different crews.
Water and slope set the rest. The land falls roughly 1,300 feet from the foothills to the valley floor, City Creek and the Santa Ana Wash carry the runoff, and the mapped flood zone sits south of Greenspot Road where the city keeps much of the ground as open space for that reason. Above Greenspot the lots meet wildland. On season, the Redlands normals put July at 95.4 degrees, so we start at first light from June to September and prefer October to May.
Four stages, worked by the same crew that took the measurements. The dig is settled before anything else here, because whether a lot sits on cobble or on fine valley ground changes the day more than anything above the forms does.
Daniel Reyes measures the work and opens a hole to see whether the lot is cobble or fine material, then photographs the access.
Cobble is broken and screened, or soft material dug out, and the base course goes down 4 inches thick and is rolled in 2 passes.
The building permit is lodged at 27215 Base Line and street work goes through the engineering portal. You deal with neither.
The slab is saw cut the same day. Nobody on it for 24 hours, nothing driven on it for 7, then we check it over with you.
Leave the form or telephone, and a date follows within 1 business day. We charge for neither the visit nor the figure, and since this is the far end of the run we will tell you which week a crew is next out this way.
Reviews
These come from customers spread across the whole coverage area, not out of one city, and they sit on the platforms that hold them. Highland is one of the towns behind the work they describe.
“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 things people ask before booking here: what moves the figure, which counter takes which file, what a crew hits when it digs, and how the old townsite differs from the tracts on the east side.
The excavation, more than anything poured. On the fan a dig turns up cobble that has to be broken, screened and either reused or carted, and on the lower flats the same depth turns up fine material that has to come out and be replaced. Either way that is hours before a form is set, and size and finish matter less. Every estimate is measured and written on site. Nothing is quoted before a hole is open.
Two, and they take different halves. The Building and Safety Division at 27215 Base Line handles the building permit, and it is open Monday to Thursday from 7:30 in the morning until 5:30, issuing permits until 5. Anything in the street itself, including the approach and the public walk, is a street opening or encroachment file with Public Works and Engineering, which runs through an online portal. We lodge both.
Because you are standing on what City Creek carried out of the mountains. The fan against this front is pebbly and cobbly sand that coarsens as you go upstream toward the canyon, so a cobble at 18 inches is the fan working normally rather than a boulder somebody buried. The gain is drainage: a base course on that ground never sits in water. The cost is the hour it takes to get through it.
It often does, and it is drainage and access rather than the concrete. The mapped flood zone sits south of Greenspot Road and the city holds much of that ground as open space to take runoff, so a slab down there is set to shed to a route that still works when the ground is full. Above the road the lots back onto wildland, where a surface that will not burn is worth having beside a house.
About a week, start to finish. The crew is on the lot 2 or 3 days, 4 when a long dig or a wall comes first, and after that the slab needs a day before feet and a week before wheels. On a narrow lot in the old townsite we pour a drive in halves, so a car has somewhere to sit while the first half hardens.
Yes, on both counts that matter. Around Palm Avenue and Main Street the lots are older than 1960, the trees beside the walks are mature, and root cutting and a barrier go into most jobs before any concrete does. Out at East Highlands Ranch and the tracts near it the pads were graded in the 1980s and later, access is easy, and the work is drainage rather than roots.
Redlands is 4 miles south of here and Loma Linda 7, with Colton and Grand Terrace on the same run back west. Where an address sits on a boundary, the neighbouring town's page will fit the job better than this one.
Open the Jurupa Valley Office in Google Maps Tell us the street and what the concrete has to do. Somebody answers within 1 business day, the visit and the figure are free of charge, and the pour is backed by a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.