SkyVale Jurupa Valley Concrete pours driveways, patios and steps in Loma Linda, 13 miles up Limonite Avenue. Part of it sits at a 2 percent grade, part on slopes past 30, and that changes the build.
Loma Linda is two grounds in one city, and the difference is not subtle. The USDA maps the north of the city at a 0 to 2 percent slope and the hill the town is named after at 30 to 50.
North of the hill, along Redlands Boulevard, the soil is a fine sandy loam on almost level ground. That is easy concrete: water drains, the subgrade is uniform, and a slab on a compacted base stays where it was put. South and east of there the map changes to loam and sandy loam on slopes of 30 to 50 percent, and eroded, so every assumption from the flats fails. Water arrives at the top of the slab with speed behind it, and the subgrade is a cut face on one side and fill on the other.
So the first thing we settle is which of the two you are on, because it decides the base, the steel and the drainage before it decides anything about finish. On the level ground we build to the standard we use everywhere: subgrade probed and compacted, base plate-compacted, 3,500 psi mix, joints cut the same day. On a cut lot we add drainage behind any retained face and foot into undisturbed material rather than into what a grader pushed there.
Sorted by what the ground under the address will allow rather than by what is popular. On the level streets north of the hill almost anything can be poured; on the slope above them the wall and the drainage come first and the finish comes after.
A drive on the flat streets near Redlands Boulevard is a straightforward 4 inch pour. A drive on the hill is a grading job with concrete on top, because a slope you walk down carefully sends water at your garage. We set the cross fall and broom along it.
Back yards here are cut into the hillside as often as they are level, so the patio and the wall holding it up are one piece of work. We build the retaining side first, backfill and compact it, then pour the slab, so the ground has settled before concrete bridges it.
Stamped work reads better on a slope than a plain grey field, because the pattern breaks up a surface the eye is already judging for level. The texture is cast into a 4 inch slab and sealed in 2 coats, with the joints following the fall so each one is part of the pattern.
The old sanitarium end of the city has walks laid before anyone graded for drainage. A panel there is usually lifting on one corner rather than cracking across. We break it out, correct the fall underneath, and dowel new concrete into old so the pieces move together.
A garage floor on a hillside lot is the low point of the property, so what it needs is somewhere for water to go rather than more thickness. We check the apron against the door threshold, correct the fall out of the garage, and finish flat enough to coat if it tests dry.
Exposed aggregate and a light integral colour both do real work here, because Loma Linda afternoons reach the mid 90s through July and August at the gauge 4 miles east. A pale, textured surface stays usable barefoot; a dark trowelled one does not.
This is the job the hill creates. The eroded loam above Barton Road is mapped at 30 to 50 percent, and a lot cut into it steps 4 feet or more between the house pad and the fence. We drain behind the stem and foot the wall into firm material below the cut, not the fill above it.
Interior slabs go in where a garage becomes a room or a casita goes up in the back yard, which the university and the medical campus keep generating demand for. We pour over a 10 mil vapour barrier, trowel flat enough to tile, and set the joints to the room.
The city grew out of a hotel. A railway-era development called Mound City failed here in the 1880s, and in the late 1890s Los Angeles businessmen and physicians reopened its hotel as a health resort named Loma Linda, Spanish for pretty hill. The Seventh-day Adventist Church bought the property in 1905 for a sanitarium and nursing school, added a school of medicine in 1909, and the city was not incorporated until 1970. That order is written into the concrete here.
The building record backs it up. Of about 10,180 homes here, 21 percent went up in the 1970s but nearly 17 percent were built between 2000 and 2009 - a higher share of recent construction than any other town on our list. So we are as likely to be finishing a yard the builder left bare as we are to be breaking out a 50 year old apron, and the two jobs share almost nothing but the mixer.
Permits go to the Building and Safety Division at the Civic Center, 25541 Barton Road, and are submitted through the city's online portal. The counter itself opens 8 to 10 in the morning, Monday to Thursday - eight hours in the week, which is the best argument there is for letting a contractor file rather than taking a morning off. Work at the walk or the kerb is a separate file with Public Works Engineering, further along the same road at 26000 Barton.
Four stages and one written figure. The survey stage matters more here than it does on flat ground, because the fall across your lot decides the price of everything that follows it.
Daniel Reyes shoots the fall across the whole area, not just the slab, and marks where water arrives and where it has to leave.
Soft ground and loose fill come out to firm material, then base goes down in layers and is plate-compacted rather than rolled once.
We lodge through the Loma Linda online portal and take the 8am counter slot if the file needs a person. You do not attend either.
Joints go in the same day as the pour. The slab takes a person at 24 hours and a car at 7, and we clear the access route behind us.
Call or send the form and we will come back to you within 1 business day to arrange the visit. The levels are taken and the figure is written at your address, and neither costs anything.
Reviews
Left by the homeowners who hired us, in every town this one crew reaches. Some of those jobs were on the flat side of Loma Linda and some were up on the hill, and both kinds are described above.
“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.”
What people here ask before they book, covering what moves a figure on a sloping lot, which office issues what, how the two halves of the city differ and how long a slab is out of use.
The fall across the site, before anything else. A level lot north of the hill takes base, mesh and a pour. A lot cut into a 30 percent slope takes retained edges, drainage behind them and material carted off, and that is crew hours rather than concrete. Thickness, steel and finish move the figure after that. Every estimate is measured and written on site, which on a sloping lot means levels and not just a tape.
Two offices, and which one depends on where the concrete lands. Structural work - a footing, a slab under a room, a retaining wall - goes to the Building and Safety Division at 25541 Barton Road, through the city's online permit portal. Anything reaching the public walk or the kerb is a separate file with Public Works Engineering, whose yard is at 26000 Barton Road. We lodge both.
Not if it stands over 4 feet from the base of its footing, and not at any height where it holds back a surcharge such as a drive above it. That is the state threshold, and it catches most walls on the Loma Linda hillside, where a single lot commonly steps more than 4 feet between the house pad and the fence. Flatwork is a separate clause: a walk or drive is exempt while it stays within 30 inches of adjacent grade.
The north of the city is a fine sandy loam on a 0 to 2 percent grade and behaves like any valley floor. The hill and the ground south east of it are mapped as loam and sandy loam on 30 to 50 percent slopes, and eroded. You can check your own parcel on the USDA Web Soil Survey. Which of the two you are on changes the base, the drainage and the sequence of the job.
Longer here than on flat ground, because the grading happens before any concrete arrives. Reckon on 2 to 3 days on site for a patio and 4 for a full drive, with a cut lot at the top of that range. The cure is the same either way: 24 hours before anyone stands on the slab, 7 days before a car does, 28 for full strength. Joints go in on the day of the pour.
Close to it. Loma Linda is 13 miles from the yard on Limonite Avenue, straight up through Colton and Grand Terrace, both of which we also cover. That is well inside our 25 mile radius, so a crew finishing on one side of the county starts here the following morning without an overnight anywhere. We will say within 1 business day whether we can take the date you want.
Colton and Grand Terrace sit between the yard and Loma Linda, and Redlands and Highland sit beyond it. All are on the list below, nearest first. Where an address straddles a city line, pick the town it is actually in - that decides whose counter you deal with.
Open the Jurupa Valley Office in Google Maps Tell us what you want built and roughly where it sits on the lot. We reply within 1 business day, take the levels at your address, and what we build there is held to a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built.