Concrete Driveway Building
Does shifting Pasadena clay snap your driveway? We pour 5 inches of concrete over 4 inches of compacted rock with a tied steel rebar grid.
Concrete Contractor in Pasadena, CA
Concrete for a town where more than a quarter of the houses went up before 1940: drives, patios, garage floors and the walk out front. Ring, and Wes Hollister measures the job at your own address.
- Licensed & Insured
- Locally Owned & Operated
- Free Estimates
- Satisfaction Guaranteed
Concrete Work for Pasadena Homes and Frontages
Arroyo Pasadena Concrete pours for the whole city - the bungalow blocks north of Washington, the deep lots off Orange Grove, the flats and shopfronts along Colorado Boulevard. A driveway worn through to its aggregate, a garage floor going down under a new ADU, a run of public walk a street tree has picked up: each one built to California code and signed off before we leave the street.
Concrete Patio Construction
Ponding water cracking your patio? We pour four inch slabs over compacted crushed base with engineered slope to protect Pasadena footings.
Stamped Concrete Services
Does Pasadena heat ruin your decorative pour? We cast 4000 PSI concrete at 4 inches thick with integral color and reinforcement throughout.
Concrete Sidewalk Building
Are roots lifting your Pasadena walk? We cast four inch concrete over four inches of crushed base with expansion joints to stop trip steps.
Garage Floor Concrete
Is your garage floor cracking under car tires? We pour five inch reinforced slabs over crushed rock with steel rebar tied every 18 inches.
Decorative Concrete
Faded patio stains peeling off? We cast 4 inch slabs with integral mineral color and washed aggregate that hold tone for over 30 years.
Concrete Retaining Walls
Is your slope sliding downhill? We pour concrete retaining walls with 4000 PSI mix and continuous gravel drainage behind every single wall.
Concrete Floor Installation
Struggling with damp or unlevel rooms? We pour 4 inch structural interior concrete over 15 mil barrier and 4 inches of crushed stone.
Concrete Pool Decks
Is your pool deck pulling away from the coping? We pour 4 inch slabs over compacted base rock with true expansion joints across Pasadena.
Concrete Steps Construction
Are your porch stairs breaking away from the wall? We anchor solid concrete steps with deep footings and tied grade beams to hold firm.
Slab Foundation Building
Is foothill clay shifting under your subgrade? We build structural slabs with 4000 PSI concrete over a 4 inch crushed aggregate subbase.
Foundation Installation
Cracking stem walls across Pasadena soils? We excavate continuous footings 24 inches deep into firm subgrade with engineered rebar cages.
Concrete Parking Lot Building
Are heavy delivery trucks cracking your lot? We pour 6 inch reinforced concrete over compacted crushed base to handle commercial traffic.
Concrete Footings
Need foundation pads that resist shifting ground? We dig footings 24 inches down into Pasadena alluvium with grade 60 steel rebar cages.
Foundation Raising
Are your floors sloping from settled footings? We drive steel push piers down 25 feet to rock, lifting concrete footings back to level.
Concrete Cutting
Need clean slab trenching? We wet cut vintage Pasadena footings down to 8 inches deep without jarring the surrounding unreinforced masonry.
Four Steps, First Phone Call to Final Walk
Four steps carry a job from the phone to concrete you can park on. The man who writes the figure at step two is the man stood over the pour at step three.
Say What You Want
Describe the job by phone or through the form. A call comes back within 1 business day, and the free visit is booked inside that same week.
Measured, Then Priced
We pace the area, dig a hole to find what the old slab sat on, then price break-out, base, depth, finish and clean-up separately.
Paperwork, Then Concrete
Once you accept the figure, city paperwork goes in, the truck is booked, and the sequence runs from break-out through to sawn joints.
Walk It With You
We clear the site, then walk the finished concrete beside your sheet, checking depth, base, joints and edges, and close on your word.
Why Pasadena Owners Bring Us In
C-8 Licensed and Insured
The classification is C-8 Concrete, held at the California Contractors State License Board and searchable there under our own name. We carry liability insurance on every job as well, so a saw running on your frontage and a mixer stood at your curb are our exposure and never yours.
Pouring Here Since 2016
Wes Hollister gave 20 years to other outfits before his own name went on a license in 2016. What sits under a lot here changes street by street, and knowing whether a block digs as washed gravel or as loam over clay before the crew turns up is what those years bought.
Free Figure, Written on Site
Nothing is charged for coming out. On an older frontage the first thing measured is what has to come out and where it goes, because hauling broken slab off a narrow street is hours. Break-out, base, depth, finish and clean-up are each priced on their own line.
Workmanship Put in Writing
What you sign carries a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built, its terms beside the figure. The call-back we actually get is a sunk panel over ground somebody backfilled loose, and we lift it and redo it. Marking and wear sit outside that, in writing.
Weighing up two figures? (424) 577-5766 or send us a message.
In Their Own Words
What Pasadena Customers Say About the Work
Three jobs off Pasadena streets since last year, told by the people who paid for them: a 1920s drive at the end of its life, a lifted public walk, and a back patio that had to satisfy the district.
“Our 1920s drive had gone to gravel at the edges and the apron had dropped. Wes measured it on the Monday and left the written figure with us. The old one came out, the base went back in over two days, and 480 square feet went down at four inches with the saw over it that afternoon.”
“A camphor out front had lifted two panels and my neighbour had caught her foot on one. They took the Public Works permit out, sawed on the joints, trimmed the roots back behind a barrier and laid eighty feet of fresh walk. Once the inspector signed it I applied for the reimbursement.”
“We are in a landmark district and I expected an argument about the back patio. They knew what the paperwork wanted, stamped three hundred and sixty square feet in ashlar to match the porch steps, and sealed it once it had cured out. A year on it still reads as though it came with the house.”
Who You Are Hiring
C-8 Licensed, Based on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena
Arroyo Pasadena Concrete is a concrete contractor run out of East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, CA. Wes Hollister opened it in 2016 on the back of 20 years working the San Gabriel Valley crews, and today the list of towns we answer for stands at 20, all of them inside Los Angeles County.
Pasadena was incorporated in 1886 and it shows in the housing: of 65,444 units in the city, 17,366 were built in 1939 or earlier. More than a quarter of the town predates the war, which puts the original flatwork on those lots at eighty years and up, against the 30 to 40 years a properly laid slab is good for.
Permit paperwork goes to the Permit Center on North Garfield Avenue, and the crew that laid the slab is the crew standing there when the inspector calls, so your own diary never comes into it. liability insurance on every job runs from the first day on site. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
How It Gets Built
What Never Changes on a Pasadena Pour
None of this shifts with the size of the job. Old fill and root wood come out before anything is rolled, depth is set by the heaviest thing that will ever stand on the finished slab, and no pour waits until tomorrow for its joints.
- Old fill dug out
- Roots cut, barrier set
- Base rolled in lifts
- Depth follows the load
- 3,500 psi ready-mix
- Joints sawn same day
- Edges tooled by hand
- Kept wet a full 7 days
Concrete Finished Around Pasadena This Year
Six jobs on blocks you already know - a drive in Bungalow Heaven, a patio off Historic Highlands, a run of walk in Garfield Heights. Worth a look on the way home before you decide anything.
Wes Hollister - Founder and Owner
Wes Hollister put 20 years into other people's crews before the license came out in his own name in 2016 - drives on the bungalow blocks, shop floors along Colorado Boulevard, and one lifted frontage walk after another under the old street trees. He writes every figure and stands on every pour himself, and he answers the phone he gives you.
Ground, Trees and Paperwork
What Pouring Concrete in Pasadena Involves
An old town on a broken-up alluvial fan, street trees the owner keeps the walk under, and districts where the front of the house is reviewed. All three reach the figure.
Pasadena was incorporated in 1886 and about 142,600 people live here now. The stock is the oldest we work on: 17,366 of the city's 65,444 homes were finished in 1939 or earlier, and another 4,581 through the 1940s, so a third of the town was built before 1950. Original drives, walks and porch steps on those lots have long since run past the 30 to 40 years good flatwork gives you, and that is most of what we break out.
The ground is alluvium carried down out of the San Gabriels, and it did not arrive evenly. On a good many blocks the profile is Tujunga and Palmview wash - 64 to 94 per cent sand and rounded gravel to depth, drained, easy to compact damp, and unable to hold a cut face for a night. Elsewhere it is Azuvina and Montebello loam with a clay band a foot down running near a third clay, which swells in winter and shrinks by September. Two different jobs, two streets apart.
A building permit is filed at the Permit Center on North Garfield Avenue, where several departments sit at one counter and a contractor has to show a City of Pasadena business license to pull anything. Work past your property line goes instead to Public Works Permitting, which runs every activity in the right-of-way. Where the house sits in a landmark district, the street-facing concrete is reviewed before it is poured, not after.
Concrete, Asphalt or Pavers on a Pasadena Frontage
Frontages here are old, often narrow, and half of them sit under a mature street tree with the walk in front of them the owner's to keep up. That is what the choice turns on: how a surface handles roots, and how a damaged piece is put right.
| Option | Lifespan | Back in use | Upkeep | Under mature trees, on an old lot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poured concrete | 30-40 years | On foot in 1-2 days, cars at 7 | Reseal every 2-3 years | Sawn out and replaced a panel at a time over a cut root |
| Asphalt paving | 15-20 years | Drive on it after 2-3 days | Sealcoat every 2-3 years | Humps over a root rather than cracking, and holds oil |
| Interlocking pavers | 25-50 years over a built base | Walk on them straight away | Sand the joints back yearly | Lifts unit by unit over roots and needs resetting |
Laying asphalt is the cheap end and keeping it the dear end; pavers invert that. Beneath a street tree, only one of the three lifts out a panel at a time.
Concrete Basics for an Older Pasadena Lot
Why does the ground change from block to block?
Because the city was built on fans washed out of the San Gabriels, and those fans were not laid evenly. Some blocks are sand and gravel all the way down: drained, but they slump once cut. Others carry loam over a clay band a foot under. The USDA Web Soil Survey has yours.
What does a clay band a foot down actually do?
It takes up water through winter and gives it back by September, and the surface above rises and falls with it. Around a third of that horizon is clay where we have dug it. The answer is a deeper dig and a thicker rolled base, so the movement is spread rather than handed to the slab.
Do street trees really break a frontage walk?
They are the commonest reason a panel here comes out. A mature oak or camphor sends roots under the walk after water and lifts it a joint at a time. Cutting the root buys a few seasons; cutting it back, setting a barrier on the tree side and relaying the panel is what ends it.
Where will a new slab crack, and can that be chosen?
The saw cuts do. Setting concrete loses volume and has to open somewhere, so grooves are put in at 8 to 12 foot centers on a four-inch pour and the movement gathers in them rather than travelling across the middle. Where a service trench crosses the pad those centers come in tighter.
Which half of the job does the city inspect?
Inside your boundary, usually none: private drives and walks sit outside the state code's permit list. Cross the line to the apron, the parkway or the walk and Public Works Permitting wants its permit first. A wall over 4 feet, footing bottom to wall top, takes one too.
What depth does a slab want, and who decides it?
Weight decides it and the ground has no say. Foot traffic and family cars want 4 inches. Put a work truck, a loaded trailer or a car up on jacks on it and 5 or 6 is the number. Depth is not correctable once concrete is down, so it appears on the sheet before a signature does.
Concrete Questions From Pasadena Owners
Cost, ground, depth, joints, street trees, permits, design review, sealing and what the guarantee covers - answered for old lots and the fans they were built on.
How much does concrete cost in Pasadena?
There is no figure to give over the phone, and depth explains most of why. Take a slab from four inches to five and you have bought a quarter more concrete along with the deeper base carrying it, and the finish has not been discussed yet. Then come two nobody can guess from a description: what weight of old flatwork has to be lifted and hauled, and how long the route from the mixer turns out to be.
What makes a driveway here cost more than expected?
What is found under the old one. A drive laid in the 1920s often sits straight on the fan with no base at all, and once it is off, root wood, old fill and a service trench or two usually come up with it. That lands on the break-out and base lines rather than the concrete, and it is the reason the ground gets opened during the measure rather than after.
Can you pour a patio behind a house with no side access?
Yes - through the side gate by barrow, or over the roof with a line pump - and the way in shifts the figure further than square footage does. Old Pasadena lots run deep, so a back garden can be a long walk from the curb, and that walk is the first thing measured. Stamping or coloring puts another day on the end for the sealer.
What depth does a drive need on Pasadena ground?
Four inches carries cars. Five to six is what a work truck, a loaded trailer or a motorhome parked through the winter needs. Compacted fan gravel is a fine bearing layer, but no base makes up an inch that was never poured: a thin slab begins spalling under ordinary use inside a few years, and nothing repairs it afterwards. Whatever depth we agree is printed on your sheet.
How much difference does the layer under a slab make?
All of it, because a slab is only as good as what holds it up and the fault usually begins below the concrete rather than inside it. Rolled base spreads a wheel load out and gives water somewhere to go. The washed gravel across much of the city manages both once compacted damp, and manages neither where a soft trench was left running through the pad.
Does Pasadena ground crack concrete on its own?
On the sand and gravel blocks, rarely - it drains and it does not swell. Where the loam carries a clay band about a foot down it does move, taking up water through winter and shrinking back by late summer, and a slab laid straight on it rides that movement until it parts. There we dig deeper and put more rolled base between the two.
Is there a wrong season for concrete in Pasadena?
October to April is the comfortable window, though a summer here never actually halts a pour. July afternoons average high 80s and August low 90s, August being the warmer of the two, so a summer job means starting early and keeping the surface damp right through its seven-day cure. That alters the hours worked, not the mix ordered.
Does new concrete need sealing in Pasadena?
It does, and a drive comes before a back patio in the queue. Concrete straight off the trowel is porous enough that the first drip from a parked engine goes in and stays, and a stamped color left bare goes flat in the sun within a couple of summers. A coat every 2 to 3 years answers it, more often on the strip a car occupies nightly.
Who is responsible for the walk in front of my house?
You are, for the permanent repair. Section 12.04 of the Pasadena Municipal Code puts the frontage walk on the property owner, and it says so even where a street tree caused the damage. The city will patch a trip hazard in asphalt in the meantime if you report it, and it runs a reimbursement programme that pays back half the cost of a permanent repair up to a published ceiling.
Is a permit needed to redo a drive or patio?
Almost never, provided the work stops at your own property line, because the state code leaves private drives and walks off its permit list. Step over that line and the parkway, the walk and the apron become right-of-way, with an application through Public Works Permitting before a saw runs. The apron is the piece most owners believe is theirs, so we establish where the boundary falls before giving a start date.
Does a landmark district change what I can pour?
It can, where the concrete is visible from the street. Pasadena designates landmark districts and the Design and Historic Preservation section reviews alterations inside them, with a Certificate of Appropriateness needed for work on a designated property. Drives, front walks and porch steps are the street-facing pieces that get looked at, so the pattern and finish are agreed before anything is broken out.
What happens if something goes wrong later on?
Phone the same number and somebody comes back out to look at it. a written workmanship guarantee against defects in how it was built is attached to every job, and its wording sits beside the figure you approved, covering base, depth, joint layout and finish. Staining, day-to-day wear, and soil moving beyond what the joint layout allows for are excluded, and printed as such.
Where the Van Goes
Towns We Reach From Colorado Boulevard
Twenty towns come off East Colorado Boulevard, all of them inside Los Angeles County and most within a quarter of an hour. Find yours below, or ring and we will say in one sentence whether we come out to you.
Open the Pasadena Office in Google Maps Book the Free Measure and Written Figure
Phone us or fill in the form; a reply reaches you within 1 business day. Wes Hollister comes out himself, takes the measurements, digs a test hole where an old slab is hiding something, and leaves the written figure behind him.