Hawthorne Torrance Concrete pours driveways, patios and walls in Culver City, 15 miles up the 405 from Torrance. The Ballona Creek flats and the Culver Crest slopes are two jobs, priced as two.
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Culver City is two kinds of ground in one city. The flats along Ballona Creek are sand and silt with water not far below, and Culver Crest and Blair Hills are the clay flank of the Baldwin Hills.
The two fail differently. On the flats the base under a 1940s slab was never compacted and the water table keeps it damp, so the slab settles at the corners and a garage floor sweats each spring. On the hill the clay takes on water in January and lets it go by fall, moving the ground a finger's width a year, and a patio or a wall poured tight to it is lifted, then dropped, until it cracks. A slab that lasts fifty years on the flats is in pieces on the Crest in ten unless built to move.
So the specification changes at the foot of the hill. On the flats we probe the subgrade, compact 4 inches of crushed rock in layers, and set a vapor barrier under any slab that is a floor. On the Crest and in Blair Hills the clay is cut out to a depth the probe sets and replaced with rock, the edge is thickened, joints are sawn at 8 feet rather than 10, and any wall is footed below the clay and drained. The steel is the same on both, number 4 bar at 18 inches, to hold a crack shut.
Most of Culver City is flat ground along Ballona Creek with 1920s to 1950s houses on lots of 40 to 50 feet. The rest climbs the Baldwin Hills into Culver Crest and Blair Hills, on larger lots and clay that moves. The work follows the ground.
A Culver City driveway on the flats is a narrow strip beside a 1930s bungalow, often under 9 feet, and goes in at 4 inches on compacted rock with a 5 inch lane under the car. On the Crest the same drive climbs, so it takes a broom finish across the slope and joints at 8 feet.
Back yards on the Culver City flats are small and walled, so a patio is measured to the fence and pumped in over the house where a side gate is under 3 feet. We pour 4 inches on compacted rock, set the fall away from the foundation, and finish it broomed or troweled.
Stamped concrete in Culver City is often a front walk or a courtyard rather than a back yard, because the houses near Downtown were built close to the street. We pour it at first light, since a small slab skins fast, stamp in one pass and seal it in 2 coats after the 28 day cure.
The public walk in Culver City is the City's and the parkway trees are old, so a lifted panel is the job we are called for most on the flats. We take the permit out, saw the panel, cut the root that lifted it, and pour the new panel 4 inches thick to meet its neighbors flush.
Garage floors near Ballona Creek sit close to the water table, and the 1940s slabs above it sweat every spring. We break the old floor out, lay a 10 mil vapor barrier over 4 inches of compacted rock, and pour 5 inches troweled flat, so a coating or a converted room stays dry.
Exposed aggregate and integral color are asked for on Culver City's Spanish houses, where a plain gray slab fights the tile and stucco. We pour the drive or walk as one slab, wash the stone proud in the field and trowel a smooth border, then seal it after it has cured.
A retaining wall on Culver Crest or in Blair Hills holds clay that swells in a wet winter and shrinks by October, and a wall not drained behind is pushed over by the first. We footing it below the active clay, run drain rock and a pipe behind the stem, and give it weep holes.
Interior slabs for an ADU or a rear studio are the growing job in Culver City, where a garage behind a 1930s house becomes a unit. We pour over a vapor barrier on compacted rock, thicken the edge under the walls to the engineer's drawing, and trowel it flat enough for tile.
Our office is on Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance and the drive is about 15 miles up the 405 to Culver Boulevard, or up Sepulveda when the freeway is stopped, so the crew leaves early and the concrete is ordered from a plant on the Westside rather than from the South Bay. Permits go to the City of Culver City's Building Safety Division at City Hall on Culver Boulevard, and anything at the curb or on the public walk is inspected before the pour. We file it and stand with the inspector.
The city grew up around the studio lot on Washington Boulevard, and the streets nearest it, in Carlson Park, Lucerne-Higuera and the blocks off Downtown, are 1920s and 1930s Spanish bungalows on lots of 40 to 50 feet with a driveway squeezed down one side. Sunkist Park and the streets toward Sepulveda came in the 1940s and 1950s, on wider lots with a garage at the back. Fox Hills is 1970s condominiums, where the work is a common walk or a pool deck for an association.
Ballona Creek is the thing to know about the flats. It crosses the city in a concrete channel on its way to the sea, and the ground either side is low, with water close beneath in a wet year, so a floor slab on those streets gets a vapor barrier without being asked. Culver Crest and Blair Hills are the opposite problem, dry clay on a slope that moves with the season, and the streets that climb off Jefferson Boulevard and Overland Avenue take a smaller truck than the flats do.
Four stages, one crew, Kenji Okamoto at each. The visit settles which ground you are on, and that decides the base, the joints and the size of the truck, all of it written on the estimate before anything is booked.
Kenji Okamoto measures the area, probes the ground for water on the flats or clay on the hill, and writes the estimate at the property.
The old slab comes out, soft ground or active clay is dug and replaced, and 4 inches of crushed rock is compacted in layers.
Right-of-way and wall work is filed with the City of Culver City, and the inspector checks the base and the steel before the pour.
The pour is one morning, joints are sawn that afternoon, and the slab is kept wet for 7 days. Feet after 24 to 48 hours, cars after 7 days.
Call or send the form and we reply within 1 business day with a day for the visit. Every estimate is measured and written on site whichever ground you are on, and it is yours to keep with no charge and no obligation to book.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners across the towns we cover, Culver City among them. Each is one job, dated and named, and the flats and the hill are both in them.
“The garage slab in our 1955 house had heaved and the door would not close. They broke it out in a morning, found no base under it, compacted 4 inches of rock, poured 440 square feet at 5 inches and troweled it smooth. The estimate was written in our driveway and the invoice matched it.”
“We built an ADU and Hawthorne Torrance Concrete did the slab. They set the forms to the plans, the City inspector passed the steel first time, and the pour went in before eight in the morning. 620 square feet, edges thickened to 12 inches, and the framers were on it a week later.”
“Our slope in the Riviera crept onto the patio every winter. They dug footings 30 inches into the clay, poured a 42-foot wall with weep holes and a drain behind it, and backfilled with gravel. Kenji Okamoto came back after the first rains to check it. Dry, straight, and it has not moved.”
What Culver City homeowners ask before they book. Whether the hill costs more, which permits the City wants, how a crew from Torrance reaches a Westside lot, and how long a driveway is out of use.
Which ground you are on, then access. A patio on the flats is measured, priced by its area and its tear-out, and pumped in if the side gate is narrow. The same patio on Culver Crest needs clay cut out and replaced, closer joints and a thickened edge, and the added base is where the estimate moves. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and the ground is probed before it is written.
Not for flatwork inside your lot at grade. You do for the apron and the curb cut, for any panel of the public walk, and for a retaining wall over 4 feet or any wall holding a slope, which the City treats as structural. Those go to the City of Culver City's Building Safety Division at City Hall on Culver Boulevard. We file them and meet the inspector, so the counter is our trip and not yours.
By leaving early. The office is about 15 miles down the 405, so the crew is on the lot before the freeway fills and the concrete comes from a plant on the Westside rather than riding up with us. You hear back within 1 business day with a day for the visit, and the estimate is written before we leave. A job usually starts within two weeks of approval.
Clay. Culver Crest and Blair Hills sit on the flank of the Baldwin Hills, where the ground swells with the winter rain and shrinks through the dry months, and a slab poured tight to it is lifted and dropped every year until it breaks. We cut the clay out under the slab and replace it with compacted rock, thicken the edge, saw the joints at 8 feet, and drain behind any wall, which a flat lot does not need.
Two to four working days on site for most jobs, and a hillside wall runs a week because the footing is dug into clay and inspected before it is poured. The pour itself is one morning, the joints are sawn that afternoon, and the slab is walked on after 24 to 48 hours and driven on after 7 days. Anything heavier than a car waits for the 28 day strength.
View Park-Windsor Hills across the top of the Baldwin Hills and El Segundo down Sepulveda Boulevard are covered from the same Torrance office, and each has its own page. Culver City's own boundary is irregular, and a street with a Culver City address can sit in the City of Los Angeles, where a permit goes to a different counter. We check the parcel before we file.
Culver City is the northern edge of what we cover, with View Park-Windsor Hills over the Baldwin Hills and El Segundo and Manhattan Beach back down Sepulveda Boulevard. Each has its own page, since the ground and the permit counter change at every line.
Open the Torrance Office in Google Maps Send the form or call and we reply within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is free and written at the property once the ground is known, and it carries a written guarantee.