Hawthorne Torrance Concrete pours driveways, courtyards and unit floors in Florence-Graham, 14 miles up the 110 from Torrance. The lots are the densest we pour on, and the concrete is the yard.
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Florence-Graham is the densest ground we pour on, about 18,000 people to the square mile, on 1920s lots that were laid out for one bungalow and now carry two or three households.
Density changes what a slab is for. On a lot with a front house, a rear unit and four cars, the driveway is also the walk, the courtyard and the place the children play, and a car turns on it every day of the year, which is the load that breaks a 3 inch slab on dirt. There is no lawn for the water to go to, so a slab poured flat holds a puddle at a doorstep and one poured toward the rear unit floods it. And the house fills the lot's width, so concrete behind it is pumped or barrowed in.
So a Florence-Graham job is planned as one surface from the sidewalk to the back fence, even when it is poured in stages. The fall is set first, to the street or to a drain set in the slab, and every later pour is set to it. The base is 4 inches of crushed rock compacted on probed sand, the slab is 5 inches wherever a car will sit, number 4 bar runs at 18 inches through all of it, and the joints are sawn at 10 feet the same afternoon. A pump is booked for any work behind the house.
Florence-Graham holds about 64,000 people in a little over 3 square miles, on 1920s lots of 40 to 50 feet that now carry a front house, a rear unit and the cars of both. The concrete is the yard, and it is poured to be parked on and drained.
A Florence-Graham driveway runs from the sidewalk to the rear unit and is the only route for both households' cars, so it goes in at 5 inches over 4 inches of compacted rock with number 4 bar at 18 inches. We pour it in two halves a day apart, so a car can always get past.
A patio in Florence-Graham is usually the ground between the front house and the rear unit, shared by two households, so it is poured as one slab with the fall set to a drain rather than to a lawn that is no longer there. 4 inches on compacted rock, broomed, jointed at 10 feet.
Stamped concrete in Florence-Graham is a front courtyard behind a fence more often than a back yard, because the fence line is where the family sits out. We pour early, since the day warms fast this far inland, stamp in one pass, and seal it in 2 coats after the 28 day cure.
The public walk in Florence-Graham is Los Angeles County's, and a lifted panel is replaced under a county permit that we file. We saw the panel out, cut the root that lifted it, and pour the new one 4 inches thick to the county's standard drawing, flush with its neighbors.
A garage in Florence-Graham that has become a bedroom or a unit needs a dry floor, and the 1920s slab under it never was. We break it out, lay a 10 mil vapor barrier over 4 inches of compacted rock, and pour 5 inches troweled flat, with the edge thickened under any wall.
Exposed aggregate and a colored border are how a Florence-Graham courtyard stops reading as a parking pad. We pour the whole lot as one slab, wash the stone proud in the field, trowel a smooth border along the fence line, and seal it once it has cured so oil wipes off.
The ground is flat, so a retaining wall in Florence-Graham holds a planter along a fence or a step between two lots rather than a slope. We footing it 18 inches into the sand, run drain rock and a pipe behind the stem, and cap it level, with a county permit where it tops 4 feet.
An interior slab for a rear unit is the job Florence-Graham asks for most, and Los Angeles County inspects it as a habitable floor. We pour over a vapor barrier on compacted rock, thicken the edge under the walls to the engineer's drawing, and trowel it flat for tile or vinyl.
The drive from our office on Hawthorne Boulevard is up the 110 to Florence Avenue and east, about 14 miles, so the crew leaves before the freeway fills and the concrete comes from a plant near the job. Florence-Graham is unincorporated, so there is no city counter. A permit for an apron, a walk panel, a wall over 4 feet or a slab a unit will stand on goes to Los Angeles County Public Works, Building and Safety, which calls the area Florence-Firestone. We file it and meet them.
The lots between Slauson Avenue and Florence Avenue were cut in the 1920s along the streetcar line the A Line now runs on, 40 to 50 feet wide, with a bungalow at the front and a garage at the back. Nearly every garage is now a unit and many front houses have been split, so a lot built for one family holds two or three. Ownership here is about a third of households, so the call for a new drive comes from a landlord as often as the family on it, and the estimate is written for them.
The ground gives no trouble. It is river sand that packs hard under a plate compactor, so the failures here are in the slab, poured thin and driven on daily, never in what is under it. Heat is more of a factor than at the coast. Florence-Graham is 14 miles from the ocean and the marine layer is gone by midmorning most of the year, so the pour is booked for the first truck and kept wet for a week. Roosevelt Park on Florence Avenue is the one open ground, the rest is concrete.
Four stages, one crew, Kenji Okamoto at each. Because the lot stays in use while we work, the estimate names which half is poured on which day, and a car can always get past the work to the street.
Kenji Okamoto measures the lot from sidewalk to fence, sets the fall, checks the gate for a pump, and writes the estimate before he leaves.
The old slab comes out one half at a time, the sand is compacted, 4 inches of rock goes in, and the other half stays open for the cars.
Apron, walk, wall and unit-floor work is filed with Los Angeles County, and the inspector sees the base and the steel before the pour.
Each half is poured at daybreak, sawn that afternoon and kept wet. Feet after 24 to 48 hours, cars after 7 days, then the second half.
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, staged so the lot stays usable, and a landlord who is elsewhere gets the same written figure by email the same day.
Reviews
Our own reviews, quoted as they were left on Google, Facebook and the BBB across the towns we cover, Florence-Graham among them. Each is a single job with its year, and the full-lot pours are there.
“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 Florence-Graham homeowners and landlords ask before they book. Who issues the permit, what moves the estimate on a full lot, how a crew from Torrance gets here, and how the cars get out meanwhile.
Access and area, in that order. The house fills the width of the lot, so any concrete behind it is pumped over the roof or barrowed through a gate, and that is the line that separates a front drive from a back courtyard of the same size. After that it is the area, since a lot poured from sidewalk to fence is a lot of concrete. Every estimate is measured and written on site, every line itemized.
Los Angeles County. Florence-Graham has no city hall, so an apron, a public walk panel, a wall over 4 feet and any floor a unit will stand on are permitted and inspected by Los Angeles County Public Works, Building and Safety, under the name Florence-Firestone. Flatwork at grade inside your lot needs no permit. Where one is needed we file it and meet the inspector, and you never see the counter.
By starting early and ordering the concrete from a plant near the job rather than bringing it 14 miles. The crew is up the 110 before the freeway fills and on the lot at daybreak. You hear back within 1 business day with a day for the visit, the estimate is written before we leave, and a landlord who is elsewhere gets it by email the same day. Most jobs start within two weeks of approval.
Yes, and it is how every Florence-Graham drive is planned. The slab is poured in two halves along its length, a day or more apart, so one lane stays open from the rear unit to the street throughout. The new half carries feet after 24 to 48 hours and a car after 7 days, and the second half is poured once the first can be driven on. The estimate names which day each half is closed.
About a week on site, poured in halves, and a single drive or courtyard runs two to three days. Tear-out and base take the first day of each half, the pour is one early morning, and the joints are sawn that afternoon. Each half is walked on after 24 to 48 hours and driven on after 7 days, and the whole lot is in use by the end of the second week. Nothing heavier than a car for 28 days.
South Gate and Lynwood to the south and east, and Compton down Compton Avenue, are covered from the same Torrance office, and each has its own page because the permit counter changes at every line. Huntington Park is a city of its own and Walnut Park is county ground, so a street on either side of that line files somewhere different, and the blocks north of Slauson Avenue are the City of Los Angeles.
Florence-Graham touches South Gate and Lynwood and sits a straight run up Compton Avenue from Compton, and all three are covered from the same office. The lines here separate a county permit from a city one, and the neighboring page names which.
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, written on the lot and staged so the cars get out, and it carries a written guarantee.