Hawthorne Torrance Concrete pours driveways, garage slabs and patios in Gardena, 5 miles up Crenshaw Boulevard from our office. Every estimate is measured and written on site, at no charge.
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Gardena is the low end of the South Bay plain. The Gardena Willows Wetland Preserve off Vermont Avenue is what is left of the slough that drained it, and the Dominguez Channel carries the rest.
Low ground drains last, and water under a slab is what lifts it. A Gardena yard stays wet for weeks after a January storm while the blocks uphill toward Torrance are dry in days, so a slab poured on bare soil here spends the winter on mud and the summer on dust, and that cycle opens a crack along a driveway before its fifth year. The strawberry fields the houses replaced also left a deep worked topsoil, which compacts well once the loose top of it has been taken off.
So a Gardena job is built to let water out. The topsoil comes out to firm ground, 4 inches of crushed rock goes in and is compacted in layers so water passes through rather than pooling under the slab, and the surface is graded to fall a quarter inch a foot toward the street or a drain. Number 4 steel on an 18 inch grid holds the panels together where one corner sits softer than the rest, and on the lots nearest the channel the edge is thickened to 12 inches.
Gardena housing is older than the tracts around it and much of it is doubled up, a second house or a fourplex behind the first. So the work is drives that carry four cars, walks between units, and garage slabs poured thin on farm soil.
A Gardena driveway is often a shared one, running past the front house to a second at the back and carrying every car on the lot. We pour it 5 inches thick on 4 inches of compacted rock, with a joint every 10 feet so the long run cracks in straight lines and nowhere else.
Gardena back yards sit low, so a patio here is graded to send water to a drain rather than to the house. We take out the soft topsoil the old fields left, compact 4 inches of rock, and pour 4 inches with the surface falling a quarter inch a foot away from the door.
Stamped concrete does the work of pavers on a Gardena front yard without the joints for weeds to root in, which matters on a lot a landlord visits once a month. We stamp a 4 inch slab in ashlar or flagstone, color it through, and seal it twice before the first winter.
The public walk in Gardena belongs to the City, so a lifted panel at the curb needs an encroachment permit before it is cut. We file it, pin the new panel to the old with dowels so the joint stays flush, and pour the path from the walk to your door the same day, 4 inches thick.
A 1940s Gardena garage slab was poured 3 inches thick on farm soil, and the wet ground under it has been lifting one corner for decades. We break it out, compact 4 inches of rock, lay a vapor barrier, and pour 5 inches troweled flat enough for a car, a workbench or a coating.
Exposed aggregate suits a Gardena front walk because the stone gives grip on a surface that stays damp under the marine layer well into the morning. We seed the stone into a 4 inch slab, wash the cement back the same afternoon, and seal it once the slab has cured for 28 days.
Gardena is flat, so a retaining wall here holds a raised bed or a garage pad rather than a hillside. We foot it 18 inches into firm ground below the topsoil, drain it behind the stem with gravel and a perforated pipe, and cap it level, since standing water pushes walls over.
A garage conversion or an ADU behind a Gardena house needs an interior slab that stays dry on low ground. We pour 4 inches over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted rock, trowel it flat enough for tile or plank, and lay the joints out to follow the walls of the room.
Our office is on Hawthorne Boulevard in Torrance, and Crenshaw Boulevard north puts a crew in Gardena in about 15 minutes. Permits come from the City of Gardena Community Development Department at City Hall on West 162nd Street, a building permit for a wall or a slab under a room and the encroachment permit for the apron and the public walk. We file them, and say first whether your address is in the city at all, since Alondra Park and El Camino Village are permitted by the County.
The houses between Rosecrans Avenue and Redondo Beach Boulevard went up from the 1920s to the 1950s on lots sold off from the berry farms and nurseries that Japanese American families worked here, and many of those lots have since taken a second house at the back. That is the job we see most in Gardena, a shared drive running 100 feet to the rear unit, poured 3 inches thick before the second house existed and now carrying its cars as well.
The east side of the city runs to the Harbor Freeway and the south side to the Artesia Freeway, and the streets between them, off Western and Normandie, lie flatter and lower than the blocks toward Crenshaw. Lower ground means we check the fall twice, once on the visit and again with the forms set, since a driveway that drains toward the garage is the call we most want to avoid here. The marine layer keeps pours cool, so the calendar is set by rain and never by heat.
Four stages in order. The estimate is measured and written at the property, the permit goes in before a tool is lifted, the base is inspected before the pour, and the crew that tears out is the crew that finishes.
Kenji Okamoto measures the slab, probes for soft topsoil, checks the fall toward the street and writes the estimate at your door.
Any permit goes to City Hall on West 162nd Street, and on a shared drive we set the days so every car on the lot keeps a way out.
The old slab comes out, the wet topsoil with it, and 4 inches of crushed rock is compacted in layers and inspected before the steel.
Poured and finished in one morning, joints sawn that afternoon, kept wet for 7 days. Walk on it after 24 hours, park after 7 days.
Call or use the form and we reply within 1 business day with a day for the visit. We measure, check the fall and probe the ground, and write the figure before we leave the property. Nothing is owed for the visit.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners and landlords across the South Bay. Gardena is one of the towns behind them, and the jobs are the ones described on this page.
“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 we are asked at the door in Gardena, on cost, permits from City Hall, how a rear unit is reached, what the low ground does to a slab and how long a shared drive is out of use.
Tear-out and access, before area. A Gardena lot with a rear unit means the old drive is the only way in, so demolition and the pour are sequenced so nobody is parked out for more than a night, and that planning is on the estimate. Thickness and the depth of soft topsoil move it next. We measure on the free visit and write the figure at the property.
Not for a driveway, patio or walk inside your lot line. The apron and the public sidewalk are right-of-way and need an encroachment permit, and a wall over 4 feet or a slab under an ADU needs a building permit, both from the City of Gardena Community Development Department on West 162nd Street. We file them and meet the inspector at the base and the steel.
Because they were poured thin on wet ground with no joints. A 1940s drive here is 3 inches on soil that holds water all winter, and a car on a slab like that bends it until it breaks lengthwise. A new one is 5 inches on 4 inches of compacted rock, with number 4 steel and a sawn joint every 10 feet, so the movement goes into the joints and not into the middle of the slab.
About 15 minutes, up Crenshaw Boulevard from Torrance. We reply within 1 business day and the visit is booked inside the week. The work itself waits on the permit where one is needed and on a dry forecast, since a pour needs a dry day and a dry night. The marine layer is damp but does not stop a pour the way rain does.
About 2 working days on site and 7 days of cure. Tear-out and the base are the first day, the pour and finish the second morning, and the joints are cut that afternoon. You can walk on it after 24 hours and park on it after 7 days. On a shared drive we pour in two halves where we can, so the rear house always has a way out.
Not always. Alondra Park, around El Camino College and the county park, and El Camino Village next to it both take Gardena mail on some streets and are unincorporated, so their permits come from Los Angeles County rather than from City Hall. We check the parcel before we file, because a permit taken at the wrong counter is a job stopped at inspection.
Gardena borders Torrance, Hawthorne, Lawndale and Carson, and the Los Angeles neighborhoods of Harbor Gateway and West Athens. We cover the four cities from the same office, so a street on the city line has a page of its own next door.
Open the Torrance Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call you back within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is written on site and costs nothing, and the finished work carries a written guarantee.