Hawthorne Torrance Concrete pours footings, walls, drives and walks in Hermosa Beach, 4 miles from our Torrance office by the coast road. Every estimate is measured and written at the lot, and it costs nothing.
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The enemy of concrete in Hermosa Beach is the air, not the ground. Salt on the marine layer reaches the steel inside any slab or wall not built to keep it out, and rusting steel breaks concrete apart.
The sand under the city is easy ground. It drains in minutes, it does not swell, and it compacts to a firm bed with a plate. What it will not do is stand up, so a footing trench in the Sand Section is shored or poured the day it is dug. Salt is the slower problem. Chloride from sea air works into unsealed concrete a fraction of an inch a year, and when it reaches the steel the steel swells and spalls the face off, which is why older walls along The Strand carry rust stains.
So a Hermosa Beach pour is built to keep salt off the steel. The rebar sits with 3 inches of cover on any face open to the weather rather than the inch and a half that would do inland, the mix carries less water and more cement so there is less pore for chloride to travel, and every exposed surface is sealed after the 28 day cure and resealed every 2 to 3 years. On the Hill Section, where a lot steps 10 feet from alley to street, the wall gets the same cover and a drain behind it.
Most concrete in Hermosa Beach is poured because a house is being replaced. A 1920s cottage on a 30 foot lot comes down and a 3 story house goes up on its footprint, and the footings, the garage slab at the alley and the street wall are all new.
A Hermosa Beach driveway is short, often 20 feet from the alley to the garage door, and it is the apron and the curb cut that take the planning, since the alley is public. We pour 5 inches on compacted sand with the steel set 3 inches from the surface, sealed against the salt.
A patio in Hermosa Beach is a roof deck as often as a yard, but at grade it is the strip between the house and the walk street. We pour it 4 inches thick with a light broom finish so sand brushes off, a fall away from the house, and a sealer so salt fog cannot stain it.
Stamped concrete on a Hermosa Beach entry gives the look of stone without pavers that sand works loose. We stamp a 4 inch slab in flagstone or a slate texture, take the color through the mix rather than the surface, and seal it twice, as a stamped surface holds salt in its grain.
The public walk in Hermosa Beach carries more feet per yard than anywhere else we pour, and a lifted panel on a walk street is a city matter. We pull the encroachment permit, replace the panel at 4 inches with the top matched to its neighbors, and pin it so the edge stays flush.
A Hermosa Beach garage opens onto an alley, and its slab takes salt fog every night the door is left up. We pour 5 inches over a vapor barrier on compacted sand, trowel it smooth, and seal it after the cure, so the surface can be hosed down without the water going into the slab.
Exposed aggregate suits Hermosa Beach because sand tracked off the beach disappears into it instead of sitting on top. We seed a beach pebble into a 4 inch slab, wash the paste off the same afternoon, and seal it so the salt stays on the surface where the next rinse takes it.
A retaining wall on the Hill Section holds sand, and sand pushes harder when it is wet and runs when it is dry. We key the footing into firm sand, put 3 inches of cover on the steel because it faces the ocean, drain the stem to a weep, and cap it so the top will not spall.
A new house on a Hermosa Beach lot gets an interior slab at garage level and often a basement, and both sit close to the water table near the beach. We pour over a heavy vapor barrier on compacted sand, thicken the edges under the walls, and trowel the top flat for the floor.
From the office on Hawthorne Boulevard the crew goes west on Torrance Boulevard and north on Pacific Coast Highway, and is in Hermosa Beach in about 15 minutes. Plans are lodged with the City of Hermosa Beach Community Development Department at City Hall on Valley Drive, a building permit for a foundation or a wall and an encroachment permit at the apron and the walk. West of the highway the city is in the coastal zone, and a job there beyond flatwork can need a coastal permit too.
The Sand Section, between Hermosa Avenue and the Greenbelt, is where the lots are narrowest, many of them 30 feet wide and served from an alley at the back. A mixer will not fit down most of those alleys, so concrete is pumped from the nearest cross street or barrowed in, and the estimate says which. On the walk streets there is no vehicle access at all, and every yard of concrete arrives on foot, which is planned as a line of its own before a form is set.
The Greenbelt is the old Santa Fe railroad right of way, kept as a strip of park from one end of town to the other, so the Hill Section east of it climbs from Valley Drive to Pacific Coast Highway on sand that was dune before it was street. Lots there step, and the work is retaining walls and stepped footings as much as flatwork. East of the highway the lots widen, the houses are 1950s ranch on flat ground, and a driveway there is the one place a truck can chute straight in.
Four stages, the first of them longer here than elsewhere, because the estimate has to settle how the concrete reaches a lot with no drive before anything is priced. Every stage is written before the first begins.
Kenji Okamoto measures the job, walks the alley or the walk street to see how concrete gets in, and writes the estimate at the lot.
The building or encroachment permit goes to City Hall on Valley Drive, and a coastal development permit where the lot needs one.
The old concrete comes out, trenches are shored the day they are dug, the sand is compacted in layers and the steel set with 3 inches of cover.
Poured early, before the streets fill, jointed the same afternoon and kept wet for 7 days. The sealer goes on after the 28 day cure.
Call or send the form and a reply comes within 1 business day with a day. We measure the lot, walk the alley or the walk street to see how concrete gets in, check the coastal zone line, and write the figure on the spot.
Reviews
Left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by owners along the beach and across the South Bay. Hermosa Beach is among the towns behind these reviews, and the jobs are the ones set out above.
“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 in Hermosa Beach before a job is booked, on cost, permits from City Hall and the coastal zone, salt, getting concrete down an alley or a walk street, and how the sand behaves under a footing.
How the concrete reaches the lot. A pump set on the cross street or a crew barrowing down a walk street is the largest line on a Hermosa Beach estimate after the concrete itself, and it is written before the mix and the steel are. Salt cover and the sealer add to every job here. The lot is measured and the route walked on the visit, which is free, and the figure is written there.
A building permit from the City of Hermosa Beach Community Development Department on Valley Drive for a foundation, a wall over 4 feet or a slab under living space, and an encroachment permit for the apron, the alley edge or the public walk. Flatwork inside your own lot needs neither. West of Pacific Coast Highway the lot is in the coastal zone, and a job beyond flatwork there can need a coastal permit as well.
By pump or by wheelbarrow, and the visit decides which. A line pump on the nearest cross street reaches about 150 feet down a walk street, and where the lot is beyond that or the hose cannot be laid, the concrete goes in by barrow from a truck parked on Hermosa Avenue. Either way the pour is timed for early morning, before the walk street fills, and the route is swept behind us the same day.
Yes, through the steel. Chloride from the sea air works into unsealed concrete a little each year, and when it reaches the rebar the rust swells and pushes the face off, which is the brown stain and the flaking you see on older walls near The Strand. Three inches of cover over the steel, a dense mix and a sealer renewed every 2 to 3 years keep the salt out for the life of the slab.
Two to three working days on site for a drive, a walk or a garage slab, longer for a foundation, which follows the framing schedule and the City's inspections at the trench and the steel. New concrete takes feet after 24 hours and a car after 7 days. A coastal development permit, where one is needed, adds weeks before the start, and that is on the schedule from the first visit.
Yes, once it is compacted. Hermosa Beach sand drains and does not swell, so it never heaves a slab the way clay on the hills to the south does. Its fault is that it runs, so a trench is shored or poured the day it is dug and a form is braced on both sides. Sand dug for a pool or a basement and put back is loose until it is compacted in layers, and we probe for that before the base goes down.
Hermosa Beach sits between Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach on the coast, with Torrance and Lawndale inland. We pour in all of them from one office, and the same salt rules hold along the whole beach, so the pages for the towns next door read like this.
Open the Torrance Office in Google Maps Use the form and we phone you back within 1 business day to fix the visit. The figure is written at the lot at no charge, and the work carries a written guarantee.