Hawthorne Torrance Concrete pours driveways, garage floors and yard slabs in Paramount, 11 miles east of Torrance by the 91 or the 105. Every estimate is measured and written on site, no fee.
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In Paramount the old concrete is the ground. Dairy floors, wash slabs and the aprons of barns went under the houses and yards when the farms were sold off, and many of them are still there.
A dairy left concrete everywhere it kept cattle, because the milking parlor and the wash-down yard had to be hosed clean, and when the dairies sold up in the 1950s and 1960s the barns came down but the slabs were buried or built over rather than hauled off. So a Paramount yard opened for a patio can have a second slab 8 inches down, thick, unreinforced and broken into plates that tilt, and a new slab poured over it without knowing settles wherever the old plates rock.
So the first tool on a Paramount job is a steel rod, and the estimate says what happens if it hits concrete where none shows. A buried slab is broken up and hauled out rather than bridged, because a new pour resting on a plate that rocks cracks in its first winter. What goes back is a compacted subgrade, geotextile and 4 inches of crushed rock, then the slab itself, thicker where a truck will park, with steel held at mid-depth and joints cut the same afternoon.
Paramount was hay fields and dairies until the 1950s, and the lots were carved from them one at a time, so there is no standard yard here and no telling what a slab is going on until it is opened. The work we do most is a tear-out.
A Paramount drive runs from the apron down one side of a deep lot to a garage at the back, and the old one is often two slabs poured decades apart. We take both out, rod what is under them, and pour 5 inches on compacted rock over geotextile, graded a quarter inch to the foot.
A patio in Paramount goes where a dairy yard may have been, so the ground is rodded before it is priced and a buried slab comes out first. Then 4 inches of rock over geotextile, a 4 inch slab with steel at 18 inches, joints every 10 feet and a fall away from the house.
Stamped concrete in Paramount is asked for on the front, a brick or tile pattern across the drive where it meets the walk, and it goes on the same rock base as a plain drive. We cast the pattern into a 5 inch slab where a truck will park, and seal it in 2 coats at 28 days.
The walk along a Paramount street is the city's and takes a Public Works permit, and a panel lifted by a parkway tree is the usual reason it is redone. The walk from the gate to the door is yours. We pour 4 inches on rock and dowel each new panel into the old so it cannot open.
Garage slabs in Paramount were poured thin on bare silt between the 1940s and 1960s, and the ones behind the older houses sometimes sit on a dairy floor. We break out both, compact and base the ground, and pour 5 inches troweled flat, the floor a garage needs to become a room.
A Paramount yard slab is large and flat, and integral color with a salt finish is what we pour most, because it reads several degrees cooler than gray on an August afternoon this far from the water and hides the tire marks of the trucks that park on it. Sealed at 28 days.
Paramount is flat, so a wall here is a planter, a step to a raised slab or the edge of a sunken drive, not a hillside. On river silt the footing is made wider than the wall's height suggests, because wet silt spreads a load badly, and a drain behind the stem takes water away.
Interior floors in Paramount go into garages becoming units and additions at the back of deep lots. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted rock, because the river silt holds water close under a slab, trowel it flat enough for tile, and cut joints on the room grid.
Paramount is the furthest east we go, 11 miles from the office on Hawthorne Boulevard by the 91 or the 105 to the Paramount Boulevard exits, about 30 minutes with a loaded truck outside the rush. So we plan Paramount in days rather than hours, two or three jobs on nearby streets in one trip, and say so when we book. Permits come from the Building and Safety Division at City Hall on Colorado Avenue, and the apron, the curb and the public walk take a Public Works permit as well.
The city was two towns, Hynes and Clearwater, joined along Paramount Boulevard, and the streets between them filled in at different dates. The blocks near Paramount High School and along Downey Avenue have 1940s and 1950s houses on deep lots with a drive down one side to a garage at the back, and behind the garage is where a dairy slab turns up. Nearer Lakewood Boulevard the lots were cut later and smaller, and there the ground has more often been graded clean, so the rod finds silt.
The river sets the drainage. The Los Angeles River channel runs along the west edge of the city beside the 710, and every lot between it and Lakewood Boulevard is flat enough that a slab has to be given its fall on purpose, a quarter inch to the foot toward the street, or a channel drain at the garage door where the drive runs back. Inland this far the marine layer lifts by mid-morning, so a pour sets faster than at the beach, and in August the surface is kept wet a week.
Four stages, and the tear-out is the one that decides the rest. The estimate is measured and written at the property first, with a line for what is found under the old slab, so there is no second number later in the job.
Kenji Okamoto measures the slab, rods the yard for buried concrete, walks the drive to the back and writes the estimate before leaving.
We file with Building and Safety at City Hall on Colorado Avenue and with Public Works for anything at the curb, and we book the trip.
The old slab and anything under it come out and are hauled off, the subgrade is compacted, and 4 inches of rock go in over geotextile.
Two days on site for most Paramount jobs. Joints cut the same afternoon, feet after 24 hours, cars after 7 days and the surface kept wet a week.
Call or send the form and we reply within 1 business day with a day for the visit. We come out on the 91, measure, rod the yard and write the figure at the property, and it costs nothing whether you book or not.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners across the South Bay and the towns east of it, quoted as written and each about a different job. Paramount is one of those towns.
“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.”
Cost, permits, what is under the yard, the trip from Torrance, how long a drive is out of use and where else we work, answered as we answer them at a Paramount gate. The visit is free, the figure written there.
What comes out, more than what goes in. A Paramount tear-out can be one slab or two, with a buried dairy floor under the one you can see, and breaking and hauling the second is the line that moves an estimate here. After that it is thickness, 5 inches where a truck parks, and access down a side drive. Every estimate is measured and written on site, and it says what happens if the rod finds concrete we cannot see.
Not for flatwork at grade inside your lot line, which the California Residential Code exempts. Anything at the apron, the curb or the public walk is the city's and takes a permit from Public Works, and a slab under a new unit or a wall over 4 feet takes a building permit from the Building and Safety Division at City Hall on Colorado Avenue. We file whichever the job needs and are there for the inspection.
Silt from the river, and often old concrete. The lots were dairies and hay fields, and the floors the dairies poured were buried when the houses went up, so a yard can have a slab 8 inches down that nobody living there knows about. It matters because a new slab poured over a broken one settles wherever the old plates rock. We rod the ground on the first visit, and anything we hit comes out before the base.
About 9 days from the first morning when there is nothing buried, and a day longer when there is. Tear-out and base are the first day, the pour is the next morning and the joints are cut that afternoon, then 24 hours before you walk on it and 7 days before a car. A drive that is the only way to a garage at the back is poured in two halves so a car can always get out.
Yes, grouped with others. Paramount is 11 miles from our office in Torrance by the 91 or the 105, about 30 minutes with a loaded truck, so a single walk or a garage floor is booked into a day with another job on a nearby street either side of it rather than on its own. That is why we ask for a little flexibility on the date, and why we reply within 1 business day with the day we can offer.
Compton and Lynwood to the west across the river, South Gate to the north, and Signal Hill to the south beyond Long Beach, all from the same office. The river silt runs under every one of them and the base is built the same, and what changes is the counter that issues the permit and, in Paramount alone, how often we find a dairy floor under the yard.
Paramount borders Compton, Lynwood and South Gate, and we cover all three, and Signal Hill beyond, from one office in Torrance. The ground is the same river plain from one to the next, and each town's page says what changes at the line.
Open the Torrance Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call back within 1 business day to book the visit. The estimate is free, written at the property with a line for anything buried, and the work is guaranteed.