Hawthorne Torrance Concrete pours driveways, patios and walls in Rancho Palos Verdes, straight up Hawthorne Boulevard from our office on it. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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The ground in Rancho Palos Verdes does not stay put. The peninsula is shale with beds of bentonite clay in it, and where those beds are wet the hill creeps, in places by feet a year.
Most of the city is not in a slide, and the distinction matters. The Portuguese Bend landslide and the slides around Abalone Cove are mapped, and the city has held that ground under a building moratorium for decades. Everywhere else the same shale is under the tract pads of Eastview, Miraleste and the streets off Hawthorne Boulevard, and it behaves as clay does, swelling through a wet winter and shrinking by fall, so a slab poured straight onto it lifts at the edges and cracks.
So a slab here is cut loose from the ground as far as concrete can be. The clay is dug out to firm material and 4 inches of drained rock go in and are plate-compacted, so water has somewhere to go instead of into the subgrade. Steel is number 4 at 18 inches and the joints are sawn closer than on the plain, so the cracking the clay forces lands in a straight line. Where a drive climbs a pad, the edge is thickened and the slab is cut into short panels that can each move a little.
Rancho Palos Verdes was built in one push in the 1960s and 1970s, on hillside tracts graded into pads, and its concrete is now fifty years old. What we pour here replaces a slab the hill has cracked, and is built to let the ground keep moving.
A drive in Rancho Palos Verdes climbs from the street to a graded pad on clay, and the 1960s original was poured flat and thin and has cracked across the slope. We pour 6 inches in short panels on drained base, broomed across the fall so a car holds once the marine layer wets it.
Patios in Rancho Palos Verdes sit at the back of a pad cut into the hill, where the fill is deepest and the clay stays wet longest. We dig to firm ground, lay 4 inches of drained rock, pour 4 inches with steel at 18 inches, joint it every 8 feet and dowel it to the house slab.
Stamped concrete on a Rancho Palos Verdes pad is asked for as a flagstone or slate pattern to sit with the hillside, and it takes the same drained base and close joints as a plain slab, because the pattern hides nothing once the clay lifts it. Sealed at 28 days, resealed every 3.
The public walk is the city's and needs its permit, and on many hillside streets there is none. The front walk from the drive to the door is yours, and on a pad above the street it is steps and landings. We pour 4 inches on drained base and dowel new panels into old so none lift.
Garage slabs in Eastview and the 1960s tracts were poured thin on clay and have heaved at the door line, so the door no longer meets the floor. We break them out, dig to firm ground, base and drain it, and pour 5 inches troweled flat, tied to the footing so it cannot rise alone.
Exposed aggregate and integral color are asked for on Rancho Palos Verdes drives because the hillside houses were built to look at the ground, not the street. We seed the stone or color the mix, wash or broom it the same evening, and seal it at 28 days against salt off the sea.
A pad in Rancho Palos Verdes is held by a wall at the back and often one at the front, and the clay behind them pushes hardest in February. We set the footing below the clay in firm ground, drain behind the stem with a pipe to daylight, and backfill with gravel rather than clay.
Interior floors in Rancho Palos Verdes go into additions and garages made into rooms on the 1960s pads. We pour over a 10 mil vapor barrier on compacted base, because the clay under a hillside house holds water all winter, trowel it flat for tile, and cut joints on the room grid.
Hawthorne Boulevard leaves our office in Torrance, climbs through Rolling Hills Estates and ends at Palos Verdes Drive South in Rancho Palos Verdes, and City Hall is on it near the top, so the crew, the permit counter and the job are on one road. Permits come from the Building and Safety Division of the city's Community Development Department, and a lot inside the Landslide Moratorium Area needs an exception from the city before a permit is considered, which we say on the visit.
The city is tracts on graded pads. Eastview, off Western Avenue on the San Pedro side, is the oldest housing, one-story houses from the 1950s, and its drives and garage slabs are the ones most often torn out. The streets off Hawthorne Boulevard and Crenshaw Boulevard, and Miraleste on the east slope, went up in the 1960s and 1970s with two-car drives that climb from the street to the pad, and a drive that climbs on clay is poured at 6 inches in short panels with a heavy broom.
The south side of the city, from Abalone Cove to Portuguese Bend along Palos Verdes Drive South, is the moving ground, and the road itself is repaved as the hill carries it. We look at work there, but we say plainly what a slab can and cannot do on land that is walking toward the sea, and the guarantee excludes ground movement beyond what the joints control. The marine layer sits on the peninsula until late morning through June, so pours set slowly and are finished late.
Four stages, and the first one includes a look at the city's landslide map. The job is measured and written at the property before anything is agreed, and the moratorium question is answered on the same visit.
Kenji Okamoto measures the work, probes the clay, checks the lot against the Landslide Moratorium Area and writes the estimate on the spot.
We file with Building and Safety at City Hall on Hawthorne Boulevard, apply for a moratorium exception if the lot needs one, and wait for it.
The old slab comes out, clay is dug to firm ground, 4 inches of crushed rock go in over a drain where the pad holds water, and it is compacted.
Two or three days on site. Short panels, joints sawn the same afternoon, feet after 24 hours and cars after 7 days, and the street swept after.
Call or send the form and we reply within 1 business day with a day for the visit. We come up Hawthorne Boulevard, measure, probe the clay and write the figure at the property, and none of it costs anything.
Reviews
Reviews left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners across the South Bay, quoted as written and each about a different job. Rancho Palos Verdes is among the towns they are from.
“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, the moratorium, the clay, the trip up the hill and how long a drive is out of use, answered as we answer them on a Rancho Palos Verdes doorstep. The visit is free and the estimate is written on site.
Depth first, then slope. A slab on clay needs the subgrade dug deeper and a drained base built back, and that is more digging and more rock than the same slab on the Torrance plain. A drive that climbs to the pad is poured thicker and in more panels. Where the lot is in the moratorium area, the application is its own line. Every estimate is measured and written on site, with every one of those separated out.
Sometimes, and only with the city's leave. Rancho Palos Verdes holds the Portuguese Bend and Abalone Cove slides under a moratorium, and most new work there needs an exception from the city before a permit is considered, with the kinds of work it allows set by ordinance. We check the lot against the map on the first visit, say which side of the line it is on, and handle the application if there is one to make.
The Building and Safety Division of the Community Development Department, at City Hall on Hawthorne Boulevard. Flatwork at grade inside your lot line is exempt under the California Residential Code, but a retaining wall over 4 feet, a footing under a structure and anything at the curb or the public walk take a permit, and every job in the moratorium area does. We file it and meet the inspector.
Hairline, inside the joints, and that is the joint doing its work. The bentonite beds in the shale swell wet and shrink dry, and no slab stops that. What a slab can do is sit on a base that drains so the clay under it stays drier, carry steel that holds a crack closed, and be cut into panels so the crack lands in a sawn line. A slab that heaves whole or breaks between joints was built without one of those.
Three days on site for most drives, because the dig is deeper than on the plain and the base goes in over a drain. Tear-out and base take the first two days, the pour is one morning, and joints are sawn that afternoon. Walk on it after 24 hours and park after 7 days. If the lot needs a moratorium exception, add the city's review time before the first day.
About 20 minutes from the office. Hawthorne Boulevard runs from our door in Torrance up through Rolling Hills Estates and into the city, and City Hall is on it, so the crew and the permit counter are on one road. Eastview, off Western Avenue on the far side of the hill, is reached by Palos Verdes Drive North or along Western Avenue from the 110, and takes a few minutes longer with a loaded truck.
Rancho Palos Verdes borders Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills Estates and Lomita, and we cover all three from the same office on Hawthorne Boulevard. The shale runs under every one of them, and each town's page says what it does to the work there.
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 and written at the property, and every pour carries a written guarantee.