Hawthorne Torrance Concrete pours forecourts, parking bays and steep drives in Signal Hill, at the far end of the 405, to what drives over them. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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Signal Hill was an oil field before it was a town, and the flat around the hill was built for work. Spring Street, Willow Street and the 405 frontage are dealers and yards whose slabs carry trucks.
A commercial slab fails for a different reason than a house drive. A forecourt at a dealer or a bay behind a shop on Willow Street takes a delivery truck at the same spot every morning, turning on the same panel, and a slab poured at house thickness breaks there in a few years while the rest looks new. A lot on the flat was also graded for the building, not the lot, so water sits at the low corner and the base softens. Hillside houses have the opposite trouble, a drive water runs down.
So a slab in Signal Hill is specified for what drives over it. A forecourt or a bay is poured at 6 inches on 6 inches of rock with number 4 steel at 12 inches, jointed in panels no larger than 12 feet and pitched to a drain that exists. A house drive on the hill is 5 inches on steel, tied into the apron with a thickened edge, broomed coarse across the grade and cut short. Both get a compacted base and both get sealed, since an oil pan and the marine layer both find open concrete.
Signal Hill is a small city with a great deal of business frontage, along Spring Street, Willow Street and Cherry Avenue and beside the 405. Half the work here is commercial, poured to carry a truck, and the houses are on the slope above it.
Drives on the Signal Hill slope fall to the street, and a slab on a grade is pushed downhill by its own weight and washed at the edge every storm. We pour them at 5 inches on steel, tied into the apron with a thickened edge, broomed coarse across the grade and cut short.
Patios in the hillside tracts are cut into the slope, with the hill on one side and a drop on the other. We hold the uphill side with a footed wall, pour the slab at 4 inches on compacted rock, pitch it to the low edge where a drain takes the water off, and joint it at 10 feet.
Stamped concrete in Signal Hill is a shopfront apron or an entry court, where a business wants the walk from the parking to the door to read as paving. We cast the pattern into a 4 inch slab on a commercial base, seal it in 2 coats, and keep the stamped area off the truck route.
Walks along Willow Street and Spring Street are the city's, and the walk from the lot to the shop door is yours. We replace the private run on compacted rock, dowel it to the public panel so the join stays flush, and file anything that crosses the right-of-way at City Hall.
Garage floors in Signal Hill are shop floors as often as house ones, under lifts and benches in the yards between Willow and Spring. Those go in at 6 inches on steel and a house garage at 4, and both are troweled flat enough to coat and pitched a little to the door.
Exposed aggregate goes in at shop entries and the courtyards of the hillside townhome tracts, where a plain gray slab shows every oil drip and tire mark. We pour it at 4 inches with a smooth banded border, wash the stone proud the same day, and seal it once the cure is done.
Walls hold the cut lots of the Signal Hill tracts, where the pads were graded out of the hill. A wall here is footed below the cut into the firm shale, drained behind the stem so the hill's runoff goes through a pipe and not against the wall, and filed at City Hall over 4 feet.
Interior slabs in Signal Hill are warehouse and shop floors more than house floors, poured to take a forklift and a rack. We pour them at 6 inches on a compacted base over a 10 mil barrier, trowel them flat, cut the joints on the racking grid, and cure them 28 days.
We reach Signal Hill by the 405 south past the harbor and off at Cherry Avenue, about 15 miles and half an hour from Hawthorne Boulevard, so a job here is booked as a full day. The city is its own, an island inside Long Beach, and its permits are its own. A drive approach, a wall over 4 feet, a commercial lot and any slab under a roof is filed with the Community Development Department at City Hall on Cherry Avenue, and the inspector checks base and steel before we pour.
The commercial work is on the flat. The dealers of the Signal Hill Auto Center sit beside the 405 at Cherry Avenue, the big stores are on Spring Street, and the yards and shops fill the streets between Willow and Spring, where a lot is a building with a slab all round it and the slab is the business. The houses are above them, in the tracts built off Skyline Drive after the wells were consolidated, with short steep drives, and on the older streets of the south slope, on 1920s lots.
Any lot in Signal Hill may have had a well on it, and the city and the state keep the records, so we read them before an excavation goes below a foot, since a plugged casing and a slab cannot share a spot. The hill sheds water fast, being sand and shale lifted on a fold, and the flats below are where that water arrives, so a lot at the foot is graded and drained first and paved second. We pour here on any dry day, and at first light in summer, since an open lot has no shade.
Four steps and one written figure. A commercial lot is measured with its traffic in mind and phased so the business stays open, and a house drive on the hill is sequenced like any other, with the fall in the plan from the first visit.
Kenji Okamoto measures the slab, notes what drives on it and where it turns, checks the fall and the drains, and writes the figure on site.
The old slab is sawn and lifted in panels, soft base at the low corner comes out, drains go in where water pooled, and rock is compacted.
Commercial lots, approaches and walls are filed on Cherry Avenue, with a well check first. A back patio inside the lot needs no filing.
A working lot is poured half at a time so the doors stay open. Joints are cut that day, trucks wait 28 days, cars 7, and the surface is sealed.
Call or send the form and we reply within 1 business day with a day for the visit. Say whether it is a shop lot or a house drive, since the first is measured with its trucks in mind and the second with its slope, and the figure is written on site.
Reviews
Our own reviews, left on Google, Facebook and the BBB by homeowners and business owners across the South Bay and the towns along the 405. The commercial ones read like the work 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 owners and business tenants in Signal Hill ask before a pour, on cost, permits and well records, the drive from Torrance, the hill's ground, how long a lot is closed and what else we cover nearby.
What drives on it. A forecourt or a loading bay is poured thicker on more rock with closer steel than a house drive, and that specification is the largest line on the estimate, before area or finish. On a house drive on the hill it is the grade, since a steep run takes steel and short panels a flat one does not. Both are measured on site and the figure is written there.
Yes for a commercial lot, a drive approach, a retaining wall over 4 feet and any slab that carries a roof, all filed with the Community Development Department at City Hall on Cherry Avenue. No for a patio or a walk inside your own lot line. Where the lot is in the old oil field the well records are checked before we dig, and we file the permit and meet the inspector on every job.
About half an hour, by the 405 to Cherry Avenue. It is the eastern end of the towns we cover, so a job here is booked as a full day and the crew arrives with everything on the truck rather than running back to the yard. The call back is within 1 business day as it is everywhere, and the site visit for the estimate is usually inside the week.
Not the ground, the water. The hill is firm sand and shale lifted on a fold, it drains fast, and slabs on it rarely heave. What they do is shed water onto the slab below, so a drive on the hill is pitched and broomed across its fall and a lot at the foot is drained before it is paved. The one thing to check is the well record, since the whole hill was an oil field and a plugged casing may sit under a lot.
Half of it, for about a week at a time. We saw the lot into halves, pour one while the other stays open, and switch when the first half can take a car, which is 7 days. Trucks wait 28 days for full strength, so a loading bay is done first and the customer parking last. Joints are cut the afternoon of each pour, and the surface is sealed once the cure is finished.
Carson and Compton to the west along the 405 and the 91, Paramount, Lynwood and South Gate north up the 710, and Lomita and Torrance itself back along the freeway. Long Beach, which wraps round Signal Hill on every side, is not on our list, so a job with a Long Beach address is one we say no to on the phone rather than at the curb.
Signal Hill sits inside Long Beach, which we do not cover, but Carson, Compton, Paramount, Lynwood and South Gate are a few freeway exits away and all on our list, worked from the same office. If your job is over the Long Beach line, say so when you call.
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 at no charge, and every slab, forecourt or drive, carries a written guarantee.