Hawthorne Torrance Concrete rebuilds the sloped drives, garage floors and front steps of View Park-Windsor Hills, concrete now ninety years old. Every estimate is measured and written on site.
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The houses of View Park-Windsor Hills climb their lots. The garage is under the house or up a short steep drive beside it, and that drive was poured in the 1930s at 3 inches, straight onto the slope.
A drive on a slope fails at its top end, where the garage is, and it fails from water. Rain runs down to the street, but the slab was poured tight against the garage floor with no fall away from the door, so what the roof drops beside the house runs under the top of the slab and the base goes soft. The slab breaks a few feet down from the garage, the upper piece drops, and the door catches on it. Heavier cars finished what the water started, and in Windsor Hills the slab has crept too.
So a drive here is rebuilt from the top down. The subgrade is cut to a fall the old drive never had, a drain goes in along the garage line where the water arrives, and 4 inches of rock is compacted in lifts. The slab is 5 inches on number 4 steel at 12 inches, keyed into a beam at the garage door and into the apron at the street so it holds still on the grade, and broomed coarse across the fall so tires hold on a damp morning. The panels are cut short.
View Park-Windsor Hills was built before and just after the war, on the south slope of the Baldwin Hills, and its original concrete is the oldest we replace. A drive on a grade, steps to the door and a garage under the house are the three jobs.
A drive in View Park-Windsor Hills drops from the street to a garage under the house, and the 1930s slab on it has broken at the top and crept at the bottom. We rebuild it with a fall cut in, a drain at the garage, 5 inches on steel keyed at both ends, and a coarse broom.
Patios here are cut into the slope behind the house, with a view down the hill and the hill pushing on the uphill side. We hold that side with a footed wall, pour the slab at 4 inches on compacted rock, pitch it to the downhill edge where a drain takes the water, and joint it.
Stamped concrete goes in at the front of a Spanish or Tudor house in View Park as an entry court or a landing, in a pattern that sits with the house rather than against it. We cast it into a 4 inch slab on compacted rock, seal it in 2 coats, and keep it off the sloped drive.
The front walk in View Park-Windsor Hills is steps as often as a path, climbing from the curb to a door a story above it. We replace it in short flights with landings, on compacted rock, dowel each flight to the next so nothing steps out of line, and file the approach.
A garage under a 1930s house here has a 3 inch floor on the graded hill, cracked and lower at the back than the front. We break it out, compact 4 inches of rock, pour 4 inches with steel pitched to the door so water leaves, and trowel it flat enough to take a coating.
Exposed aggregate suits the hillside houses, since river stone washed proud of the surface gives a sloped walk or a landing the grip a smooth slab lacks under a wet marine layer. We pour it at 4 inches with a smooth banded border and seal it once the cure is complete.
Walls hold the cuts on nearly every lot in View Park-Windsor Hills, and a hillside wall over 4 feet is a county permit and a county inspection. We foot the wall into firm ground below the loose top of the slope, drain behind the stem with rock and a pipe, and draw the grade.
Interior floors here are a garage converted to a room or a unit under the house, on a slab that was never meant to be lived on. We pour a new one at 4 inches over a 10 mil barrier on compacted rock, thicken the edge where a wall sits on it, trowel it flat for tile, and file it.
View Park-Windsor Hills is unincorporated, with no city hall. It is Los Angeles County's, and permits for a drive approach, a wall over 4 feet, a garage slab or any regrading of a slope are filed with the county's Public Works Building and Safety Division and inspected by a county inspector, who looks harder at a hillside job than a flat one. We reach it from Torrance up Crenshaw Boulevard to Slauson Avenue and up the hill, about 12 miles, and a job here is booked as a full day.
View Park is the lower and older part, above Slauson Avenue, with the Spanish and Tudor houses of the 1920s and 30s on wide curving streets, and it is listed as a historic district, so what shows from the street is looked at with that in mind. Windsor Hills is higher and later, 1940s and 50s, on steeper ground toward Stocker Street and the top of the Baldwin Hills, and its drives are the steepest we pour. On both, the garage is often under the house, down a drive from the street.
The Baldwin Hills are sediment lifted on a fold, sandy and firm on most lots and prone to slipping where a slope has been cut too steep and left to the rain, so the county watches grading here. A drive or a wall on a cut is footed into firm ground below the loose top layer and drained, and we move no more earth than the slab needs. The marine layer reaches here most mornings from May to August, so we broom a drive later in the morning than on the flat, and keep it damp a week.
Four steps and one written figure, measured on the slope. The drive is the only way to the garage, so the car lives on the street for about ten days and we say so before the first cut is made.
Kenji Okamoto measures the drive, shoots its fall from the garage to the curb, finds where the roof water goes and writes the figure on site.
The old slab is broken out from the top down, the subgrade is cut to a fall, a drain is set along the garage line, and rock is compacted.
An approach, a wall or a garage slab goes to Building and Safety, with the grading shown. A patio inside the lot needs no permit.
5 inches on steel, keyed into a beam at the door and the apron at the street, broomed coarse across the fall, joints cut that day, kept damp.
Call or send the form and we reply within 1 business day with a day. Say whether the garage is under the house or beside it and roughly how steep the drive is, and Kenji Okamoto brings the level, measures the fall and writes the figure on site.
Reviews
Our own reviews, on Google, Facebook and the BBB, from homeowners across the South Bay and the hills north of it. The sloped drives among them are the work 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 owners in View Park-Windsor Hills ask before a pour, on cost, the county's permits, the drive from Torrance, the hillside ground, how long the garage is cut off and which towns around the hill we cover.
The slope, more than the size. A drive on a grade takes a cut subgrade, a drain at the garage, closer steel and a beam at each end that a flat drive does not, and those lines make the difference on the estimate. Access is next, since a mixer cannot back down a steep drive and the concrete is pumped from the street. Everything is measured at the house and written there.
Los Angeles County, because the neighborhood is unincorporated and has no city hall. A drive approach, a retaining wall over 4 feet, a garage or unit slab and any regrading of a slope are filed with the county's Public Works Building and Safety Division, and a county inspector checks the base and the steel before the pour. A patio or a walk inside your own lot line needs no permit. We file and meet the inspector.
About 12 miles, straight up Crenshaw Boulevard from Torrance to Slauson Avenue and then up the hill, or by the 405 when Crenshaw is slow. It is the north end of the towns we cover, so a job here is booked as a full day with the truck loaded for it. The call back is within 1 business day as it is everywhere, and the estimate visit is usually inside the week.
On the lot, yes. The hills are firm sandy sediment, and a slab on a properly cut and compacted base holds. The risk on a hillside is the cut, not the ground under the house, since a slope cut too steep and left open to the winter slips, which is why the county looks at grading here and why we move no more earth than the slab needs, foot every wall into firm ground and drain behind it.
About ten days. Tear-out, the cut and the base take the first two days, the pour is one morning, the joints are cut that afternoon, and the slab needs 7 days before a car drives down it, so the car lives on the street for the run. On a garage under the house we keep the front steps open throughout, and pour the drive in one piece so the garage is not cut off twice.
Culver City over the hill to the northwest, El Segundo and Hawthorne down the 405, and Gardena and Lawndale on the way back to Torrance, all from the same office. Inglewood and the City of Los Angeles, which surround the neighborhood, are not on our list, so a house across Slauson Avenue or La Brea Avenue is one we say no to on the phone rather than at the curb.
View Park-Windsor Hills is ringed by Inglewood and the City of Los Angeles, which we do not cover, but Culver City, El Segundo, Hawthorne, Gardena and Lawndale are on our list and on the road back to Torrance. If your street is on the county line, say so.
Open the Torrance Office in Google Maps Send the form and we call you back within 1 business day to fix the visit. The estimate is measured on the slope and written at the house at no charge, and the drive carries a guarantee.