Foundation installation in Glendora, CA - built to fit the slope of your lot

Most people who call me are planning a new home, an addition or a rebuild, and their first questions are about cost and time. The home's size and the type of foundation set most of the price, and the amount of digging and grading your lot needs adds to it. The schedule turns on the permit, the ground and curing, which is the stretch of days the concrete needs to gain strength before anyone builds on it. My written estimate lists what's included, so you can see where the money goes. If your house is already standing and the foundation has sunk, that's a different job, and foundation raising is the place to start.

I start with the slope of your lot and talk through with you whether a slab or a stem wall fits it better, because that choice shapes the cost and everything after it. Before we settle the plan, I'll ask you to look up your lot on the state's earthquake hazard lookup, since a mapped hazard zone can change what the foundation needs. Then our crew digs out and grades the site and packs the subgrade, the soil the foundation rests on, until it's firm. We set the forms and the rebar, which is steel bar that helps the concrete carry weight and hold together, and we pour the footings and the foundation with me on site. We aim to pour early in the day, because concrete placed in the afternoon heat can dry too fast on top and end up weak. If a budget gets tight, I'd rather trim something you can see than the digging and packing, because the ground under the concrete decides how the house holds up.

Some projects only need concrete footings, such as a porch, a deck or a garden wall, and we pour those on their own as well. For small property and business owners, the same care with the ground carries over to concrete parking lot building, where a poorly packed base shows up later as sunken spots and standing water.

The state maps seismic hazard zones, and its liquefaction maps mark areas where wet ground may lose its strength and behave almost like a liquid during a strong earthquake. If your property sits inside a mapped zone, you may be required to have the hazard investigated and reduced as part of the local permit process, which is one more reason I ask you to check your lot early. I'll tell you at the estimate if I expect a permit, and when a job needs one, we handle the application and the inspections with the city or county office that covers your address.

Around Glendora we often see lots that fall toward the street and ground that has been filled and graded before, and both get the same treatment from us, which is digging down to firm soil and packing it before any forms go up. We meet the same kinds of slopes on jobs in Azusa and San Dimas, and we work across the San Gabriel Valley and the Pomona area, including many cities not listed on this site.