Form & Finish Torrance Concrete Company is a concrete contractor based in Torrance, CA, and we pour driveways, patios, walkways and foundations for homes and small businesses across Gardena. Call (424) 318-3115 to talk through your job.
(424) 318-3115
Gardena borders Torrance, where we're based, so the driveways and slabs here look familiar to us. A lot of houses have a long driveway running down one side to a garage in back, with a narrow side yard and little room for equipment, and the old concrete has often been patched and cracked for years. Tight access and cuts through old slabs are the jobs I like, so a squeezed-in driveway doesn't put us off.
We get calls here from small business and property owners too, for a slab behind a shop, a walkway out front or a parking area. Those properties usually can't shut down for long, so we plan the tear-out and the pour around how the place gets used.
Tell us about your Gardena driveway, patio or wall, ask us about permits, and we'll reply within one business day. I come out myself to look at the job, check what's under the old slab and write a free on-site estimate. It spells out what you'd be paying for, and there's no obligation to go ahead.
(424) 318-3115Most of what we pour in Gardena is flatwork, the flat slabs like driveways, patios and walkways, and the most common call is tearing out a cracked driveway beside the house and repouring it on a packed base. We also handle concrete sidewalk building for side yards and front walks, plus garage floors, steps, retaining walls along property lines, footings and slab foundations, and concrete cutting when an old slab has to come out in pieces.
In Gardena, the city's Building Services office issues permits for most construction, including repairs and alterations. If your job needs one, the start date waits on it, because the city quadruples the fees when permit work starts before the permit is issued. Before we schedule anything, we check with the city for your address on what the job needs, and if a permit is called for, we handle the paperwork with you. You can check two things about any contractor: a current state contractor license, and a Gardena business license. The city requires that license of every contractor working here, even one based outside the city like we are. The price moves with the slab's size and thickness, how much old concrete comes out and how hard your site is to reach. The schedule turns on that permit and on curing, the days new concrete needs before it can take weight, so I lay out both in the estimate I write on site.
An older city plan shows a state-mapped earthquake fault zone in the northeast part of Gardena, near El Segundo Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. If you want footings, a foundation or a retaining wall near there, I'll want a closer look at the ground before anyone can be sure what the work involves. We work the same way on foundations in Hawthorne and Inglewood, because what's under a slab decides how it holds up.
I come out to look at your job and write the estimate myself, then I work alongside our crew when we build it. The person who explained the base and the drainage to you is the one standing in the forms, not someone who's never seen your yard.
If money's tight, the base is the last place I'd cut, even though nobody sees it on day one. We dig out and pack the subgrade, the ground the slab sits on, and set the slope so water runs away from your house. A nice finish on raked dirt settles anyway.
Concrete shrinks as it cures and usually cracks somewhere. So we cut control joints, grooves that give it a straight place to crack, before it picks its own spot. We also keep pours out of midday heat, which can leave a weak, dusty top later on.
We're licensed and fully insured, and I started the company in Torrance in 2023 after years of running another contractor's crew. You'll know what you're paying for before we start. Satisfaction guaranteed. Call (424) 318-3115 or use the form to set up a visit.
Gardena lists open driveways and walkways among its most common permit exceptions, but that list isn't a ruling on your particular job. Work that builds or changes the public sidewalk, alley or street needs its own permit from the city's Public Works Engineering Division, so check a driveway that meets the sidewalk before anyone starts. If you'd like to ask yourself, call Building Services at City Hall.
Gardena's code exempts retaining walls up to 3 feet tall from permits, measured from the bottom of the footing to the top of the wall, as long as the wall isn't holding up an added load like a driveway or a slope above it. Taller walls, or walls carrying that kind of load, go through Building Services. Walls that sit on a property line usually take the most planning, so we sort that out before we dig.
Gardena usually turns around typical over-the-counter permits, like fence permits and water heaters, in three business days. When your concrete job needs a permit, we build that wait into the schedule instead of guessing at a pour date.
Yes. A contractor needs a current license from the Contractors State License Board if the job needs a building permit, uses employees or costs $1,000 or more in labor and materials combined. A job only falls outside that rule when there's no permit, no employees and the whole thing totals under $1,000. Check the contractor's license with the board before you sign anything.
On a home improvement job, the state caps the down payment at $1,000, and at less than that on smaller contracts. Later payments are written into the contract and tied to work finished or materials delivered. If a contractor wants a big chunk up front before anything happens on site, ask why.
I can't give you an honest number until I've seen the driveway, because the biggest swings show up on site, like how soft the ground under the old slab is and how much base work it needs. A plain broom finish, the light texture that gives shoes and tires grip, costs less than stamped or colored concrete. Rebar, steel bars that hold the slab together if it cracks, adds to the price. I write each of those into the estimate, so you see what every piece costs before we start.
You're without it from the tear-out until the new slab has cured enough to take a car, and that wait runs longer than the one before you can walk on it. A permit, if your job needs one, moves the start date, and I'll give you the walk-on and drive-on dates for your pour when we schedule it. On narrow lots we plan where you'll park and how you'll reach your door before the old slab comes out.
