Two Altadena Rebuilds Just Poured Concrete: Las Flores and East Palm

Two of our Altadena fire rebuilds moved from paper to construction this month. Las Flores Drive has its slab poured. East Palm Street is setting stem walls.

Both lots burned in the Eaton Fire and both got our full civil package: drainage plans, hydrology reports, county approval in the spring. The drainage answers came out different though. Las Flores drains by gravity with no sump pump. East Palm ended up with a sump pump because the design drops the rear of the lot below the rear neighbor’s property to pool drainage on site. Same county, opposite answers, both right for their lot. Now the plans are in the ground.

Here’s what the photos show and why each phase matters.

Las Flores Drive: First Slab Is Down

Las Flores is a 0.266-acre hillside lot with a 17% slope. That’s steep enough that drainage drove the design from day one. The plan puts two manufactured homes on concrete foundations, with flowlines tied to the property line elevations. All of it drains by gravity. No retaining walls, no sump pump.

The photo above is the first slab. Fresh pour, rebar stubs waiting for the next lift, plumbing sleeves set below the oak tree. That oak made it through the fire, and keeping it meant routing the foundation pad around its drip line. You don’t see that kind of thing in the survey. You see it standing on the lot.

This second shot is the detail that saves money later. Those red-capped stubs are the plumbing rough-in, locked in before the slab cured. If you miss one, the plumber saw-cuts concrete and you pay twice. The PODS container in the background belongs to the homeowner. This is somebody’s house going back up, not a spec build.

East Palm Street: Stem Walls on a Sloping Lot

East Palm Street is the bigger plan set. Drainage, hydrology, sump pump design for the stormwater system, and a street plan, all for one lot. The sump pump wasn’t just because the lot sits below street grade. Lots like that can sometimes drain by gravity. This design drops the rear of the site below the rear neighbor’s property so drainage pools on site, and that made the pump unavoidable. The site also drops about 13 feet across it, which is why the foundation is CMU stem walls stepping with the grade instead of one flat pour.

The photo shows the block walls forming the house footprint with vertical rebar cells ready for grout. Form bracing is still up and the green mesh fence runs along the slope behind. Those oaks, and the San Gabriels behind them, are why people rebuild in Altadena in the first place.

This close-up is the one contractors ask about. You’re looking along the top of the retaining wall. The rebar cells get grouted solid, and the white PVC stubbed through the wall is the drain pipe. Water builds up behind a retaining wall, pressure goes up with it, and the wall cracks. This one has the drainage it needs, so it won’t be that wall.

What Comes Next

If you’re starting an Altadena rebuild, this is the sequence you’ll live through:

1. Site clearing and erosion control. Wattles, sandbags, stump removal.
2. Rough grading. Cut and fill to the approved drainage plan.
3. Foundation. Trenches, stem walls, slab, rebar, plumbing stub-outs.
4. Framing. Next for both of these lots.

The civil engineering happens before step 1 and it shows up again at every county inspection after. When the drainage plan is right, phases 2 and 3 go fast because the elevations were solved on paper. Not argued about in the mud.

Both projects have full photo timelines on their portfolio pages. Las Flores Drive went from sandbags to slab. East Palm Street went from utility box to stem walls. We’ll keep updating both as framing goes up.