Surfaces & Cracks Repair
My sister-in-law called me recently to complain about the driveway she had installed a couple of years ago. Since I had encouraged her to use concrete and the surface was now spalling—probably from freeze thaw damage due to a lack of entrained air—I guess that made it partly my fault. I hate hearing about failed concrete, don't you?

Surface failures like this are one of the most common ailments with concrete, whether caused by freeze-thaw action, aggregate popouts, or corroded reinforcing steel. Many surface failures on concrete slabs are little more than cosmetic—the concrete remains functional but looks bad or has a chalky surface.

As with any repair, the first step is to figure out the cause of the failure. For example, if a slab has cracked due to poorly compacted subbase, an overlay will simply crack again. But if the subbase is well compacted, then the repair should be durable.

When faced with a surface repair, investigation will soon reveal how aggressive the repair needs to be:

- Full-depth repair--cutting out the damaged concrete, replacing reinforcing steel, and replacing the concrete.

- Partial depth repair—cutting around the edges of the damaged area (but not into the reinforcing steel), removing the damaged concrete, cleaning or replacing the reinforcing steel, then placing a repair mortar.

- Overlays—effective to cover up surface problems—so long as good surface preparation is used.

There are a variety of ways to remove unsound concrete, including high-pressure water jets, sand blasting, grinding, scarifying, and, of course, old-fashioned impact methods, such as with scabblers or jack hammers. The greatest danger with impact methods is the bruising of the concrete surface—even though the surface may look like solid strong concrete, the impact methods create a zone of microcracking. Learn more about surface preparation.