Your concrete driveway still provides you a solid surface and support for your vehicles and outdoor activities, but because of its age, it has begun to spall and crack along its surface and does not look as neat as it once did. However, there are concrete repair products to patch and resurface your driveway. Here are some recommendations and tips to help you complete your concrete repair and restoration project.
Clean Up Its Surface
Your driveway not only has begun to look its age with cracking and flaking, but it also gets exposed to a great deal of chemicals and fluids from your vehicles and other sources. The problem with this type of staining on your concrete is that besides looking ugly it will prevent your new concrete layer and patches from adhering. This will result in your concrete looking much worse after it fails than before you completed the project.
To prepare your concrete for a repair project, you need to clean its surface with a concrete cleaner. Apply it onto the concrete surface and scrub it clean with a long-handled scrub brush or you can apply it with a pressure washer sprayer and reservoir for the cleaner. If you have access to a pressure washer, the stronger the pressure, the better it will clean your concrete. You can even use the pressure sprayer to clean out dirt and weeds from the gaps between your concrete sections and cracks that have formed due to age.
Prepare to Fill Cracks and Resurface
When you need to fill a crack in your driveway, the product you select should be able to completely fill the crack and adhere well to its interior sides so it remains in place through freezing temperatures, moisture, and extreme heat. And to make this a possibility it is best that you cut out the interior of the crack so that the base of the crack interior is a bit wider than the top. This process of creating a wide base to your crack also removes any jagged and loose chunks along the edges of the crack. Then, by making the crack wider you also provide a wider area for the patching material to give the repair a larger surface to make it more durable.
You can also contact concrete driveway contractors to repair and fill your cracks in addition to resurfacing your concrete. However, if you decide to resurface your concrete, be sure you wet the surface of the concrete first before pouring on and smoothing the resurface product. This ensures the concrete surface layer cures properly and the existing surface does not draw moisture from the wet resurfacing product.
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