My old house had a wood porch, so when it would snow I'd throw rock salt out there and it would work fine.
My new house has concrete steps and I guess I never thought about it and just threw the same rock salt on my front porch.
Now, as some of you would have known, I have pock marks/decay/crumbling on the concrete steps.
similar to the picture below but not as bad.
I have had a couple landscapers who deal with stone work look at it and both say can't be repaired, I need to replace the porch, does anyone disagree? Is there away to just go over the steps with some quickcrete or something?
Seems like should be a way to fix it.
Make sure the area is free of any dust and then use a concrete spall material to fill. You can google spall repair material for different products.
The downside is that you probably wont be able to match the color of the existing.
Note: if you do this, make sure you vibrate all the areas that will show (i.e., sides, front of steps, etc.) to draw the water to the surface so that the surface that shows is smooth when seen from all directions. This can be done in several ways such as grabbing hold of the wood where the concrete is touching and shake it back and forth and up and down as well has beating it with a big rubber mallet or even a 2X4 and a hammer. Very important if you are concerned with the cosmetic appearance when finished.
You can temporarily repair it, but you'll be doing it often enough. If you do decide to patch it, go with something with vinyl in the mix so it'll be more flexible.
Not near me. the mason I had look at it told me no repair solution will work, need to replace the steps.
I thought maybe he's being a typical contractor not wanting to be a "handy man" and fix something, but rebuild it.
Sounds like he's right and I guess I'll bite the bullet and replace the steps.
Makes sense, just hoping someone knew some secret trick to fixing them up. Doesn't sound like it.
I have noticed since ruining my own a lot of people's steps have small crumbling, pock marks, decay, etc. and probably just the nature of concrete - they didn't necessarily put rock salt on them like I did, but it would be good if someone came up with a small repair kit/technology for concrete steps.
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It's not going to last, and even if he does it for you on the cheap, when it's falling apart in the year he's got an angry customer to deal with.
Makes sense, just hoping someone knew some secret trick to fixing them up. Doesn't sound like it.
I have noticed since ruining my own a lot of people's steps have small crumbling, pock marks, decay, etc. and probably just the nature of concrete - they didn't necessarily put rock salt on them like I did, but it would be good if someone came up with a small repair kit/technology for concrete steps.
The small crumbling you notice is poor construction methodology. When finishing concrete, a lot of contractors will add water to the surface to make it more workable. All this does is keep the water suspended on the surface of the concrete making it more likely it will chip off and take some concrete in the future.
The spall repair method I outlined will work, you just have to remove an inch or two of concrete to get it to stay. There is nothing that you can skim over the top that won't pop-out as others have mentioned.
here is a picture of the same type of steps my house has, like a traditional colonial.
You can at least try the spall repair with a 1/2" removal and see if that works. if that doesn't last, you'll have to replace. But it might be worth the effort to try a few small spall repairs and see if they last before you replace the whole thing.
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