#Concrete overlay driveway full

When ice melts, it carries approximately 10% more water than normal. Salt also lowers the freezing point of water and increases the pressure of frozen water, thereby intensifying the effect of the freeze-thaw cycle. This leads to increased salt damage to concrete driveways - which is further amplified by the effect of the freeze-thaw cycle. When forming inside concrete, CAOXY crystals expand, causing internal cracks and crumbling. The calcium hydroxide present in concrete reacts with the calcium chloride in salt, creating calcium oxychloride (CAOXY) in salt, thus wreaking havoc. These structures are generally made with white-gray concrete.

Salt damage to concrete mainly occurs due to chemicals that react with the surface of the road or pavement. Once it has cured for a month or so, it is unaffected by salt. Will also buy a little more time by keeping water out of the cracks.

Least expensive, doesn't fix any functionality issues, but might make it look nicer. Some dislike the Frankenstein approach, but this is what every budget conscious municipality does.Ĥ. Remove and replace worst slab sections only. Less expensive than 1, more maintenance (crack sealing, seal coating, resurfacing required every so often even if work is done perfectly).ģ. If the base is bad, brand new driveway will just fail again.Ģ, remove and replace entire driveway with asphalt. If you replace, definitely remediate any base issues. Your current driveway had some issues I think with control joint placement, slab thickness, and perhaps the mix and base. It will last a long time with minimal maintenance. Expensive and perhaps unnecessary but fixes all issues if done properly. Remove and replace entire driveway with concrete. Yeah, resurfacing is crazy and makes no sense for concrete. I think you'd be disappointed with the aesthetics and it would wear off unevenly. I don't know whether or not using bitumenous seal coating would be harmful to concrete (because I've never heard of anyone trying it) but it certainly won't do much to help.

#Concrete overlay driveway full

Access and economies of scale sometimes make full replacement not much more, but I only recommend this if there is some functional deficiency. Cleaning and sealing cracks is the most maintenance you would do on a concrete driveway, otherwise remove and replace damaged sections (but not necessarily entire drive). Here is an article note that none of this applies to concrete, sometimes people pay extra to 'seal' a concrete driveway, but that doesn't really do anything. It's relatively inexpensive, $250 for my 750 SF asphalt driveway. Asphalt seal coating is regularly done as preventative maintenance and it chemically bonds with the asphalt, replacing asphaltenes and fines that have oxidized. The concrete is finished flat which means slab is thinnest in the middle. I'd literally catch them digging along the edge of the form with a pick axe. Lazy contractors sometimes just establish depth at the formwork and the base mounds in the middle. Also, the longitudinal cracks down the middle are often from the slab being thinner in the middle.

My guess is the slabs were poured too big and excess cracks formed between the control joints during cure. It looks like some bad cracking, but not really offset. A good contractor would give you options. All the slabs seem to have cracks, but you could just remove and replace a few of the worst slabs. Those cracks could be cleaned and refilled and the driveway cleaned for a lot less. What are the reasons for replacement? Bad drainage/icing, loose rocks, vertical offsets at cracks causing trip falls, aesthetics?Īs a Civil Engineer for a municipality, I don't usually factor in the aesthetics of concrete slabs, it's the function I care about. You can mill and overlay asphalt (resurface) but not concrete. Anyone telling you to do this is scamming you or doesn't know what they are doing. Do not under any circumstances just top this with concrete or asphalt.