So, You Have a Crack in Your Concrete Driveway?
Cracks in your concrete driveway can show up out of nowhere and really ruin the aesthetic of your otherwise perfect driveway. Even though concrete is an incredibly durable building material, even it is not immune to natural weathering, and accidents. However, getting a crack in your driveway is not the end of the world. For as long as concrete driveways have been around, there have been ways to fix, and maintain them. Before we get into how to fix the variety of cracks that can show up in your driveway, let’s first discuss how they show up in the first place.
Reasons Cracks Form in Concrete Driveways
Cracks can appear in your driveway from a number of different sources. Though, there are two ways in particular that seem to bring cracks to many pristine concrete driveways.
Wear and Tear
Wear and tear occur on nearly everything that you own. Even with the durability that comes with a concrete driveway, though it will stay in condition for a long time, it will eventually fall into disrepair from everyday use. The very act of parking your car on it every day is enough to wear down a concrete driveway if enough time has passed. The issue only gets exacerbated if you’re someone likes to do work from your driveway, whether that’s working on a personal project, or doing some kind of labor. Wear and tear are a natural part of a concrete driveway’s lifespan, and with it, comes cracks.
Environmental Factors
Environmental factors are usually the number one thing that can cause cracks to form in your concrete driveway. Heavy rainfall that dries too fast can leave your driveway with little cracks that, though they aren’t structurally dangerous, look terrible. Heavy heat has a tendency to make your concrete age faster, and if water ever gets under your concrete driveway then you’ll find yourself with more cracks very often. Not only that, but the ground beneath the concrete driveway itself may shift with time, thus compromising the integrity of the concrete. Environmental factors tend to cause concrete driveways to crack with time.
How To Fix Small Cracks
If the cracks on your driveway are smaller in scale and don’t really run deep then most of the time you can get by with just repairing them with simply DIY solutions. A concrete resurfacing product can easily smooth over small cracks and make your concrete look new again. Small cracks can also be filled. You can make use of most concrete crack filling solutions to allow for an easy fix to your small concrete crack problem. Though these techniques are simple for small cracks, fixing a large crack can require more effort.
How To Fix Large Cracks
Depending on the location of the large cracks on your concrete driveway, some of the same methods used for fixing small cracks can be applied to fixing large cracks. Cracks near the edges of the concrete driveway can be filled in with filling solutions, similar to those used with small cracks. However, cracks in the middle of the driveway pose a more serious issue. If you have large cracks near the middle of your concrete driveway, it’s usually indicative that something is wrong beneath it. You sometimes can still fill these cracks with new concrete if the crack isn’t too big, and you know where it came from. If you’re not sure where it came from or the crack is too big, then it may be best to replace the portion of the driveway with the cracks, or the whole driveway.
Common Material Used to Fix Concrete Driveway Cracks
Though we started to discuss this earlier, many of the materials that would typically be used to fix driveway cracks are fillers, or resurfacing solutions. While crack fillers made for concrete are often made from various compounds that do not incorporate concrete, many resurfacing solutions do incorporate concrete into their formulas. This concrete is mixed with various bonding agents that then mold onto the existing concrete to make it look like it has a new finish. The actual materials and the compounds within those materials will vary depending on which product you opt to use.
If You Want a New Concrete Driveway Instead, Contact Apex Concrete & Hauling
There are often times when the cracks are simply too big to repair. Sometimes your driveway is too old to justify repairing it, or there’s underlying issue that makes it difficult to repair. If that happens, contact Apex Concrete & Hauling for your new concrete driveway. With our team of professionals, we can install a new concrete driveway that looks great and will last. If you’re in North Carolina need a new concrete driveway, contact us now and we’ll help you get started!