Concrete Repair and Replacement in Denver, CO

Cracked, spalled, heaved or settled concrete — and the honest question of whether repair is worth it.

The first question on damaged concrete is not how to fix it. It is what caused it, because the two main causes here call for completely different responses.

Surface damage looks like flaking, pitting or a sandy top layer that comes away. That is usually scaling, and it is a freeze-thaw and de-icing problem: water in the surface freezing with nowhere to expand, made far worse by salt. Laboratory work measuring this found that pure water on the surface produced almost no scaling while one percent salt caused considerable scaling, and that the damage is physical rather than chemical. Scaling on an otherwise sound slab can often be resurfaced. Scaling that goes deep usually means the concrete was poured without adequate air entrainment, and resurfacing it buys a few years at most.

Movement damage looks different: slabs at different heights, a crack with one side standing proud of the other, sections that have tilted as a group. That is the ground, not the concrete. Replacing the slab without addressing the moisture conditions that caused the movement reproduces the problem on a new slab. In this region, wetting and drying of expansive claystone is the usual driver, which puts downspouts, grading and irrigation squarely in the conversation.

An honest contractor will sometimes tell you to fix drainage first and wait a season before repouring. That advice costs them the job now, so when you hear it, take it seriously.

A hairline crack in otherwise flat concrete is normal and not a defect. Concrete cracks; the control joints exist to choose where. The things worth acting on are cracks that are widening, cracks with vertical displacement, and surfaces losing material.