Adhesives for concrete patching.

[Ignoramus23835]

We just redid our driveway, patio etc with new concrete. It is 6" gravel, 6" concrete with wire mesh on the driveway and 5+5, no wire mesh, elsewhere.

Unfortunately, a kid stepped on one place on the driveway and there is a imprint of his step about 5mm deep or so. My wife is livid about this, as she is wont to be in general.

So, I am thinking if I can fill the hole.

My idea was to take a solid epoxy 100% solids from raka.com, which I have, mix with portland cement for color, and apply to the imprint. It is very clean right now and is not contaminated with oil etc.

Would this work or not? It is in the worst part of the driveway (next to the road). We have snow, ice, salt, etc.

[Pete C.]

Go buy a $5 bag of concrete patch mix at Depot. It's a driveway, not a space shuttle and the patch mix made for the purpose will work just fine.

[Cydrome Leader]

why not use a carbon fiber based composite, or fill the thing in with a titanium casting?

it's the best idea ever. Be sure to patch the new concrete driveway with anything but concrete.

[Leo Lichtman]

1.) I think there is a latex coating which helps concrete stick to concrete. B.) New concrete bonds to itself pretty well.

You will have a hard time getting a perfect color match with any material other than the same stuff the driveway is made of. If your wife gets livid easily, the outline of a footprint in a slightly different color will probably bother her.

Here's an idea: Chop out a rectangular recess and inlay a tile with your house number on it. Maybe your wife would like a second tile inlaid with her first name on it.

Or just fill the footprint with a concrete slurry and hope for the best.

[42etus]

Get a new wife and forget about the driveway. Probably not the cheapest solution though.

[DanG]

Your patch idea will probably NOT work. Go ahead, you're no farther behind. The color will not blend, I suspect. Make sure to mask around what you do - see below.

One idea that might work: Call the concrete man. Ask if he has a core drill with a large enough bit to encircle the kid's foot print. If the print is not centered, could you drill several holes to create a pattern or enough to do the address? Drill and Chip out the circles about

1/2-3/4 deep. Fill with epoxy or high strength pavement patch, embed a design or number if desired. Trying to make square or diamond, straight line cuts will be quite problematic, that is why I am suggesting round. Mask or cover quite an area around the area, any slop will not clean off and will stain and discolor what you have. You will probably be in the next size dog house if you stain or discolor it. My dog house has lights and AC!

[Gerald Miller]

Find the kid, glue the offending foot in place and slice off flush. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

[Ed Huntress]

LOL! That would put an end to that nonsense, eh?

-- Ed Huntress

[Brian Lawson]

Here in Ontario, the proper surface pre-treatment is called ALBITOL. It looks like a slightly thick white milk, and may well be a latex concoction.

[John Grabowski]

No matter what kind of patch you do, it will not match the original. Personally I don't think it is much of a problem. I have seen concrete jobs where they deliberately put the kids hand prints in the cement. So you could adopt the kid or get a new wife.

Another course of action would be to have that section cut out and then have an identical section at the other side cut out so they look symmetrical. Refill with tile,or a paver, or a different color concrete. As someone else suggested, cut out the foot print and put new concrete in with your house numbers etched into the concrete or use some bronze numbers.

[Ed Huntress]

I'd go for that. I've patched the old concrete on my walks numerous times, trying to find something that will last and match. Getting it to last is not hard. Getting it to match is almost impossible, in my experience.

As for getting it to last, I haven't had much luck with the cheap patching concrete from Home Depot. The best luck I've had is in using a polymer bonding "paint" followed by a high-quality, polymer-modified patching concrete that I got from a professional mason. It's still there after eight or nine years.

I etch my old concrete with muriatic acid but that isn't necessary with fresh concrete. That does seem to make a difference when you have to feather the edges of the patch. But I prefer to undercut the old concrete rather than feather. In fact, I have a job like that facing me right now, before it gets cold.

Sinking a bronze or tile marker of some kind into the concrete sounds good to me. Then I *would* use epoxy, to bond it in place. But I'd make sure it was a close fit to begin with.

-- Ed Huntress

>

[Pete C.]

No, no, clearly the only wife acceptable solution will require applying an additional 1" of concrete to the entire driveway so there are no areas that don't match. While he's at it he needs to have it colored and stamped to look like stone.

[Ed Huntress]

Wait 'till she watches that 1" layer delaminate. It's very difficult to make thin layers of concrete stand up. There are some fancy, modified concretes made for the job, but I've seen some "veneers" applied like that in my town, by knowledgeable people, and I'm not impressed with the results.

I live in an old town with big trees whose roots knock the hell out of sidewalks. It's like an experiment in concrete repair, and the results often aren't pretty. Mud jacking works pretty well, but a lot of the old concrete is weak to begin with and it cracks.

I'm thinking of using bricks for my front sidewalk, set in sand. It's short, and there's a really big maple, 74 years old, right on the edge of the sidewalk. There's no way you can keep concrete intact there for very long.

-- Ed Huntress

[Ignoramus12852]

I do not think that it is a problem either.

The kid is mine.

No comment on wife.

I will just leave it as is.

i

[Bob Engelhardt]

My brother's a civil engineer and he was telling me about a bridge job that he was on that got screwed up and the fix required a very thin, tapering layer of "concrete". It was $3000 a yard!

Bob

[willshak]

After the kid leaves home, your wife will always have that reminder of a young boy that is now gone.

[john]

Used bricks work well and can easily be repaired if necessary. For driveways the 'paver' blocks work out very well and will withstand the heavier load of the vehicles. Glen Gerry is one brand of pavers. They have a big factory on RT 61 in PA near Shoemakersville. A friend of mine just did his driveway and he located on a main road and has had a number of inquiries on them. He is thinking about going into the business of installing them. :)

John

John

[john]

Cut the print out and bond some ceramic tile with your initials in the cutout..

When you sell the house offer to place the tile with the new owners initials as a selling point :)

John

[Pete C.]

It sounds like Iggy's concrete is still pretty "green", so with a spray of bonding agent first I expect the additional layer would stick just fine.

No good answers for that problem.

[Up North]

Years ago when my sons and I poured the apron for the rear door of my shop we all put our hand prints in the wet concrete. Now, 17 years later I get teary eyed when I look at the size of their handprints and think of the good times I had with my kids doing projects like that together. My three boys are 25, 200 and 1700 miles from home with their own families and don't have much time to hang out with Pa. Miss the kids but I like this new life too. Steve