DH and I are just starting to think about replacing our cement walkway and steps. Here's the scenario:
There's a cement driveway leading from the street to the garage, about
30 feet long. The front door of the house is up a short but steep grade of lawn.
- A short section of sidewalk that that's canted oddly and floods badly every time it rains.
- A set of five cements steps with a metal railing that goes up the steep slope. Nothing wrong with these steps except that they're not very attractive.
- A curving cement walkway, slightly cracked and slanted, but nothing badly wrong with it.
- The steps to the front door. They had been patched by the previous owners, but the patch completely chipped off this past winter. We don't know how old the patch was (at least 2 years, though) or what materials were used, but it was very thin and shattered into little chips during freeze and thaw. The remaining cement is pitted, worn, and uneven.
We don't actually use the front door very often. Most of the time, we go through the garage, so I am tempted to just have all of the concrete ripped out and replace it with something simple... stepping stones, maybe? The lawn closer to the street has a much gentler grade, so we could probably create a longer path that would not require steps. We would still need to have concrete or brick steps built up to the front door, of course. I like brick best, but the house is brick, and I'm not sure how hard it would be to match the colors.
Are there any disadvantages to getting rid of the cement walkway when the garage door is actually more convenient? How much of this would be DIY? I'm pretty sure we can rent equipment to break up the old cement, and I think we can rent a dumpster or something for the old material. Is it worth it? Should we just hire someone? Would a contractor or a landscaper be better, or does that not matter?
We could be in this house for thirty years, or five, or one. Should we just find a way to drain the bad section of concrete and re-patch the steps instead of going to all the trouble of replacing everything?
We're just in the preliminary thinking-about-it/research stage, so if anyone has any experiences, advice, or opinions they'd like to share, we'd appreciate hearing them. Thanks!
-- Jennifer