Masonry: rock walk way crumbling rock fix up/seal?

[Todd W. Roat]

Previous owner laid a nice rock walkway over the typical J-shaped cement sidewalk leading from the driveway to porch. They laid concrete down and put creek found rocks down. Pretty nice for a cheap DIY project. Only problem is that they used a lot of "soft" rocks like shhale and highway divide rocks.

The result is a lot of flaking and chipping off of the rocks. Can clean them, and a week later have a ton more.

I want to lay more durable rock down. REALLY do NOT want to spend time smashing out old rock. Is there a way to seal well the crimbling service and jsut do what they did - lay down concrete and put better rock down? If i were to celan it up well and remove all the crumbling pieces, then seal it well, then cement over it - think it would last?

Thanks Todd

[Todd W. Roat]

Previous owner laid a nice rock walkway over the typical J-shaped cement sidewalk leading from the driveway to porch. They laid concrete down and put creek found rocks down. Pretty nice for a cheap DIY project. Only problem is that they used a lot of "soft" rocks like shhale and highway divide rocks.

The result is a lot of flaking and chipping off of the rocks. Can clean them, and a week later have a ton more.

I want to lay more durable rock down. REALLY do NOT want to spend time smashing out old rock. Is there a way to seal well the crimbling service and jsut do what they did - lay down concrete and put better rock down? If i were to celan it up well and remove all the crumbling pieces, then seal it well, then cement over it - think it would last?

Thanks Todd

[FireBrick]

No Simply put....No you won't be happy with it. I'm a retired Chicago Masonry contractor. One of my customers was a well known fast food corporate office that used what is frequently called flagstone for the sidewalks of the many buildings on their campus.

Every year the company engineers & architects would have me try a 'new' process, and every year the result was the same. Finally pulled them all up and did the job right with real paving brick.

If it's soft enough to flak or shale off, it's soft enough to absorb water, which is the medium that causes the problem.