As a homeowner, one of the most annoying things you may have to deal with from time to time is finding that your concrete keeps cracking no matter what you do to repair it. In addition to being an eyesore, the fact that the concrete will crack a lot also means that you get to spend a lot of time and money doing the repairs. Most of the time, repeated maintenance results from improper care of the concrete driveway. There are a number of things you can do to prevent concrete driveway cracking, including:
How to Prevent Concrete Driveway Cracking
Proper preparation of the base
When you design a concrete driveway, it will sit on the ground beneath it. This means that if the ground beneath starts shifting or sinking, the concrete on it will also start developing cracks due to the changes in pressure along the surface of the concrete. In order to avoid this, one needs to prepare the base adequately during the construction.
For instance, you may need to strengthen the base of the concrete so that the risk of sinking or shifting is minimized. It’s also important to ensure that structures such as burrows made by moles within the ground are sealed, so that there is no room for the soil around to sink and result in cracks.
Using a concrete type that will support the weight it will be subjected to
When constructing the concrete, one also needs to pay attention to the average loads it will be subjected to. If you have a very heavy car, you need to ensure that the concrete will be strong enough to support its weight. This way, you can be sure that the weight of the car will not place too much stress on the concrete, thus causing the cracks. This then means that during the construction, you may need to consult a professional to figure out how to design concrete driveways with this in mind.
Take care of drainage
One of the commonest reasons why concrete driveways end up cracking is on account of poor drainage. You need to make sure that any water that lands on the driveway will be conducted away from it, rather than pooling on the surface of the driveway. Again, this is something that should not happen if you have the driveway designed by a high quality firm. They will do all they can to ensure that the driveway will always be kept as dry as possible.
Repairs should be done by concrete experts
Once you notice a few cracks in the concrete, you would be better off consulting Classic Concrete as a concrete expert to fix them rather than doing it yourself. This way, we can use our expertise to ensure that the cracks are not only fixed properly, but that the risk of them recurring is eliminated. In addition to that, we are also likely to find the cause of the cracking and fix it if possible, so that future cracks do not occur.
Once all these steps are carried out, the risk of having recurrent cracks in the concrete will be eliminated!