Smoothing Out The Lumps And Bumps In Your Sidewalk Or Driveway? How Residential Paving Contractors Can Help

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Concrete does not last forever, which is why so many paving contractors are busy repairing roads most of the year. If your sidewalk or driveway has some lumps, bumps or loose chunks, then you will want to talk to a residential paving contractor. The residential paving contractor can help in all of the following ways.

Assessing the Severity of the Damage

The paving contractor will take a closer look at your sidewalk or driveway to determine just what kind of concrete was used before. This information is important because it can tell the contractor what kind of concrete he or she should use to repair the problem areas. It also tells the contractor if there are any underlying issues that might be forcing the concrete up out of place, and that may be why you have lumps, bumps and chunks of concrete poking upward everywhere.

Making Simple Repairs

Simple repairs include patching the cracks in the concrete, either with a black, tarry substance or with concrete crack filler. As long as it has been determined that there are no problems underneath the concrete slabs that make up your sidewalk and driveway, the patch repairs will hold everything flat and keep people from tripping over cracks. If you actually have lumps or chunks of broken concrete coming loose and pointing up, that is not only more dangerous, but it falls under complex repairs.

Making Complex Repairs

More complex repairs involve removing entire slabs of broken concrete, taking out sharp, dangerous chunks, and leveling the ground and the base layer under that. If there are also some underlying reasons why the concrete was forced upward in the first place (e.g., large tree roots, burrowing animals, earthquakes, etc.), then your contractor will address each of these issues as it pertains to your particular problem.

For example:

• Tree roots are removed, or an entire tree may need to be uprooted, before the concrete for your sidewalk or driveway is poured.
• Rebar may be added to reinforce the poured concrete from underneath so that earthquakes cannot bust it up.
• Metal grating or wire mesh may be inserted vertically, underground and along the edges of freshly-poured concrete to prevent burrowing animals from creating caverns underneath that cause the concrete to eventually buckle.

After these (and any other) issues have been addressed, the new concrete is poured and leveled. Once it has dried and cured, then the complex repairs are complete.

As you can see, paving contractors like Harris Paving Industries should be able to fix any problem, big or small, that you're experiencing with your concrete, so give them a call as soon as possible. 

4 May 2016