How to repair cracked concrete steps

Question: I am trying to get a lead on how to repair the steps that go from my kitchen sliding-glass door to my fenced-in patio. The steps have a big crack at the bottom. As a result, the steps are almost suspended from the house. Ive tried to get someone to come to my house for an estimate, but the places I called said my repair is too small for them. Where can I go?

Alexandria

Answer: Clayton Perry, business development manager for Concrete Jack, a concrete-leveling company based in Williamsburg (855-603-6321; http://www.concretejack.com), took a look at the picture you sent. The view isnt wide enough for him to see the whole picture, but the steps appear to be level. So his hunch is that the steps are stable. That means the patio must be sinking, a situation he finds frequently. Nine times out of 10, the underlying soil wasnt compacted right, he said. Another possibility is that you have a drainage problem that is washing away the base of the patio.

You could plug the gap by stuffing soil or a concrete mix under the steps. But if the patio has sunk, that would leave the drop between the bottom step and the patio greater than between the other steps. Even a relatively small difference in these distances creates a trip hazard, which is why the 2012 Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code allows only a three-eighths-inch difference in tread height. So the best solution is to raise the height of the patio.

The picture shows that your patio is brick. If the bricks rest on a concrete slab, Concrete Jack or another concrete-leveling company could inject something under the slab, raising it to the original height.

Concrete Jack, which uses high-density polyurethane foam or a sand-cement grout, has a minimum charge of $750 in Northern Virginia. A-1 Concrete Leveling Northern Virginia, based in Herndon (703-481-6868; http://www.a1concretelevelingnorthernvirginia.com), also does small jobs. It injects a crushed-stone slurry, typically for around $800 to $1,500, depending on the size of the job.

If the bricks rest on sand, the best solution is to pull them up and redo the base, making sure to compact it well before the bricks are reinstalled. Many landscapers are set up to do this.

Question: We put in a concrete driveway a dozen years ago that soon started chipping off. The contractor returned our money, but we are left with a driveway that is part crumbling concrete. Short of jackhammering it all up and starting over, what can we do to make this smooth and presentable?

Herndon

Answer: Unfortunately, there is no way to fix your driveway. Something clearly was wrong with the concrete mixture, such as too much water or too little cement. Surface spalling, which can be caused by ice damage, improper timing of troweling during construction or use of de-icers afterward, can be repaired by topping the concrete with an overlay that consists of cement, fine sand and a polymer, similar to white glue. But there is no cure when the damage goes deeper.

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How to repair cracked concrete steps