Repairing Cracked or Broken Concrete

In reality, a slab of concrete is pretty much a big grey rock. When you turn it into a foundation for a shed or a sidewalk, it becomes much more than that. It's become something you look at everyday. When a sidewalk or slab crack, either from soil settling beneath the concrete or due to rain, snow, ice and sunlight, it not only becomes ugly, it can also be a dangerous thing to trip on.

So how do you fix that crack in your sidewalk without tearing up the whole thing and re-pouring it? Sometimes you can't and a section of it does require replacement, this article will help you along the process of deciding if it needs just a quick fix, or a whole new section of concrete.

If the crack in your concrete slab or side walk is small and not from one end of the pour to the other, then it is probably just a tension crack and can be mended before it gets any worse. Concrete when poured, is guaranteed to do three things. Get hard, turn grey, and crack.

So to fix a small crack you will need a hammer or maul and a cold chisel. You will need to get some vinyl patching compound which you can get from most home improvement stores. Simply chisel the crack with the cold chisel and hammer. Make sure you have some safety glasses and gloves on when doing this. To make the new vinyl compound adhere to the crack, you need to under cut the crack. That means making the bottom of the crack, wider than at the top. Place the cold chisel on an angle to do this.

Sweep the crack clean of and debris when you are done chiseling. You can use an old paint brush to clean the crack. If you have access to an air gun and air compressor, than this will work even better. Clean the crack as good as you can. Fill the bottom of the crack with some sand. This helps to prevent the crack from returning through the newly applied vinyl patching compound. Simply fill the crack now with the vinyl patching compound using a trowel or drywall knife.

If the crack is a larger one and continues from one side of your concrete pour to the other, than the problem is probably settling. You will need to remove a large piece of concrete and bring the under surface up to it original height.