– Driveway Waterproofing –
Have you been noticing little chunks of concrete popping out of your driveway? Those little chunks coming out is called spalling. Spalling is caused from the freeze / thaw cycle. For example, when your concrete driveway gets wet in the cold seasons then freezes overnight the volume of frozen water is 9% greater than liquid water. Therefore when water freezes, pressure is exerted on the surrounding concrete. When this pressure exceeds the tensile strength of the material, it starts to crack. Every time this happens the voids are enlarged. As a result, this enables the accumulation of additional water during the next thaw, and the damage continues. Therefore each freeze thaw cycle results in additional cracking. What’s the solution? Driveway waterproofing!
Substantial damage can occur over years of freeze-thaw cycles. This will lead to the concrete deteriorating so bad that the entire slab needs to be demoed and re-poured… and that’s not cheap.
Solutions
The good news is there’s cost effective solutions to prevent this from happening in the future. It’s time to call Sweet Concrete. We can thoroughly clean your driveway and entry, patch up any spalling that’s already occurred, then permanently seal the concrete. This drastically reduces if not completely eliminating the freeze / thaw damage from continuing in the future. Sweet Concrete services the entire Treasure Valley area including Boise, Meridian, Eagle, Nampa, Caldwell, Star, and all other towns in the valley.
The Process
First off, we pressure wash your driveway to clean the concrete and remove any loose, damaged concrete. After the concrete dries, any spalling is patched with a quick curing, cement based patch material. This fills in the divots and makes the concrete look better. Lastly, we apply a penetrating sealer to the concrete. This sealer soaks into the concrete, permanently waterproofing the substrate.
We use two different types of penetrating sealers for you to choose from. Firstly, there’s the deep penetrating sealer. This sealer migrates deep into the concrete and permanently creates a moisture barrier inside the concrete. Benefits of this sealer are that is never needs to be re-applied. In addition, it penetrates the deeper than any other sealer on the market. The only downfall is that it’s not hydrophobic. That means it doesn’t repel or prevent surface stains.
The second sealer is similar to the first. The major differences are that it doesn’t migrate as deep into the concrete. Therefore only the top inch or so is waterproofed. On the other hand, it has great stain and water repellency. The hydrophobic characteristic of this sealer wears off in a year or two. A small amount of sealer can be re-applied to bring back the water repellency if needed.
Contact Us
So if you’re sick of your driveway crumbling under your feet, go ahead and give us a call. I’ll schedule a time to stop by and audit your concrete free of charge.
In conclusion, you can read more about concrete sealers here.
You can check out this sealer here.
