Step by Step Guide on Concrete Floor Repair

Even after giving the best effort sometimes concrete finishes might be defaulted and it may result in cracks on the floors. One should start patching up concrete floor holes as soon as possible as a small hole can lead to a large hole in the near future. Something like this happened with my friend Julia. She had a slight crack on her garages concrete floor but she was neglected about it. Then one day while driving her car out her tire somehow got stuck on the garage driveway and she wasn’t being able to drive her car out of it. Turns out it was that crack she had been neglecting all this time. It became a large hole day by day.

So, repairing concrete holes immediately is the best decision. But just pouring concrete into the cracks won’t give a lasting result. One needs to follow some prominent steps to get the best possible outcome. This post here is to help you to repair your concrete floor if it has cracks or it starts to show cracks.

Find out your home's credit score

Check your home condition score to find out!

Check it out

Tools you’ll need:

Goggles, Hammer, Vacuum Cleaner, Gloves, Small paintbrush, Wire Brush, Chisel,

Sand Mix, Concrete Bonding adhesive, Straight edged board, Steel trowel, Damp broom, Ball nose trail or a Patty knife

Protective Clothes:

• Gloves: During the whole process your hand is going to be directly involved with the tools. So, to protect your hands during the whole time you need to make sure that you are wearing gloves.
• Goggles: Unwanted particles entering into your eyes might cause blindness. And this process of repairing concrete floors will deal with dust and small pieces of many elements. So to protect your eyes goggles are needed.
• Wearing old clothes will be recommended as the dress might get ruined and unusable after all of the steps are done.

Cleaning the floor:

To make sure there remains no oil, dirt or dust on the floor you need to first brush the floor with a wire brush. This will get the cracks out and then you need to vacuum the floor. Clean the spot thoroughly to make the floor smooth, dry and free off loose debris of materials.

Read more: Keep your floors nice and tidy

Determining the place of the patch:

There might be unleveled and loose concrete in the crack hole. To undercut the edges of the crack you can use a hammer and a cold chisel. This will make sure the place of the patch.

Coating:

The crack surface can be coated with concrete bonding adhesive by a small paint brush. But do make sure that the adhesive dries up completely. There are some concrete patching compounds in the markets which don’t even require any mixing and can be used immediately to repair concrete cracks.

Read more: Bringing Your Garage Floor To Life With Epoxy Coating

Applying sand Mix:

Mix the amount of sand mix needed with water as instructed on the bag. Mix it till it becomes sticky and soft. Take a ball nose trail or a putty knife (for small areas) and apply the mixture with it on the crack. This needs to be done within the time when the bonding agent is still tacky. Sand mix is a bag of dried concrete products which helps the concrete to be more stable and strong. Sand mixes can be found in home stores. Use a trowel to press it on the edges properly and to confirm the proper filling of the crack with the mixture.

Read more: Stamped Concrete Vs Pavers: Which Is Better?

Leveling the patch:

Use a straight edges board and move it back and forth to smooth and level the surface. This procedure needs to be in a sowing motion. By this, the aggregate will be pushed down and it will make the final smoothing well. If the surface loses its wet sheen, then you need to use a trowel to smooth it up. For burnishing the surface and shaving the out the excess mortar you can use a steel trowel. For texturing the surface, you can use a damp broom on the concrete.

Read more: Flooring Materials: How To Pick The Best For Your New Home?

Quick Tips

• In the first 24 to 48 hours, the existing concrete temperature must be above 50 degrees after the concrete patching compound is applied. The curing time depends on the weather. The cooler the weather the more time it will take to cure.
• While putting the concrete patching compound and the sand mix use force and pressure so that the air bubbles force out of it.
• You can also use the best quality concrete stains to make your concrete mix more attractive and durable. It is a water based element that can be used to coat concrete. Over time it has a chance of wearing or fading off.
• After you are done with all the steps please do not walk on the floor for 24-30 hours. If the crack is in the garage like my friend then do not drive on the patch for 30-40 hours so that the patch can dry up perfectly.
• Even if you were wearing gloves, do wash up your hands thoroughly after the whole process is done.

So, these are the steps to do concrete resurfacing on floors. This process can be used on any kind of floors such as veranda floor, laundry floor, garage floor etc. As we can see the difficulty level isn’t that high here so filling up holes in concrete floors can be done by anyone easily. Also, this method will be effective in the long run and the concrete floor will avoid having cracks for a long time.

Also Read: Decorative Concrete Floors: A Comprehensive Maintenance Guide

Written by Kukun. December 23, 2018