How Homeowners Can Prepare To Weather The Elements On Their Concrete Surfaces

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We have all heard about the typical winterizing steps to take with your home maintenance; they usually entail cleaning out gutters of extra debris, leaves and junk plus things like reinstalling glass window panes to replace screens. There’s a lot more to winterizing and one item that is often overlooked is taking care of the home’s driveway and concrete surfaces.

Believe it or not, your driveway and/or concrete could also use winterization. The main reason being that the surface is actually quite porous. When you combine that porous nature of the material with the elements of winter including salt, ice and other environmental abuses – it’s almost imperative that you do some preventive maintenance. Here are some guidelines to follow:

The most important thing to know is that your driveway will need its control joints, expansion joints and cracks sealed properly using a quality polyurethane sealant. It is preferable to use one that meets the Concrete Institute standards of ASTMC309 (look on the package).

Using a standard 10-ounce caulking gun, simply work the sealant into the driveway’s joints and seams. The main benefit of doing this will be to prevent salt and brine from penetrating the surface of your driveway and thereby beginning to deteriorate the surface. By doing this twice per year, once around this time of year before the really cold weather sets in, and the second time around is in April after the freeze is over.

Another key area to concentrate on are the expansion joints both at the foot of your driveway at the street’s curb as well as at the entrance of your garage. Both of these expansion joints are designed to absorb any change when the street expands, leaving your home standing unaffected by the imminent movement.

By grinding these joints down with a pressure washer and then caulking the areas, you will effectively be providing as much protection as possible against the elements, avoiding cracking and unsettling of the concrete. You can apply sealant by rolling it on with a paint roller for even application.

There is one more tip that will help you prolong the life of your driveway this year – and for years to come. As soon as you can, when snowfall has taken place, take the time to remove the snow as quickly as possible. This will help to reduce deterioration of your concrete from salt and compacted snow (which results from vehicle traffic over snow), less moisture is trapped underneath the surface, therefore reducing the otherwise rapid acceleration of damage to your driveway.

For more information on this important maintenance tip, watch our video above.