How to fix new concrete driveway

[shibertus]

A week ago we had our asphalt driveway replaced with concrete. We used a reputable contractor and paid around $14/sqft for a 6" slab. The driveway is part of a larger project which includes other hardscape that they are doing an excellent job on.

I believe they did a good job with the prep, which included new gravel base and wire mesh + rebar elevated on blocks. On the day of the pour I was told the concrete started setting up before they could complete the finishing. The broom marks, control joints and edges all look quite bad to me.

Does anyone know what happened here and whether it is fixable? Are there long term durability concerns, especially with the voids around the control joints? I don't want to make a big fuss but at the same time I am just disappointed when I look at it.

 

[Boogerman]

This falls in the category of life *****, and nothing you can do about it effectively. The concrete should be excellent quality from the prep and design. However, because of the fast set, it has minor cosmetic issues. Nearly anything you do to try to correct it will look worse. Tearing it out and replacing it will probably create resentment with your contractor and a poorer final product. The only likely problems to develop might be a bit of raveling at the open voids at the joints. Not likely to give structural problems, but will be cosmetically defective.

Two things that can be done to improve it slightly. One, is the voids at the joints could be filled by sacking with cement paste. That might really make the brooming that overlaps it look bad. Two, the voids could be filled with epoxy. That again will look bad, but potentialy be easier to control than sacking, and probably more likely to stay in place.

Your contractor will likely feel as bad about this as you do. I'd ask him what he would do about it, as it's not the perfect product you contracted for.

My personal opinion is I would accept a slight cost adjustment that the contractor will probably offer, and remember it's a driveway that you will be driving on. After you've used it for a few weeks, unless you're the type that obsesses about this kind of thing, you'll never notice it.

On the positive side, that concrete should be very durable, and is very unlikely to have delamination surface issues. You know they didn't overwork it and have bleed water/troweling problems. My preference in flat work is to work it the minimum amount needed to get it flat and fully consolitated, and less surface finish effort is better. You have that.

 

[Beauregard]

Like it or not, to a layman customer, a big part of a completed concrete is that it is cosmetically and visually pleasing.
The pad may well be structurally sound, but it looks like ****.
If you pour enough pads eventually you'll come across a load that sets too quickly. It could be the mix, the weather, a crew that can't keep up, or any combination of these.
The contractor should come to you to explain the poor workmanship and offer a solution. It is cosmetically **** work.
There's no way I'd pawn that off on a customer.

 

[walrus]

The different colors with blend into one with time. The edging doesn't look very good . My guess would be not enough man power there when he poured it or not enough experience?

 

[karoc]

Over time and little wear, it start to blend little better. Not greatest eye appeal but sure sounds structurally sound

 

[geneg]

A week ago we had our asphalt driveway replaced with concrete. We used a reputable contractor and paid around $14/sqft for a 6" slab. The driveway is part of a larger project which includes other hardscape that they are doing an excellent job on.

I believe they did a good job with the prep, which included new gravel base and wire mesh + rebar elevated on blocks. On the day of the pour I was told the concrete started setting up before they could complete the finishing. The broom marks, control joints and edges all look quite bad to me.

Does anyone know what happened here and whether it is fixable? Are there long term durability concerns, especially with the voids around the control joints? I don't want to make a big fuss but at the same time I am just disappointed when I look at it.

Wait a few weeks & then have your contractor hire someone with a rotary surface cleaner on a good power washer. After it is dry, he can fill the sawcuts with self levelling joint filler. Then, he can spray on a tinted sealer.

None of this will fix the sins that he committed, but it will minimize the visual distractions.

Absolutely do not issue any further payments to him until he steps up. You can also ask him for his suggestions prior to the above path, but don't hold your breath.

If you want to be a hard nose- hint about remove & replace. No one wins in that route.

No matter what, he does owe you some financial consideration for making you live with his mistakes.

Good luck! At least they didn't add water to the surface to make it workable. Then, the r&r would come into play.

 

[ConCretin]

Not the best looking job I've seen and unfortunately, there's no way to "fix it". The surface appearance, the crookedness and tearing of the joints would seem to confirm that concrete got away from them and they weren't able to groove or finish it correctly.

It will look slightly better with time and use as the colors even out. With that said, you're the only one who can decide if you can live with it. Obviously getting it replaced could be difficult and costly although they have already acknowledged that they had issues.

It's not the structural capacity of the slab you need to be concerned about, it's the durability of the surface. The prep looks OK although I don't like to see a vapor barrier under exterior concrete. The potential durability of the concrete will depend primarily on the mix, the water/cement ratio and the environmental conditions it's exposed to.

What psi was the concrete?

How wet was the concrete when they placed it?

Did they splash water on the surface to try and get a finish on it? (very likely).

Will it be exposed to freeze/thaw conditions?

If you live in a cold climate I'd probably want the little voids at the joints filled although that will likely worsen the appearance even more. I'd also consider a good quality sealer to keep water out on the surface. Good luck. I hope you end up with something you can live with.

 

[PWC Repair]

I don't know..........it's a driveway, and I think it looks fine. DO NOT pay the full price as others have stated. This is discount quality finishing.

 

[Mikes61]

You could cut the joints and put in stone ribbon to match your house.

I have old cement at my house and was able to make it look better where it had cracked. I cut each side of the crack about 5” wide and had a guy mortar in some 3 Rivers stone. It looks really good and got rid of the cracks.

 

[shibertus]

What psi was the concrete?

How wet was the concrete when they placed it?

Did they splash water on the surface to try and get a finish on it? (very likely).

Will it be exposed to freeze/thaw conditions?

I was told the mix was 4000 psi. I have a video of it coming out of the chute if that would be helpful. I don't recall seeing them spray water on the surface, but they were constantly wetting their tools. It was a ~70 degree day and they had 6 guys.

We do have harsh winters. I would be very unhappy if the finishing defects led to durability issues down the road.

At this point I am more interested in fixing it than I am in getting a discount. This was far from the lowest bid and I really expected a quality job.

 

[Tracs]

I was told the mix was 4000 psi. I have a video of it coming out of the chute if that would be helpful. I don't recall seeing them spray water on the surface, but they were constantly wetting their tools. It was a ~70 degree day and they had 6 guys.

We do have harsh winters. I would be very unhappy if the finishing defects led to durability issues down the road.

At this point I am more interested in fixing it than I am in getting a discount. This was far from the lowest bid and I really expected a quality job.

Nothing constructive to add here but my thoughts are If you make them repair/replace/refund and they are doing your other hardscape projects, you are going to pay for anything they do in response somewhere down the line.

**I will add that my response is what I expect would happen if the contractor doesn't voluntarily come good for it. If you have to go after him, expect he will make it up on your other projects.

 

[geneg]

A week ago we had our asphalt driveway replaced with concrete. We used a reputable contractor and paid around $14/sqft for a 6" slab. The driveway is part of a larger project which includes other hardscape that they are doing an excellent job on.

I believe they did a good job with the prep, which included new gravel base and wire mesh + rebar elevated on blocks. On the day of the pour I was told the concrete started setting up before they could complete the finishing. The broom marks, control joints and edges all look quite bad to me.

Does anyone know what happened here and whether it is fixable? Are there long term durability concerns, especially with the voids around the control joints? I don't want to make a big fuss but at the same time I am just disappointed when I look at it.

It doesn't appear to me that they souped up the surface, just that they waited too long to broom it & used p. poor technique. hard to tell from the pics if the joints were tooled or sawn. If they saw cut, they didn't use a soft cut saw, since you have tearout. i think a good clean up & a heavy bodied tinted sealant will make it less ugly. Along with joint filler to help prevent surface spalling at the joints from trapped water. It never will be textbook perfect, but can be made liveable. I'd hate to drive in & out of a driveway that bothered me every day. Tearing it out should NOT have to happen.

Be honest with the contractor & see if he is willing to help you. If not- do what you feel is right. The prep looks much better than alot you see & 6 guys should have been able to handle a small driveway if they had done one before. Just make sure you feel warm & toasty before you let him off the hook or enter into another phase. Get this one done & then move forward, otherwise these repairs will be rolled into the next project.

 

[geneg]

It doesn't appear to me that they souped up the surface, just that they waited too long to broom it & used p. poor technique. hard to tell from the pics if the joints were tooled or sawn. If they saw cut, they didn't use a soft cut saw, since you have tearout. i think a good clean up & a heavy bodied tinted sealant will make it less ugly. Along with joint filler to help prevent surface spalling at the joints from trapped water. It never will be textbook perfect, but can be made liveable. I'd hate to drive in & out of a driveway that bothered me every day. Tearing it out should NOT have to happen.

Be honest with the contractor & see if he is willing to help you. If not- do what you feel is right. The prep looks much better than alot you see & 6 guys should have been able to handle a small driveway if they had done one before. Just make sure you feel warm & toasty before you let him off the hook or enter into another phase. Also, contact the concrete supplier or ask the contractor for the delivery tickets. That will indicate the mix design delivered & if water was added by the driver. Get this one done & then move forward, otherwise these repairs will be rolled into the next project.

 

[The Cobbler]

Yeah, they lost it.
nothing really to add, unfortunately it loos like ****, but... in time it will be less noticeable, to the point that hardly anyone will notice
You have to decide if you can live with it or not.
have a heart to heart with the contractor, see what he suggests. decide if you can work with any of the suggestions he has.
be civil , it usually goes a long way to getting better outcomes .
die would help disguise the flaws ,and as it ages & wears , so will the concrete and it will look less a mess .

 

[BillK]

To me it really does not look all that bad but I am not all that picky about appearance of a concrete driveway. I think anything you do to try and "fix" it will make a mess and possibly compromise the surface. I bet after a couple of months of normal wear and tear you will not even notice it. I think once it is completely dry it will look much better anyway. The small divots at the control joints are a non issue in my eye.

Just my opinion,

 

[ConCretin]

I was told the mix was 4000 psi. I have a video of it coming out of the chute if that would be helpful. I don't recall seeing them spray water on the surface, but they were constantly wetting their tools. It was a ~70 degree day and they had 6 guys.

We do have harsh winters. I would be very unhappy if the finishing defects led to durability issues down the road.

At this point I am more interested in fixing it than I am in getting a discount. This was far from the lowest bid and I really expected a quality job.

Honestly I don't know how 6 guys couldn't keep up with the concrete in 70 degree weather but maybe they got a hot load or were trying to place at too low a slump (for the first time in recorded history).

4000 psi is good. That's what you want for exterior concrete. You don't necessarily need the compressive strength but the added cement used to achieve it will improve surface durability. You might also verify that it's air entrained concrete, which is vital for freeze/thaw resistance.

We could probably make a pretty good guess as to slump from a video but you'd also need to know if there was a water reducer used. Just spraying water on tools wouldn't be enough to hurt the concrete.

If all this checks out, it's probably just an aesthetic issue and you'll have to decide if you can live with it and how much your trouble you're willing to go through to make it right, which realistically means a tear out.

 

[Dig Doug]

I wouldn’t touch it until you talk to your contractor

after the talk

take a hose and a small wood float and rub the float over the broom over lap marks / build up, might be able to flatten out / soften the lap mark. The idea is to soften the broom marks and take away the sharpness/ blend it.
rub it in the same direction as the broom stroke, not across it.

it will happen naturally over time

you can do a test run on the wing

 

[Youngandfree]

Wait a few weeks & then have your contractor hire someone with a rotary surface cleaner on a good power washer. After it is dry, he can fill the sawcuts with self levelling joint filler. Then, he can spray on a tinted sealer.

None of this will fix the sins that he committed, but it will minimize the visual distractions.

Absolutely do not issue any further payments to him until he steps up. You can also ask him for his suggestions prior to the above path, but don't hold your breath.

If you want to be a hard nose- hint about remove & replace. No one wins in that route.

No matter what, he does owe you some financial consideration for making you live with his mistakes.

Good luck! At least they didn't add water to the surface to make it workable. Then, the r&r would come into play.

Etching it with a surface cleaner will look just as bad if the operator doesn't know how to correct it.

 

[shibertus]

hard to tell from the pics if the joints were tooled or sawn.

The joints were tooled. That tear out happened at the very end before they stopping working.

We could probably make a pretty good guess as to slump from a video

https://imgur.com/1RM8qs3

Video Link

If all this checks out, it's probably just an aesthetic issue and you'll have to decide if you can live with it and how much your trouble you're willing to go through to make it right, which realistically means a tear out.

Some folks have suggested things like sandblasting, grinding, or "waterbrooming." Would any of these be appropriate and likely to help here?

I'd hate to drive in & out of a driveway that bothered me every day.

This is the tough part. The rest of the work they are doing looks really nice, which make the driveway more noticeable.

 

[Fixr]

Not a concrete guy, so I don't know if this idea would work. What about using a straightedge and grinder to widen or v-notch along the cuts past the wiggles and spalling so as to create a straight(er) channel, and then filling with a self-leveling sealant?

 

[ConCretin]

That slump is not excessive at all. Probably about a 4. Credit to the crew for that! They were probably too exhausted from dragging that dry mud around to get a better finish.

The joints were tooled. That tear out happened at the very end before they stopping working.

The proper way to tool joints is right after bull floating using a pole mounted groover to 1/4 of the slab depth. These grooves won't stay open but it pushes the aggregate aside so subsequent re-grooving doesn't result in tears.

Some folks have suggested things like sandblasting, grinding, or "waterbrooming." Would any of these be appropriate and likely to help here?

I don't know of any operation that will improve a broom finish.

 

[geneg]

Not a concrete guy, so I don't know if this idea would work. What about using a straightedge and grinder to widen or v-notch along the cuts past the wiggles and spalling so as to create a straight(er) channel, and then filling with a self-leveling sealant?

If they hand tooled the joints, it absolutely shows that they were inexperienced. They could have ran the jointer back & forth a couple more times to smooth out the edge.

Don't sandblast, grind, abrate the surface. It will just give you more drastic colors/ surfaces. Clean it, let it dry, see what it looks like. if the hues are as drastic, have them spray a tinted sealer over everything & then use a self levelling joint filler. If you can live with this, great. otherwise have the contractor remove it & start over. The second option is a lose/ lose for both parties & will create some hard feelings. However, you deserve to get what you contracted him to complete. Sadly, this is the situation we get into with people who don't live up to their committments.

Been there, done that! I spent over 40 years as a construction project manager & never saw the type of bs that exists today. I've hired people to do things at my house who don't show up, don't meet completion dates, and don't have a clue or any ethics.

Hired a company to install some helical piers & tuck point a stone porch. The first company with a written completion date of Thanksgiving- called me in mid January when it was -14 to set up arrival. I told them that I didn't want chunks of frozen backfill to live with forever. They would not bring in granular material with a VP approval. Turned into no call no show despite a signed contract & a down payment. Owner of the company was too busy to accept my call & the VP blamed it all on a sick employee. DUH...

Second company showed up the day after the contract signing, hand excavated & installed the helical piers within three days. All good- right? Came back the next day with a bag of sackrete mortar mix & a bottle of liquid color to "fix cracks" No chisel, saw, hammer or trowel. Absolutely no clue as to what tuckpointing entailed. He mixed some "mortar" and pushed it into an existing crack with his fingers. I told him it wasn't going to fly, he called the office & they were going to look into it. Few days later got an invoice for 100% of the contract in an email. I called them & said I would pay the remainer when the project was complete. This was April 15th. Heard nothing since.

I'm now doing the old & grumpy rant. As I came up in business- if you told someone you were going to do something, you did it. If you said you would show up or complete by a date, you did it! If you made a mistake, you fixed it. In my entire career, I had to bring in a lawyer exactly 1 time to file a lien against a developer who hadn't paid any of the contractors on a project.

I now may have to file a breech of contract suit against the 1st guy to get my down payment back & against the second guy for non performance. So, like I said, do what you think is right, but don't let someone get by with less than they promised. Your situation definately hits a nerve. the world should not be like this.

 

[Boogerman]

How about a followup on how this turned out?

 

[shibertus]

Unfortunately there was no resolution. The contractor insisted it was top quality work. He blamed me for having unreasonable standards. Rather than a discount, he wanted to get paid more because the square footage ended up slightly more than planned.

Sadly a complete lack of integrity on his part. I try my best to ignore the driveway when I'm going in and out.

Thanks to all who provided thoughtful responses in this thread. Wish I had something better to report.

 

[Hobby_Man22]

Unfortunately there was no resolution. The contractor insisted it was top quality work. He blamed me for having unreasonable standards. Rather than a discount, he wanted to get paid more because the square footage ended up slightly more than planned.

Sadly a complete lack of integrity on his part. I try my best to ignore the driveway when I'm going in and out.

Thanks to all who provided thoughtful responses in this thread. Wish I had something better to report.

Looks okay.other than they need to work on their brush skills

 

[Bill T]

With this discussion being on the internet, I am sure there will be someone on this topic who is more experienced that myself (along with a few Nobel winners), but, here goes- no concrete is going to be picture perfect all the time. I can look at any concrete job and can make negative comments on some aspect of the placement. Obviously, I can not comment on specifics of this job as I was not there. From your images, this was not a shoddy job. It could have been better, but overall, you have a nice driveway with just a few issues. Structurally, you should have no problem. There are numerous reasons that could explain the few issues shown- every thing from a "hot" batch of cement in the silo (not thermally hot ,but chemically), to the placement being scheduled at the end of the work day and the finishers were eager to go home.
I am a Mecanical and Civil Field Engineer in the nuclear power industry. The concrete placements I oversee are typically between 300-600 yards. We prequalify all batch designs, have inspectors at the batch plant and on site. Even with all of the controls we have in place, on a 300 yard pour, I will reject 3-5 trucks on average. We turn the trucks around and they dump their load in a waste pile. I say all of that to say this- anyone who looks at 5 or 6 photos of a concrete placement and automatically dumps on the ability or work ethic of the craftsman is probably an internet expert (just ask him). There are a few real experts on this forum and I appreciate their input. We can all learn something from the forum. I just don't like the response of "hold their money" which is the typical advice of a few "experts".

 

[JohnS]

Couple of questions :

Video shows long shadows when that load of concrete was being discharged . Did they form and pour the same day, or set forms first and then pour the next day ?
1) How many CY did they pour ? I assume they placed the concrete in one day ?
2) What was the design strength specified ?
3) Was the concrete tested for slump coming off the truck ? This should have been done , but a lot of times residential contractors do not do this unless they have to. Concrete supplier takes slump tests before it leaves the plant . They should have this information available for you. The supplier should also have the delivery tickets which show the time it left the plant and the time the concrete was discharged on site . Also if water was added on site before discharging .

I am not in any way taking a position that the issues you describe were the fault of the supplier or the concrete contractor, however you as Owner should have access to the information above. If you have already settled with the contractor it's a moot point . If you have not,
and likely do not want to take the slab up, suggest you negotiate for an extended warranty from the supplier and the contractor .