If you’ve inherited a home with concrete features, you need to maintain its current, hopefully pristine, condition. Your concrete is going to endure many assaults throughout its lifetime. Here are a few tips for maintaining the concrete around your home.

Water run-off
Check your gutters and drain pipes to ensure water is not running consistently against your concrete, causing erosion around the edges. Small plants, like hostas, can absorb extra water.

Leaves, dirt and mold
Dry leaves aren’t usually a problem, but once they get wet or start to decay, they can stain. If that happens, don’t use muriatic acid to clean it up. Use a basic detergent with a neutral pH and a long-handled brush to remove the stain. You can also pressure-wash the area. Using a deck washer, which sprays a wide triangle of water instead of a concentrated pinpoint. Otherwise, you will end up with streaks. Wash the entire section of concrete or the untreated areas will appear darker. Sweep concrete on a regular basis to prevent stains from forming in the first place.

Ice
We are more likely to get a hard freeze than a lot of snow. If your driveway or path is iced over, don’t pour hot water over it, because the water could freeze back up and create another layer of ice. Also, do not use salt to dissolve the ice, because it will destroy the concrete just as quickly as muriatic acid will. You can buy products that are safe to use on iced-over concrete, such as Ice-Away or Halite, a rock salt.

Clay
Unfortunately, red clay is the most difficult stain to remove from concrete. Sometimes even pressure-washing does not eliminate the stain. If you’ve done all you can to get rid of it, you can decoratively stain the slab a similar color. Otherwise, you may have to sand it down, and in some cases, apply a new layer of thin-set concrete over it.

Plants
You shouldn’t have a tree within five to seven feet of concrete, because eventually the roots will grow and cause the concrete to crack. The good news is that weeds are not strong enough to crack concrete.

Oil
To prevent oil damage on your garage floors, you can use epoxy coatings. You can also use rubber mats. However, most mats will trap moisture and any other debris that gets under them, causing mold. One alternative is RaceDeck floor tiles, which allow air and liquids to travel underneath, and are oil-resistant.

You can repair oil damage a few different ways. If you just have a plain, sealed concrete garage floor, you can lay down liquid detergent overnight, then use a pressure washer to pull up the detergent and oil or take a propane torch and wave it back and forth, lightly heating the oil stain, and the oil will come to the surface. Be very care not to overheat the area. Then, lay down kitty litter, another enzyme product or a heavy citrus degreaser and let it soak. You can then wash or brush the remainder off. You will need to reseal the area, or the exposed concrete will absorb oil more deeply next time your car leaks.

Saving your slab
Even if you’ve done all you can to keep your concrete cleaned, you may still have problems. When you need to make repairs to your concrete slabs or basement walls, remember the three R’s: repair, resurface and restore. Any treatment you apply to your concrete will follow those three general methods.

Cracks
Cracks are the most common issue with concrete, because poor installation and extreme weather changes can wreak havoc on your slabs. Concrete is meant to crack, but only in controlled, unseen areas. When repairing cracks, you need to follow a few rules. Clean out the area in and around the cracks with a pressure-washer or hose, and sweep the remaining water off, allowing it to dry. Then, fill in the cracks with epoxy or adhesive polyremodified concrete (PMC). PMC because it forms a very tight bond. Whatever you use, add a bit of sand to the mix so that it grabs on to the concrete and isn’t slick to the touch. Then, use fabric strips (elastomeric strips) specially made to cover cracks and patch pieces from end to end of the fissure. Cover the treatment with a thin-set concrete, which can be mixed to match the original color.

Settled patio slabs
You can break up the old slab and pour a new one, or you can have someone lift the entire slab up and reposition it, which may be cheaper. With settled porches, you may want rely on a professional. The company drills holes in the concrete and pumps agricultural lime (ground limestone) and Portland cement into the holes until the slab begins to float up. This method allows you to be able to walk on the porch the same day and costs about 50 percent less than the original method.

Settled basement foundations
Once again, this is an issue where you may want to call a professional. Companies will install piers, straight steel pipes with points on the ends (that resemble corkscrews or augers), and push them into the ground down to solid soil or bedrock. Then they attach an L-bracket beneath the foundation and hydraulically lift the foundation back up by lifting the L-bracket up the steel pipe. The bracket stays in the ground and the two pieces are bolted together.

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