How to Prevent Cracks in Your Concrete Driveway

Let’s check out some effective strategies to prevent cracks in your concrete driveway. Every homeowner would love to eliminate this aggravation, which can shatter your home’s outdoor curb appeal. You can prevent the problem, however, when you have your driveway poured correctly the first time.

The Best Ways to Prevent Cracks in Your Concrete Driveway

In previous articles, we’ve discussed the most effective ways to maintain driveway concrete, which will maximize the life expectancy. Crack prevention, however, revolves around professional pavement pouring.

Four Ways to Pour Concrete and Avoid Cracks

1. Proper Cure Time
   • The best way to reduce cracking is to allow concrete to cure gradually. A full cure may take about a month, so this task requires patience. You’ll have less of a chance for cracking if the water has enough to evaporate slowly.
2. Installing Control Joints
   • This may be more common for patios, but with stamped concrete, you can use this for certain driveway applications. This is a strategy of intentionally inserting weak spots (at about a quarter of the concrete depth) to stabilize and minimize cracks. If cracks still occur, they’ll be more manageable.
3. Don’t Add Too Much Water
   • Many DIY pavers will struggle with this part. Whenever you add too much water to the mix, you’ll weaken the concrete. Of course, you also don’t want concrete so dry that it’s crumbling and falling apart.
4. The Base Must Be Compact
   • We contend with lots of shifting soil in Kansas City. This makes laying concrete much harder than in other places because you must have the base flat and compact. If you don’t do this right, it’s easy to get a void beneath the concrete, putting you at risk for cracks.

Sealing Pavement Cracks

Sometimes homeowners can address driveway cracks with advanced polymer sealants, provided the problem doesn’t get too far out of hand. Although you may find temporary success with this, it’s often only a band-aid solution. If you think your problem with driveway cracks is worsening, then call Johnson Concrete for an inspection and second opinion.

Avoiding Driveway Cracks Involves Proper Paving & Installation

So, once again, your best opportunity for long-lasting, crack-free driveways is to hire a professional for the task. These are some of the primary benefits to hiring a professional for concrete driveway work.

• Experience at Paving Concrete – It takes a long time, patience, and experience to master the art of concrete paving. Whether this involves driveways, patios, basement floors, garage floors, or anything else, there are a lot of variables involved. Therefore, prudent homeowners will find an experienced tradesman for this work.
• Backed with Licensing & Insurance – Just like electrical repair, plumbing, or roofing, you should never trust a contractor who can’t provide proof of licensing and insurance. This is a minimum qualification in the concrete paving business.
• We Can Prove Our Expertise with Examples – We always figure that a picture is worth a thousand words. Rather than read about our paving proficiency, we recommend checking out the visual examples of real jobs we’ve done for our KC homeowner clients.

Prevent Cracks in Your Concrete Driveway by Hiring the Pros at Johnson Concrete

Johnson Concrete is fully licensed, bonded, and insured to do just about anything with concrete around your home. Driveway and sidewalk cracks can become cumbersome and an ugly distraction in no time. We’re here to fix the problem before your concrete surfaces become an eyesore.

Johnson Concrete has a terrific reputation because we do things carefully, arrive on time, and dispense with all the sales pressure. This allows us to enjoy an endless stream of 5-star reviews from clients on Google Reviews.

Contact us anytime to find effective solutions to these problems and finally prevent cracks in your concrete driveway.