Concrete repair and resurfacing | Skip tear-out

Concrete repair and resurfacing: fix the slab, skip the tear-out

Concrete repair and resurfacing fixes a cracked, flaking, or broken slab without tearing the whole thing out. Most slabs we look at qualify. Our repair work mostly runs $8.27 to $22.41 a square foot, and cracks are priced by the foot instead. The right fix depends on what broke the slab in the first place.

We work out of our shop in Prague, OK. We’ve put down more than 3 million square feet since 2004, across all our work, so we’ve seen what clay, freeze-thaw, and road salt do to a slab. We look at your slab on site, find the cause, and tell you straight. Even when the answer is “this one needs replacing.”

Which repair does your slab need?

Start with what you can see:

• A hairline crack with both edges flat: usually no repair. That’s normal shrinkage from curing.
• A crack that has stopped growing: epoxy injection glues it back into one piece.
• A crack or joint that still moves a little: rout and seal. The sealant bends with the slab.
• A flaking or pitted top on a sound slab: a partial-depth repair for a few spots, or a polymer overlay when the wear covers most of the surface.
• One broken or sunken section, with the rest sound: a full-depth repair. We saw it out and pour it back.
• A slab that sank but stayed in one piece: concrete leveling lifts it back up.
• Damage over 40 percent of the slab, rebar rusted in several spots, or ground that keeps shifting: replacement is the better buy.

What is concrete repair and resurfacing?

Concrete repair brings back a slab’s strength or fixes its surface. Resurfacing is the smaller job. It fixes damage on top, like spalling (chips popping off), scaling (thin flakes peeling off), and stains, without cutting into the slab itself. Get the wrong one quoted, and you either pay for tear-out you didn’t need or buy a fix that won’t hold.

Structural repair fixes damage that weakens how much weight the slab can carry. That means cracks that run all the way through, sections that sank or heaved, and spots where the rebar shows. We use epoxy injection, full-depth saw-and-replace, or polyurethane foam to fill empty spaces under the slab.

Surface resurfacing fixes wear and looks: spalling from freeze-thaw, scaling from deicing salt, stains, and a web of fine surface cracks (crazing). We use crack routing and sealing, a polymer overlay, or a skim coat. If the damage is only cosmetic, a concrete overlay may fit better.

Repair isn’t a decorative coating service. It goes after the cause of the damage first, then the look. If you want new color or texture on sound concrete, start with overlays or stained concrete instead.

Looking for concrete floor refinishers?

You found them. Contractors who refinish concrete floors split into two kinds, by method. A grinding crew refinishes with diamonds. It cuts the worn top away and refines the concrete under it. On a sound slab, that becomes polished concrete, the most lasting refinish a floor can get. A resurfacing crew, the work on this page, rebuilds the top instead. It repairs the cracks first, then lays a polymer overlay or skim coat where spalling or scaling runs too deep to grind out.

The slab condition picks the method, not the marketing. A sound, flat slab with a tired surface needs the grinder. A scaled, spalled, or patched surface needs repair and an overlay before anyone talks about a finish. We run both kinds of crew, so the assessment ends with the method your floor needs instead of the one the truck happened to be carrying. When you compare concrete resurfacing companies, know that one with a single kind of crew tends to sell its own method. A full floor restoration often needs both. We have crews in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Texas.

What is the Bel Covo repair process?

Every repair runs the same way: we find the cause on site, pick one of five methods, and fix the source, not just the crack you see. A repair isn’t a new pour, so most of our Pour-4-Polish pour steps don’t apply. Three things decide how a repair holds up: the product we pick, the conditions on the day, and how well the crew puts it down.

How we find the cause on site

We map the crack pattern. We measure settling with a straightedge and a level. We drag a chain across the slab to find hollow spots where the top has come loose (delamination), and we photograph what we find. Then we name the cause, so the repair goes after it.

Clay soil and freeze-thaw cause most slab damage

In regions with hot summers and freezing winters, expansive clay soil does more damage to concrete than anything else. Clay changes volume by 4 to 8 percent between wet and dry seasons. That moves the ground under the slab unevenly, and the slab cracks. Red montmorillonite clay is the worst for it.

Freeze-thaw adds a second layer of damage on top. Water gets into the pores of the concrete, freezes, and swells by about 9 percent. That breaks the cement paste around it. Road salt tracked onto a garage floor or driveway makes it worse. It lowers the freezing point, so the slab freezes and thaws more times each winter.

The five repair methods we use

1. Crack routing and sealing. A saw widens the crack to an even 1/4-inch groove. A flexible polyurethane or silicone sealant fills it, so it can move a little without cracking again. It lasts 5 to 10 years before the sealant needs replacing.

2. Epoxy injection. We pump a thin structural epoxy under pressure into a crack that has stopped moving. Cured, it holds at 6,000-plus PSI (pounds per square inch) in tension, which is stronger than the concrete around it. It fills cracks as narrow as 0.002 inches, per ACI 224.1R guidelines.

3. Polyurethane foam injection. Expanding foam fills the empty spaces under a slab where soil washed out. We often pair it with concrete leveling to lift the slab back to grade.

4. Polymer overlay resurfacing. A polymer-modified cement layer, 1/8 to 3/8 inch thick, gives you a new, even surface when spalling or scaling is too spread out to patch. Indoors it lasts 10 to 15 years. Outside, we use a system rated for freeze-thaw. We price this overlay per job, after we see how much of the slab needs it. Our thinner colored overlays are priced on the concrete overlay side of the quote tool.

5. Full-depth repair. We saw out the broken section, remove it, and pour new concrete. Steel dowel bars tie the new concrete into the old slab. That saves the cost of a full replacement when the concrete around it is sound.

When does concrete repair make more sense than full replacement?

Repair is the right call when most of the slab is sound and the damage stays in a few spots or on top. Most cracked slabs fit that:

• Home driveways with 2 to 5 cracks from clay soil movement, the rest level and whole
• Garage floor repair for a flaking top from freeze-thaw or salt, with no settling
• Patios and pool decks with scaling, crazing, or a worn surface
• Commercial and warehouse floors with failed joints, one sunken spot, or full-depth breaks where the heaviest traffic hits

Repair is the wrong call in four cases. More than 40 percent of the slab is damaged. It has settled more than 1.5 inches. The rebar has rusted in several places. Or the drainage under it has failed and will keep moving the slab. Some slabs need replacing. That’s a real answer.

Where the break-even point sits. It depends on the method and the job size. Take a slab with shifting soil or cracks all over. Once repair there would cost more than 60 percent of replacement, a new pour gives you more years for your money. We run those numbers at every assessment. If your slab is past saving, we pour new concrete too. Our driveway and patio pages cover replacement.

What should I expect during a repair project?

Assessment visit (1 to 2 hours). We look over the slab, write down what we find, and talk it through with you on site. You’ll know the fix we’d recommend, how long it takes, and a ballpark cost before we leave. No obligation.

Timeline. Most home repairs take 1 to 3 days. Epoxy injection takes a day. A full-depth repair takes 2 to 3 days of crew time on site. On commercial jobs, we phase the work into evenings and weekends, so a business, warehouse, or store can stay open while we work.

Cure times. Epoxy injection reaches full strength in 24 to 72 hours, depending on the temperature. Routed sealant takes traffic in 24 hours. A polymer overlay needs 24 to 48 hours before you walk on it and 72 hours before you drive on it. A new full-depth section cures like any new concrete: 7 days to design strength and 28 days to full strength.

How is concrete repair priced?

We price most repair by the square foot and cracks by the linear foot, from the same catalog our quote tool uses. Each fix starts at these rates, before the drive cost (our trip to your site):

Most repair jobs land at $8.27 to $22.41 a square foot. That range includes setup. A single rate can sit a little under it.

What moves the price of a concrete repair

Past the method you pick, three things move your number on a concrete repair:

• Access. An indoor slab in a building people are using costs more for dust control, phased work, and moving furniture.
• Fixing the cause. Drainage work, filling voids, or steadying the soil before the surface repair adds scope.
• Size. A bigger repair area brings the cost per foot down.

The smaller the damaged part is next to the whole slab, the better repair looks against a full tear-out. The quote tool gives you a starting number. We confirm it on site. A slab that’s still moving isn’t a repair candidate, and we’ll say so before we price the work.

What does completed repair work look like?

Our gallery shows finished concrete repair and resurfacing jobs: the damage, the cause we found, the method we picked, and the result. You’ll see before-and-after shots of spalled driveways next to the same surface after a polymer overlay. A photo of the crack beside a photo of the fix tells you more than a paragraph can.

Where do we provide concrete repair and resurfacing?

We do concrete repair and resurfacing in six states, and each job goes out from the team closest to you:

• Concrete Repair and Resurfacing in Oklahoma: the metros around our Prague shop.
• Concrete Repair and Resurfacing in Arkansas: Northwest Arkansas and the Little Rock area. Driveways and patios about 10 years old there show the classic clay shrink-swell cracks. Those respond well to epoxy injection plus a few full-depth sections.
• Concrete Repair and Resurfacing in Missouri: Springfield, Joplin, and towns along I-44.
• Concrete Repair and Resurfacing in Tennessee: warehouses and parking structures in Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, plus overlays on 20-year-old patios and pool decks with a scaled top.
• Concrete Repair and Resurfacing in Mississippi: North Mississippi, where a high water table brings slab moisture problems.
• Concrete Repair and Resurfacing in Texas: commercial sites in North and East Texas, mostly failed joints and wear where the heaviest traffic hits.

We look at jobs outside these areas by request. Every quote shows the drive cost as its own line, instead of burying it in the square-foot price.