Christmas Gardening – repairing paths

The winter is the time of year to repair concrete paths, for two reasons:

Once the weather becomes snowy or icy, it can be difficult to see holes and dips which puts you at risk of tripping or catching your foot.
holes and cracks will be penetrated by moisture and that will freeze, enlarging the size of the damaged area and destroying your path, inch by inch

Of course, newly repaired areas will usually be noticeable, and there is little you can do to disguise this, other than a complete reconstruction of the whole area.

A depression or hole should be repaired by chiselling out the damaged area down to half an inch to an inch – remember to wear safety glasses during this task as flying concrete chips can cause really bad eye injuries. Clean out the loose material, preferably with a vacuum cleaner and shape the edges so that the hole tilts inwards to give the repair a better grip.
Paint the chiselled out surfaces with dilute PVA.
Make a fairly dry mix of 1:3 sand to cement, using some PVA in the water to add to the bonding and fill the hole, smoothing the surface.

When mending broken edges, use the same technique but use a wooden board for shuttering and bricks to support the concrete edge while it cures.
Cover all repairs with plastic sheeting weighed down with bricks to ensure the area stays moist until the concrete is cured. This can take a few days and also ensures that frost damage doesn’t destroy the chemical bonds of the concrete.

Christmas gardening broken path photograph by blogefi, used under a creative commons attribution licence