Preparing Your Concrete Slab for Winter

A concrete slab without a home or other structure on it to keep it warm and temperate during the winter months is susceptible to the damage that winter can cause. If you have a concrete driveway, a concrete workshop or garage floor, or a concrete slab waiting for its new structure, you take the time to winterize them. There are a few things that you can do to help protect your concrete and ensure that your concrete winterization is going to work.

Winterizing Your Concrete

When caring for your concrete during the winter months, the first thing you need to know is that salts and deicing chemicals are very hard on your concrete and can damage it. So, when you ask, “can I salt my driveway,” you can, but it might cause damage to the concrete over time. When you put salt on concrete, it does something called pitting, leaving pits and small marks in the concrete that can make it weaker.

Similarly, water that gets into the cracks of your concrete slab can freeze and turn to ice; the ice expands, making the cracks larger. You want to remove any ice and snow from your concrete driveway as quickly as possible, and as gently as possible so that you do not manually damage your concrete as well. You can also take the time to check downspouts and drains to ensure that they are taking the water away from your slab and that they are also not depositing the water right on it.

Protecting Your Concrete

 One of the best things that you can do for a concrete slab during the winter is to take the time to repair it as soon as you see an issue. The longer the issues are left to fester, the worse they become, and the harder it is to repair the damage in the long term. You can also limit parking during the winter to keep road salt off the concrete and help prevent damage in that capacity.

If you are truly concerned about your concrete, you can get great slab sealants that help keep the water out of your concrete this winter. One of the most important things about concrete and winter is to pay attention to the slab and ensure that if you see an issue, you take care of it as quickly as possible to help prevent the damage from getting worse.  

Categorised in: Concrete Maintenance

This post was written by admin