Anyone power wash their sidewalk?

[2400]

Anyone power wash their sidewalk?

I'd have to have a sidewalk first...

 

[WormWiggler]

interesting, my driveway and sidewalk are likely the age of the house, 1982 if I recall correctly... so the damage is likely done and not fixable at this point. My driveway is half concrete / half gravel. The concrete portion was laid at an incline as the garage floor sits higher than the adjacent road. The slab has increase it's incline as the lower elevation has sunk. I am looking into the mud jacking to raise the slab back to it's former angle or less of an angle, then either road base, asphalt, or concrete to the street as I am tired of the mud mess that 30' of gravel makes. My first mud jack contractor was not interested in the work, said it would not likely raise evenly as there are some cracks. Not sure if I believe him, or at least it is conflicting with the advertising on the web, where cracks are no problem. Maybe the angled nature of the slab makes it a poor candidate. Thinking the condition of the slab, maybe a new pour is best way to go, but my wallet tends to slap me back to reality.

 

[Kurtr]

And...I strongly recommend sealing your concrete around here. Concrete is not waterproof and the aggregate used in ND has a LOT of shale in it. That means water soaks into the shale. The problem with that is shale and concrete have vastly different pore space. This is why you see spalling (flaking off of concrete). If you seal it against moisture, it looks kinda funny but will certainly minimize the spalling.

Concrete is usually Portland Cement concrete and is a fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a cement paste that hardens over time. Where I grew up in north central ND (Bottineau County) all aggregate is bank run ... in other words it is sand and gravel dug out of a "gravel pit", and run thru screens to segregate the material into different sizes as opposed to quarry run rock that has been blasted out of the side of a mountain and run thru a crusher. Maybe in western ND bank run gravel is not available, I have no experience there. I have never seen a quarry/crusher in ND. I would assume that shale would have to be run thru a crusher.

Since this is is my job. If you are getting your redi mix from a good company the shale will not be that much of an issue as there are specs that keep it from being allowed in there. Of more concern would be the sand with has a reaction with the cement it’s self but we have one of the best sources of fly ash at fallkirk mine to mitigate that problem.That is added at 25% in summer months a little less in colder months as the fly ash can retard the set of the concrete but does help with the workability. So now if you are really worried about the small amount of shale or more absorbent rock in exterior concrete or finished floors we use quarry rock east side of state generally granite west side lime stone I like granite better my self. It is either railed in or trucked in. Now air content slump and the guy doing the work all have huge affects on finished product. Most mixes are designed at a 4” slump for a given psi well then you get a contractor that wants to have it way wetter you now take your water to cement ratio down air content spikes top of the concrete peels off in a year and the supplier is blamed when it is actually bad work practice. Salt is the worst thing ever for concrete period. You want it to last seal it and it will ad years of service caulking saw cuts will also help. The days of firing some pit run ,cement and water to make concrete are long gone. Two things are guaranteed in life death and concrete will crack.

 

[Allen]

Concrete is usually Portland Cement concrete and is a fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a cement paste that hardens over time. Where I grew up in north central ND (Bottineau County) all aggregate is bank run ... in other words it is sand and gravel dug out of a "gravel pit", and run thru screens to segregate the material into different sizes as opposed to quarry run rock that has been blasted out of the side of a mountain and run thru a crusher. Maybe in western ND bank run gravel is not available, I have no experience there. I have never seen a quarry/crusher in ND. I would assume that shale would have to be run thru a crusher.

Shale is a very common stone in our run of the mill gravel pits. I don't know of any quarries in ND that harvest igneous rocks and crush it, all of the gravel in ND is simply mined and size sorted by screening.

Airport runways and other high value infrastructure often use aggregate that is imported to the state from Montana quarries to avoid the shale spalling. It's a bad deal to suck concrete up into a jet engine.

 

[Kurtr]

Actually there is a lot of crushing of natural rock most of it being for asphalt but shale is not allowed in there either. Dickinson is home to one of the biggest aggregate producers in the nation being fisher industries. A lot of lime stone is brought in on the west side from pete liens quarry by rapid or just in Wyoming. Fishers also has a quarry over there along with knife river. Lg Everest takes care of a lot of granite on the east side. Airports are a whole level of suck above any thing else to work on. All the natural round rock is washed before it is used for concrete I would be surprise if it is over 1% shale retained on the gradations if that .07% on the plus 4 sieve is all that is allowed in dot mixes up there.

I tested every very bit of asphalt from minot to Williston on hiway 2 and all of that was natural rock crushed in local pits with shale content of 3% or lower also did tioga and Williston airports still have nightmares of the Williston one. The devils lake airport was also a real mf er

 

[Ericb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt1tywvQh9s

FF to the end to see results, its long and kinda wordy video...

Yes, usually late spring after Turkey hunting. My drive way is usually covered in mud at this point. It's probably more feel good but I like to think that if I clean out all the cracks and crevasses it helps keep the weeds and ants away.

 

[db-2]

every year and maybe more than once with the pressure washer, makes it look good, fresh, ect db

 

[snow]

Yup every summer poured my patio /side walk and steps 20 years ago now mildew and lica takes hold after every winter (lots of shade),I pre soak said areas with a 50/50 blend of bleech and water,let it stand for a few minutes, pressure washer cleans the shit away till next spring,looks like new.

 

[johnr]

I watch porn, when my driveway makes me feel bad