My patio is made of 4x4 concrete slabs with wood in between. The wood is rotted. How can I repair it?
Question:The patio is 12x15. The wood is rotted and the edges of the slabs are worn. Can the wood be removed and replaced with something else? I want to eventually paint the patio so the repair needs to look better than the old rotted wood.
Answers:
I would just remove all the wood and fill the area back up with a bagged pea-gravel concrete mix with fiber in it (HD or Lws) take a claw hammer and about every 18" dig out the dirt about 4" lower than the bottom of the slab and about 6" long to make a "scallop" effect. try not to disturb the soil in the other areas, this will fill the area and should hold. You can add some color in the mix if you like till you paint it (not such a good idea by the way) or better yet you can take out all the wood and stain the concrete the color you were going to paint it then use a nice contrasting color for the mix you are going to put in place of the wood. after staining tape off the channels like you would as if to paint when putting in the new mix. when done this will be virtually maintenance free as apposed to having to repaint every few years.
BEFORE removing the wood pressure wash the whole patio very good to remove all the years of dirt. why before well you will be less likely to disturb the soil under the wood this way you want that to say because the new concrete you put in will settle if the ground is not solid. When that was popular (1970's) my brother put dozens of these patios in. every once in a while we get calls for the same thing you are asking and it just happens to be the same house he originally did but a different owner. the wood doesn't last forever..
FYI: ummm... "spacers" are called expansion joint and if you knew what you are talking about you'd know they are not always needed.
buy new wood
I would pull the wood and fill with more concrete.
I like the look of the wood. If you replace it, be sure to use treated wood. You should be able to pull or pry the old wood out.
If you don't wanna use more wood, you could use pea gravel. You'd have to paint the blocks first.
Quikrete makes a resurfacer. You can proably lay some felt over the wood or a 1 inch piece of wood and pour the resurfacer in your new thin frame. read the bag. http://www.quickrete.com/pdfs/projects/r...
i would get the wood out and fill the gaps with concrete.
you would be much better off, if you started from scratch, take everything up, and redo whole thing, that way you know where you stand?i wouldn't use wood again, because you'll always have some problem with it
Measure the wood that is currently there, cut new wood to fit the gaps. You can't just "fill with concrete" because you would need to put in spacers on each side of the new concrete where new meets old, if not it will crack and look nasty. If it is all worn out, then put in the spacer material, fill with new, then do an overlay or recoat. Recoat is cheap and looks great.
been there and fixed it already, so here is what i did.
i replaced my wood twice before the new and improved wood came out on the market. I.E. composite wood decking material.
i used the solid form of this composite as it cuts like real wood.
i first power washed the concrete with a good soap and power rinsed it. then i used a nice concrete resurface with a nice color to contrast the new composite material. it looks great and will last longer than me I'm sure.
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