Repair or Replace Your Driveway? A Cedar Hill Guide

Why Cedar Hill driveways fail in the first place

Most driveways around here do not wear out from traffic. They fail from the ground moving under them. Cedar Hill sits on the White Rock Escarpment, and a lot of yards have expansive Blackland clay over Austin Chalk limestone or Eagle Ford shale. That clay swells after a wet spring and shrinks hard in an August drought. A slab that sits on it rides up and down with every cycle.

Water is the other half of the story. On a sloped lot, runoff that sneaks under the slab softens the base and carries fines away. Once there is a void, the concrete has nothing to rest on, and it cracks or drops. Knowing which of these caused the damage tells you whether a repair will last.

Signs a repair will do the job

A repair makes sense when the slab is mostly whole and the problem is local. If you can point to one or two spots and say "that is the issue," you are likely in repair territory. A driveway repair visit can usually handle these in a day or less.

• Hairline cracks or cracks narrower than about a quarter inch that are not uneven on either side.
• One or two panels that sank or tipped at a joint, while the rest of the slab sits level.
• Surface scaling, flaking, or pitting on a slab that still feels solid underfoot.
• Gaps between the driveway and the garage slab or sidewalk that let water in.
• A trip lip at the street apron or where the driveway meets the walk.

Signs it is time to replace

Replacement is the better buy when the whole slab is telling you the base failed. Patching that kind of damage is like painting over a wet wall. The fix looks fine for a season, then the cracks come back next to it.

If several of these show up together, plan for a new concrete driveway with fresh base work underneath.

• Spider-web or map cracking across more than about a third of the surface.
• Panels that heave and sink in different directions, so the slab looks like a rumpled rug.
• Wide cracks with one side higher than the other, or chunks breaking loose.
• Washed-out soil you can see along the edges, or hollow sounds when you tap the slab.
• A driveway that is too thin for what you park on it, or too narrow for your household now.
• Water that keeps draining toward the house because the original grade was wrong.

What each option costs

Let's break it down. Crack routing and sealing is the cheapest fix, often a few hundred dollars for a typical driveway. Lifting sunken panels with concrete leveling (slabjacking or foam injection) usually runs a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars, depending on how many panels move and how far they dropped. Resurfacing a worn but sound slab often falls in the 3 to 7 dollar per square foot range.

Full replacement costs more but starts the clock over. Plan on about $6 to $10 per square foot for a standard broom-finish driveway, plus $1 to $4 per square foot to break out and haul away the old slab. A two-car driveway of 600 to 800 square feet often lands somewhere between 5,000 and 11,000 dollars all in. Decorative finishes, a thicker slab, or extra base work push it higher.

Here is the rule of thumb a lot of crews use. If repair costs creep toward half the cost of a new driveway, or you expect to repair the same slab again within a few years, replacement is the better money. The honest number for your driveway comes from an on-site look, not a table.

What a good inspection looks at

A proper look at a driveway takes more than a glance from the curb. Here is what a crew checks before it recommends a fix or a tear-out.

• How level each panel sits against its neighbors, checked with a straightedge or string line.
• Whether the slab sounds hollow when tapped, which points to a void underneath.
• Crack width, and whether the two sides of a crack sit at the same height.
• Where water goes in a rain, including downspouts, gutters, and runoff from the lot uphill.
• Slab thickness at the edges, and whether steel shows in any broken spots.
• How the driveway meets the garage, the sidewalk, and the street apron.

A quick decision checklist

Walk your driveway with these questions in mind. Count the yes answers. Mostly no means repair. Three or more yes answers usually point to replacement.

• Is the driveway more than 25 or 30 years old?
• Does cracking cover more than a third of the surface?
• Are panels moving in more than one direction?
• Have you already repaired the same area once or twice?
• Is soil washing out from under the edges?
• Would a wider or thicker slab fit how you use it today?
• Are you selling soon and want the curb appeal of new concrete?

Making a repair last on our soil

A repair only holds if you deal with the cause. That means fixing the water first. Extend downspouts away from the slab, regrade low spots so runoff heads for the street, and seal the joint where the driveway meets the house. Fill voids under sunken panels before they spread.

Next, keep cracks sealed. An open crack lets rain reach the clay, and wet clay swells right under that spot. A flexible sealant in the joints and cracks costs little and slows that cycle down. A good concrete repair crew will tell you plainly if a repair is a short-term patch so you can plan for it.

Ask for what the crew found in writing. A clear quote lists the problem, the fix, and what the fix will not solve. That way you can compare bids on equal footing and know what to watch for after the work is done. Next steps: take a few photos of the worst spots and note when you first saw the damage. Then request a free estimate or call (469) 402-4525. Our crew can look at the slab, check the base and drainage, and give you a side-by-side price for repair and replacement so the choice is yours.