Cement step repair—whew! After a long winter, a lot of us have to do this.
Hi there! I'm Jeff with Home Repair Tutor. And in this video, I'm going to share with
you a ton of different tips of how to get your crumbling and decaying cement step looking
a lot better. And it'll be fixed in probably less than a day.
So let's get started. I want to show you how I did it at one of my own properties and how
you could do this, too. This step is in terrible shape. Check it out.
It's crumbling and it's unsafe. So the first step that you need to take is
to undercut all the edges using a cold chisel and a hammer. Undercutting will help the new
concrete properly bond to the old concrete. Another step you can do is take a hammer drill
and, with a Tapcon drill, drill some holes strategically into the old concrete step.
And then you'll place these blue Tapcon screws into those holes wither using a hammer drill
or an impact driver. I like the Tapcon screws to be about ¼"-½"
below the new concrete. You'll have to estimate where that is. But just know that these Tapcon
screws will help anchor the new to the old. The other thing you want to do is properly
dust off the step because your concrete won't bond properly. So dust it or use a Shop Vac
to remove all the dust. Then apply Concrete Bonding Adhesive to the
step using a paintbrush and just a cup. Now I'm applying it liberally all over the step
so that the new concrete will properly bond to the old concrete. And I'm using bonding
adhesive because I need more than ½" of new cement. And I'm following the directions on
the bonding adhesive bottle. It takes a little while for this adhesive to dry so you're going
to have to wait 2-3 hours. For this project, I'm going to be using Quikrete
Quik-Setting Cement—whew, that's a mouthful! And it sets up in about 15-20 minutes. Now
I'm holding Pam in my hand because I'm going to be using it not to cook but to spray it
onto the form. And in this case, I'm just using a plywood form. So I'm spraying the
Pam on so that the cement won't stick to it. Now you can turn the form around and place
it flush up against the old step. Take some cinder blocks or something heavy, and push
it up against the form so that the form is sitting plumb, which is just straight up and
down. So with your form in place, you can get all
of your cement supplies ready to go. Oh, before you do that though, make sure you use a respirator.
Inhaling cement is just bad for you. So don't do it.
So here are all the supplies that I'm going to be using. I've got my plastic tub, my trowels,
my water. And what I did is I estimated that I needed about 3-4 bags of the Quik-Setting
Cement. And I place the bags right next to the tub. And I pour the cement into the center.
And then after that, you want to create a crater for the water. So pour the water in
according to the directions. And then you want to mix it up so that the consistency
is smooth and just heavy enough that it'll barely slide off a trowel, and that it's still
moldable. Use your margin trowel to scoop up the cement
from the top and push it down into the recess created by the wood form and your old step.
So what you want to do is push down, put a lot of downward pressure, on that cement.
That way it will form and you can expect that you're going to have to use a steel trowel,
like I'm doing here, to smooth out the edges between the old cement and the new cement.
So I just scrape them on the surface at a 45° angle. Then check for any low spots or
high spots using a 24" level. The low spots you can fill in with the cement. And the high
spots should be scraped off. So just do that and you'll have a nice level surface to work
with. Now if you do find any low spots, fill it
in using more cement in the margin trowel. Make sure you work quickly, especially if
you're using the Quik-Setting Cement. Now you can remove or pull the cinder blocks
out of the way and scrape on the edge of the wood form and the new step. Pull the form
out and you'll see that you have a really nice plumb surface, a nice straight up and
down surface, but there'll be voids too that you need to fill in using the margin trowel
and your steel trowel. It's as simple as taking extra cement and
pushing it into those voids, and smoothing it out. Now in this case, I used my steel
trowel to scrape along the vertical surface. You can also use your level to make sure that
the surface is plumb or straight up and down. Don't forget to scrape off any of the new
cement off of the old cement because you'll be left with a mess if you don't do this.
You can also round the edge of your new step using an edging tool, like I'm doing here.
Just do it steadily and smoothly across the surface of that step. It really creates a
nice, rounded surface. One of the final steps is to smooth out the
new cement using a moist sponge. In this case, I have an old grout sponge hanging around
so I just use that. They're not very expensive; they're $3. And it really adds a nice effect
to the new cement. And then you should spray down and keep the
new cement moist for at least 48 hours or according to the directions. And in my case,
I also added plastic to the step to retain that moisture level in the new surface.
And always remember to seal your cement when you're done with your project. This is super
important. Well there you have it. That's how you fix
a crumbling or broken cement step. Not too bad, right?
So if you have your own suggestions, please add those to the comment section. I don't
have all the answers. I'm sure I might have missed something.
The purpose of this video is to help you learn, and maybe you can help somebody else in the
process, too. All right. Well, remember you can always click
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and sign up for the email newsletter that comes out every single Friday along with the
new video tutorial. Until the next video, have a great day. Thanks
so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
And take care!