Tom, I live in Sugar Land and my driveway is cracking in three panels.
The cracks are perpendicular to the joints and are about 10′ long, one is about 1.5″ wide. I’ve had two estimates to have it repaired and a third contractor is coming soon. Both contractors recommended a mudjacking process but deffered mastic to a 3rd party. My question: what is the standard warranty I should expect from a contractor and is the mastic necessary?
Ken
Tom’s Answer:
Podcast: Play in new window
Tom: I don’t know if mud jacking is even the way to go, so I’m going to step all the way back.
Charlie: I knew, when I saw this e-mail I said, “I know what Tom’s going to say to this.”
Tom: Yeah, you’ve got to re-pour those sections. What kind of warranty? Probably none, nobody can guarantee when concrete’s poured. Some gets better than others. I don’t know what’s making it crack. As far as that goes, replacing those sections are the only way to go. Mud jacking and mast sticking, that’s just going to be more different, and so it will crack, now you’ve got a different type of crack, so.
Charlie: Then he’s going to get a crack somewhere else.
Tom: Yeah, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense, so unfortunately, concrete’s very unforgiving. Once it cracks it’s cracked.
Charlie: I wonder if all the money you put into fixing that, if you’d had Sherry come pull it out and you come in and put something new, you wouldn’t be ahead of the game.
Tom: Plus I say it’s the only way to go. Jackhammer the old stuff out certainly will re–what do they do with it?
Charlie: They recycle it.
Tom: Recycle! That’s what I was trying to think of, that big word.
Charlie: Yeah, I have a daily reminder of them everyday driving up Eldridge past [inaudible].
Tom: I know. I went on that road to your house that day. Sherry…
Charlie: I will tell you this about that. Those boys are done.
Tom: Oh no, they can tear it out. They tore a cut in the road over to my house. That road was out in about two weeks, and this thing is 80 miles long.
Charlie: You would think it was coming out of their pay or something, they were gone.
Tom: No, that’s money to them.