Terrace floor was layered with concrete about 15yrs back. The top layer was re covered /coated by 1″ -11/2″ cement sand mix about 30days back. As the earlier top layer had debonded in many places. Total area is about 700sq ft. I now find that this new top layer has hairline cracks in many places . We had used a 4 part sand mix to 1part cement along with water proofing compound and cured it by filling it with water for 10days. The contractor says it is normal. But i am worried about leakages and the cracks widening with time. The current cracks are hairline ones and my earlier top layer had debonded not so many hairline cracks even though it was 15yrs old.
David
Tom’s Answer:
Podcast: Play in new window
Tom Tynan answers a listener question about concrete cracks in a Houston Home Improvement project.
Tom: I don’t know, time will tell that’s all I can say. There’s not a lot of answer to that. If everything works out great. It sounds like everybody’s trying their best and I don’t know why because I’m not there to see the mixture, see how much … it sounds like there wasn’t enough Portland put in but I could be wrong.
Charlie: Ok yes what do you say here? It’s a four part sand mix to one part cement.
Tom: Yes and maybe a little more Portland made it tighter but it sounds like it’d be alright, I don’t know. You can’t tell, it’s like a foundation; an engineer could look at it but he can’t tell you what it’s going to do tomorrow or what it did yesterday he can only tell you what’s going on right now.