LESLIE: Jack in Delaware is on the line with a mysterious odor coming from who knows where and wants to know how repair concrete surface. What’s going on?
JACK: Got a sidewalk in front of my house that’s been there for probably since the 50s. And it’s really steep and I couldn’t get my trailer in and out, so I had them come dig it out. And I’ve got up to my – oh, into my property, about another 9 or 10 feet past the sidewalk, I’ve got in new concrete.
And then I had them lay some more concrete going up to the house from there. But the old sidewalk was put in there like, say, in the 50s. And it just – if I take a high-pressure washer to it, it seems to kind of flake out on top and the rocks come out.
And QUIKRETE makes a product that we can put over the top of that that makes it look like new. But the color is a lot different than the QUIKRETE is. Can I put white paint in the QUIKRETE? And am I going to have a problem with it, down the line, coming off or something if I do that, just to make it match? It’s just kind of a curb-appeal thing.
TOM: I’m not 100-percent sure because I’m not quite sure which product you’re talking about to repair concrete surface. But there is a way to color concrete. You mentioned this is a surface product, so it might be an epoxy or have some other type of quality to it.
But I would not be surprised if this could not be colored. And it may not be that you need paint to put in there and it might just be a sort of a concentrated color, much like they use when they color paint in stores, and they make it to match. So I think that if you probably did a little bit of research on the QUIKRETE website or wrote to their technical-support folks, they might be able to give you the recipe here to repair concrete surface. Because it is very common to have to color concrete.
JACK: Well, I tried just a little bit of it and I mixed it up and it was nice and thick-like. I read the directions first and then I put some white paint in it and I ended up adding it about three times until I got it until it’s almost the same color as the new concrete. Then I put a few spots in the old thing and I’ve been watching it and it seems to stick alright but I’m concerned – is this white going to bleach out really fast and then look worse than what I’ve got?
TOM: Was it an interior paint or an exterior paint that you mixed in?
JACK: Exterior.
TOM: You know what? It might just work to repair concrete surface.
JACK: It looks good so far.
TOM: Proof’s in the pudding. If you’ve already kind of tested it out and it seems to be holding, then it’s pretty good evidence. But if you want to know how, technically, to do it the right way, I would turn to the techs at QUIKRETE.
JACK: OK. I can do that. I appreciate it.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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