Slippery Concrete Driveway: How to Fix

LESLIE: Jim in Illinois is on the line with a driveway question.

JIM: Well, I had a question about my concrete driveway. In the bad weather, it is almost impossible to get up without sliding back into US-51, Main Street, here in Bloomington, Illinois. So, I wonder …

TOM: That doesn’t sound good.

JIM: No. And I’ve done it many times.

TOM: Yeah.

JIM: The incline of my driveway is such that if you can imagine – in good weather, you’re sitting by the garage, sipping on a beer, and you’re watching cars come up my driveway. Looks like they’re ready for launch.

TOM: Right.

JIM: And it’s, I’m guessing, a 20-percent grade.

TOM: Well, are you ready to part with that concrete driveway? I mean what kind of a project are you looking to do here?

JIM: Yeah, we can. My son and I have been talking about it. So, yeah, that’s going to have to be dug out. That’s going to have to be dropped.

TOM: Well, Jim, you know, I’m glad to hear that you’re ready to part with that driveway and certainly, that’s always going to be an option for you. But I’ll give you a couple of other ideas that are short of doing that.

Now, one of which is pretty major. It’s called “diamond cutting.” There are machines that they use, mostly industrially, that can be used to create a textured surface in your existing concrete. It’s going to be a big, nasty project with a lot of dirt and a lot of dust and it is entirely possible to do that.

Now, another option, though, is a lot easy and that is to add a texture to that surface. Now, QUIKRETE makes a product designed especially for this. It’s called Textured Acrylic Concrete Coating. It’s actually available in four different colors, so you can spruce up the look at the same time. But it’s designed to put a nonslip surface, which is very textured, onto old concrete. It’ll step up the look of it and it will give you some traction. And it’s specifically designed for driveways. So it’s going to have good adhesion.

So that’s another option for you, as well. It’s called Textured Acrylic Concrete Coating and it’s made by QUIKRETE. So, you might want to give that a whirl and see how you make out. You can always opt to replace the driveway later. But if you get a good textured surface on that, perhaps you won’t be sliding back down that hill, onto Highway 51, quite as often.

JIM: That sounds like a good shot.