Why homemade concrete tracks do not last long

Many owners of private houses and cottages have the idea to decorate the site with concrete tracks of their own manufacture. Someone prefers to fill the track with a continuous coating, someone uses special forms - there are a lot of design options. However, in most cases, such jewelry does not last long.

Concrete is considered to be one of the most durable materials that can maintain strength. for decades, but for this many conditions must be met, which, when self-made difficult to comply with.

Very often, the width and thickness of a track is determined based on personal aesthetic ideas, when in fact you need to build on what this track will be used for. For the main trail, it is better to choose a width of about a meter. When additional branches are planned in the direction of additional buildings, arbors, a garden. The width can be 0.4 m. The main thing in this case is to have the smallest load on the edge of the track, because most often the concrete crumbles and cracks from the edge.

The durability of a makeshift concrete track is also largely determined by the quality of the material itself. Even if there are experts among friends who knead heavy-duty concrete, it is better to give up advice and purchase ready-made sand concrete. In this case, the compressive strength should be not less than M200.

Transverse cracks often appear on concrete tracks or, if it consists of separate fragments, they are deformed relative to each other when the base for the track is improperly made. In most cases, they dig a trench, perhaps even level it out. Then the formwork is installed, the soil surface is sprinkled with sand and pouring is already performed on top of it. Accordingly, in the near future there will be a natural deformation, simply because the owner stinted on the purchase of geotextiles. It is crushed stone and sand that pour out onto it, and then you can be sure that the track will last much longer than without such a foundation. Some believe that it is only necessary to reinforce the foundations for buildings, and concrete for the track itself is quite durable. However, this is a misconception leading to multiple microcracks on the tracks along which various garden materials are transported on wheelbarrows. So that the track does not collapse under load, you need to use a reinforcing mesh with cells of 10 by 10, the diameter of the rods in this case can be 8 mm.

So, the most common mistakes due to which the concrete path quickly becomes unusable are as follows: incorrect mixing solution, lack of calculations for the width and thickness of the track depending on the planned operation, the absence of geotextiles in the base and reinforcing the grid.