Should I repair or replace my driveway before selling my home?

11 Oct Should I repair or replace my driveway before selling my home?

A driveway is the entrance to your home that everyone sees as they enter your property, including potential buyers. If your home is newly renovated, the gardens look fantastic, and everything else is in order, but your driveway is letting down the rest of your home, this can make a negative impact on potential buyers. 

A range of factors can impact the quality of your driveway, and many of these issues can be fixed with driveway restoration or repairs. In some cases, if the damage is too extensive or underlying problems (like the quality of the concrete, etc) are too major, sometimes a driveway replacement is the only viable option. 

Below are some of the most common issues we come across when evaluating driveways. 

Cracks, breaks and crumbling

Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about the weather. Often, cracks and breaks in driveways are caused by the ground moving or big differences in weather conditions over prolonged periods of time (if we have record rainfall or drought conditions, or both one after the other!). What we can do, however, is repair any small issues before they become larger, more expensive problems. 

If your driveway is crumbling, this could indicate incorrect cement, sand and water ratios in the mix. If too much water is added to the cement mix, the cement and sand have a hard time bonding to each other and rather than becoming a solid structure, it will start to crumble and fall apart. The same goes for not enough cement mix in the concrete, resulting in a final product that will never fully cure. This will cause the concrete to crumble over time as there’s no strength in the bond between cement, sand and water. 

As concrete is porous, it will absorb water over time. If your driveway has water that pools on it, the concrete can absorb this, and in winter conditions, if it’s cold enough, this water can freeze, pushing the cement binder apart. Over time, if this happens enough, the process of expansion and contraction can cause your concrete to crumble. This can be avoided by adding a sealant to your driveway once a year. 

Concrete has moved

If the soil your driveway is installed on is suffering from what’s called soil movement or downhill creep, this can cause issues with the concrete on your driveway moving or sliding. This can cause cracks and breaks in the concrete and even cause large gaps in the concrete, potentially damaging vehicles. 

Depending on the damage and underlying structure of the soil, a driveway repair is possible. Other times it’s a case of replacing the entire structure of the driveway with new, reinforced concrete.  

Mould, dirt and wear

Many times when we look at a driveway, the concrete and structure of it is perfectly fine. It just needs a clean and seal to give it back an original spark. Other times cleaning the concrete isn’t quite enough, and we will need to resurface the driveway because the concrete colour is starting to fade, the pebble-crete is worn and old, or the stencilling is no longer visible. 

If your driveway is showing signs of wear and tear, but the concrete itself is still strong and doesn’t have cracks, uneven sections or is crumbling, a repair or restore is certainly something that can get your driveway back to its original condition.

What are the benefits of having your driveway resurfaced, restored or repaired?

There are multiple benefits to having your driveway repaired, restored or resurfaced. Of course, there’s the structural benefit of having cracks, crumbling concrete or uneven sections repaired, but there’s also the major benefit of giving your home street appeal as soon as someone looks at your home.

Here are just a few of the benefits of repairing your driveway with Titan 360:-

• Will boost value
• Will increase potential buyer satisfaction
• It is a very cost-effective way of improving the street appeal of your home
• It gives you the option to choose from a range of colours and stencil types
• Lasts for years
• Restores vibrancy and colour to new
• Improves the appearance 
• Can help to expand driveway for additional vehicles

If you would like to talk with Titan 360 about driveway restoration, repairs or replacement, please feel free to contact us on 0481 536 900 or use the contact form.