Crumbling Concrete Steps

[dmason84]

Hi,

Last July I had the steps at the front of my house rebuilt. This was because the tiles on them had started to crack and break off, making the steps uneven and potentially dangerous.

After discussing the various options, I decided to go with plain concrete steps. This may have been a bad choice, as I have never been particularly satisfied with them since they were built. Right from the beginning, there was problems with them. Cracks appeared, sections of the step would break off when you stood on them (as if the concrete hadn't set properly, even over a week later). I had the builder back out to fix these problems, which has now resulted in multi-colour steps due to the different batches of concrete used.

Other than not looking particularly great, the steps have been mostly alright since then, except for one main problem. They seem to be crumbling away. Simply rubbing my hand on the steps causes the top layer to break away. This results in a lot of dust and debris being trailed into the house, along with a big pile of debris building up on the steps themselves, which has to be swept away frequently.

Is there anything I can do about this, or is it what I should expect from concrete steps?

Thanks

 

[noseall]

Sounds to me like the concrete was laid in either cold weather, wet weather or the builder didn't allow or have enough time for the concrete to 'firm up' prior to giving it a final polish.

Steps should really be formed with either solid engineering bricks or hard wearing slabs/flags or both.

You will not get very good results from a homemade concrete mix, particularly when the weather is wetter and colder.

Manufacturers of concrete products such as stairs, walls, floors etc use special techniques in order to get the best out of the concrete that is difficult to replicate at home. The finish they achieve is both hard wearing and tight.

 

[dmason84]

It did rain a few hours after they were finished, so that probably explains some of the problems.

Would painting them do any good at all? I was up at B&Q the other day and spotted some Ronseal Doorstep Paint, which looked like it might be useful.

 

[Ralphgorse]

I'd replace the concrete steps with some cast stone ones. You'd eliminate the dust problem, they would all be consistent in colour and also look great compared to the concrete ones. Try www.stonesteps.info