A crack in a driveway is the slab telling you something, and the repair depends on what. Some cracks are shrinkage lines that opened in the first year and never moved again. Others are wider, stepped on one side, or growing, which points to a problem underneath the surface rather than in it. In Sandy Springs, where the median home was built in 1988, plenty of driveways have carried cars for decades and show both kinds. We look at every crack before we pick a method. A hairline gets cleaned and sealed. A moving joint gets routed and filled with a flexible material. A settled section may need lifting or replacing.
The work starts with a walk of the whole driveway, not just the crack you called about. We check the joints, the edges, the drainage off the property, and whether any section has dropped or tilted. Then we clean the crack out to sound concrete, because filler laid over dust and loose grit lets go. With about 50 inches of rain a year, an open crack is a path for water to reach the base under the slab, so sealing it properly matters more than making it look tidy. Where a repair will not hold, we say so and explain what would. Call for a free estimate.
A slab price from us covers the whole job, not just the pour. That includes excavation, a compacted gravel base, forms, a vapor barrier where the slab sits under a building, rebar or wire mesh, the concrete, the finish and saw-cut control joints. Thickness and reinforcement move the number most, since a shed pad needs less than a slab carrying a vehicle or a structure. Call for a free estimate on your slab.
Most of a driveway's life is decided before the truck arrives. We remove the old surface, grade for drainage and compact the base, because about 50 inches of rain a year has to run off rather than soak in underneath. Rebar or wire mesh sits on chairs so it ends up mid-depth, not on the ground. We finish with a broom texture for grip, or stamped and decorative work, and cut control joints so any cracking follows our lines.
Interior floors in basements, garages, workshops and commercial space come down to two things: flatness and moisture. We lay a vapor barrier over the compacted base, place the reinforcement and power-trowel the surface to a dense, smooth finish. It can then be sealed, stained, polished or left ready for another floor covering. For an office suite near Perimeter Center or a storefront on Roswell Road, we set thickness and joint spacing for the traffic the floor will carry.
Cracks, sunken sections and flaking surfaces each have a different cause, and the repair has to match it. Hairline shrinkage cracks get routed out and sealed with a flexible filler. Where a section has settled, we check the base underneath before deciding whether it can be lifted or has to be cut out and replaced with new concrete doweled into the old. On a house built around 1988, the original slab may be decades old, so we also weigh repair against replacement.
A crack in a driveway is a symptom, and we treat it as one. Half the homes here date from 1988 or earlier, so plenty of the slabs we see have carried cars through decades of use and roughly 50 inches of rain a year. Before we fill anything, we find out what moved: the base under the slab, the way water leaves the property, the control joints that were meant to take the stress. Fulton County's Rion soil drains well, but it changes from lot to lot, so we test yours instead of assuming. A repair that skips the cause cracks again on the same line.
The job itself runs the way it should. We clean the crack out, set the repair to suit its width and depth, and work the finish so it sits close to the surrounding surface rather than standing out as a stripe across the driveway. When the damage shows a section needs to come out and be replaced, we say so and show you why. When routing and sealing will hold, we recommend that instead. Nobody gets sold more concrete than the problem calls for. Call for a free estimate.
Most driveway cracks in Sandy Springs get one of four treatments, and the crack itself tells us which. A hairline crack that opens and closes as the slab warms and cools gets routed out and filled with a flexible polyurethane sealant, because a rigid filler will simply crack again beside it. A structural crack that runs through the slab gets epoxy injection or, where the two sides have settled apart, a saw cut and repour. Crumbling edges and a scaled surface take a polymer-modified repair mortar. When a whole panel has failed, we replace it with new concrete, steel reinforcement and dowels tied into the slab next to it. Stamped and decorative driveways get tinted materials matched to the existing finish.
Water decides a lot of it. The area sees about 50 inches of rain a year, and every open crack is a path for that water into the base under the slab, so we favor materials that stay bonded and stay sealed. The ground here rolls gently, though a driveway can pitch steeper than the street it meets, and slope changes how runoff hits a crack. Fulton County's dominant soil is Rion, which drains well, but it varies from lot to lot. With the median home built in 1988, many slabs have had decades to settle. So we test the base under yours before choosing anything.
A crack in a driveway is rarely the whole job. What we price is the reason it opened and how much of the slab has to be touched to keep it from opening again. Most of that you can check yourself: walk the drive, look at the edges, and watch where the water goes the next time it rains.
| What changes the price | Which way | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Slab edges on either side of the crack sit at different heights | costs more | A level crack can be cleaned out and sealed. A trip edge means the section has settled or lifted, and it usually gets cut out and poured again. |
| Old sealant, tar or patch material already in the crack | costs more | All of it comes out first, or the new filler bonds to the old failure instead of the concrete. |
| Wire mesh or rebar in the slab | costs more | Removing a section means cutting steel, then tying new reinforcement or drilling dowels into the slab that stays. |
| Downspouts or runoff aimed at the driveway edge | costs more | With about 50 inches of rain a year, water that keeps reaching the base will reopen any repair. Redirecting it or rebuilding washed-out base adds work. |
| A truck can back right up to the work | costs less | Concrete goes straight down the chute. A steep or gated drive means wheelbarrows or a pump. |
| Tree roots near the crack | costs more | Roots lifting the slab have to be exposed and cut back before a new section will stay flat. |
| Stamped, colored or exposed aggregate finish | costs more | The patch has to match texture and color, which takes forming and finish work a broom finish does not. |
| Hairline cracks with no movement | costs less | These need cleaning and sealing, not demolition, and there is nothing to haul away. |
When two bids land far apart, check whether they describe the same job. One may seal the crack you can see while the other cuts out the settled section and fixes the water that caused it. Ask each contractor what comes out, what goes back in, how the base is prepared and which filler or mix they use.
It depends on what the crack is doing. A thin crack where both sides still sit level usually gets routed out and filled with a flexible sealant, which keeps water from reaching the base under the slab. Where one side has dropped, sealant alone won't hold. Then we look at lifting the low section or replacing that panel with proper reinforcement. We read the crack first, and the method follows from it.
Look at its shape and whether it moves. Hairline cracks that run straight up and stay the same width are usually shrinkage near the surface. Horizontal cracks, stair-step cracks through block, a wall that bows, or a crack wider at one end than the other all point to structural movement. So does a nearby door that starts sticking. Pencil a mark at each end, check it over a few weeks, and call us if it grows.
Routing and sealing is usually finished the same day we start. You can walk on it soon after, but tires need the sealant fully cured, and that depends on the product and the weather that week. Sandy Springs sees about 50 inches of rain a year, so we watch the forecast and never seal a wet slab. Panel replacement takes longer because new concrete has to gain strength. The cure sets the drive-on date, not the calendar.
Water, movement and age do most of the damage. Once water gets into an open crack, it starts washing out the base beneath the slab, and on a sloped lot, runoff crossing the driveway speeds that up. Tree roots lift panels. Heavy vehicles load edges that were never thickened for them. Then there's time: the median home here was built in 1988, and a slab poured around then has carried decades of traffic and weather.
No single number covers every commercial job. Width comes from the approved plans for the property, the accessibility requirements that apply to the walk, and what it has to connect to, whether that's a Roswell Road storefront or an office entrance near Perimeter Center. We build to the drawings, we handle the permit, and we check the layout on the ground before any forms go in. Bring us the site and we'll work through it.
Cutting wet is the biggest part. Water turns concrete dust into a slurry we vacuum up, instead of letting it drift through open windows and onto cars. Breaking happens in planned stretches during normal working hours. We keep a clear path to your door, cover whatever sits close to the work, and load debris straight onto the truck rather than piling it on the lawn. Each evening the site is swept and taped off.