Cement step repair—whew! After a long winter,
a lot of us have to do this. Hi there! I'm Jeff with Home Repair Tutor.
And in this video, I'm going to share with you a ton of different tips of how to get
your crumbling and decaying cement step looking a lot better. And it'll be fixed in probably
less than a day. So let's get started. I want to show you how
I did it at one of my own properties and how you could do this, too.
This step is in terrible shape. Check it out. It's crumbling and it's unsafe.
So the first step that you need to take is to undercut all the edges using a cold chisel
and a hammer. Undercutting will help the new concrete properly bond to the old concrete.
Another step you can do is take a hammer drill and, with a Tapcon drill, drill some holes
strategically into the old concrete step. And then you'll place these blue Tapcon screws
into those holes wither using a hammer drill or an impact driver.
I like the Tapcon screws to be about ¼"-½" below the new concrete. You'll have to estimate
where that is. But just know that these Tapcon screws will help anchor the new to the old.
The other thing you want to do is properly dust off the step because your concrete won't
bond properly. So dust it or use a Shop Vac to remove all the dust.
Then apply Concrete Bonding Adhesive to the step using a paintbrush and just a cup. Now
I'm applying it liberally all over the step so that the new concrete will properly bond
to the old concrete. And I'm using bonding adhesive because I need more than ½" of new
cement. And I'm following the directions on the bonding adhesive bottle. It takes a little
while for this adhesive to dry so you're going to have to wait 2-3 hours.
For this project, I'm going to be using Quikrete Quik-Setting Cement—whew, that's a mouthful!
And it sets up in about 15-20 minutes. Now I'm holding Pam in my hand because I'm going
to be using it not to cook but to spray it onto the form. And in this case, I'm just
using a plywood form. So I'm spraying the Pam on so that the cement won't stick to it.
Now you can turn the form around and place it flush up against the old step. Take some
cinder blocks or something heavy, and push it up against the form so that the form is
sitting plumb, which is just straight up and down.
So with your form in place, you can get all of your cement supplies ready to go. Oh, before
you do that though, make sure you use a respirator. Inhaling cement is just bad for you. So don't
do it. So here are all the supplies that I'm going
to be using. I've got my plastic tub, my trowels, my water. And what I did is I estimated that
I needed about 3-4 bags of the Quik-Setting Cement. And I place the bags right next to
the tub. And I pour the cement into the center. And then after that, you want to create a
crater for the water. So pour the water in according to the directions. And then you
want to mix it up so that the consistency is smooth and just heavy enough that it'll
barely slide off a trowel, and that it's still moldable.
Use your margin trowel to scoop up the cement from the top and push it down into the recess
created by the wood form and your old step. So what you want to do is push down, put a
lot of downward pressure, on that cement. That way it will form and you can expect that
you're going to have to use a steel trowel, like I'm doing here, to smooth out the edges
between the old cement and the new cement. So I just scrape them on the surface at a
45° angle. Then check for any low spots or high spots using a 24" level. The low spots
you can fill in with the cement. And the high spots should be scraped off. So just do that
and you'll have a nice level surface to work with.
Now if you do find any low spots, fill it in using more cement in the margin trowel.
Make sure you work quickly, especially if you're using the Quik-Setting Cement.
Now you can remove or pull the cinder blocks out of the way and scrape on the edge of the
wood form and the new step. Pull the form out and you'll see that you have a really
nice plumb surface, a nice straight up and down surface, but there'll be voids too that
you need to fill in using the margin trowel and your steel trowel.
It's as simple as taking extra cement and pushing it into those voids, and smoothing
it out. Now in this case, I used my steel trowel to scrape along the vertical surface.
You can also use your level to make sure that the surface is plumb or straight up and down.
Don't forget to scrape off any of the new cement off of the old cement because you'll
be left with a mess if you don't do this. You can also round the edge of your new step
using an edging tool, like I'm doing here. Just do it steadily and smoothly across the
surface of that step. It really creates a nice, rounded surface.
One of the final steps is to smooth out the new cement using a moist sponge. In this case,
I have an old grout sponge hanging around so I just use that. They're not very expensive;
they're $3. And it really adds a nice effect to the new cement.
And then you should spray down and keep the new cement moist for at least 48 hours or
according to the directions. And in my case, I also added plastic to the step to retain
that moisture level in the new surface. And always remember to seal your cement when
you're done with your project. This is super important.
Well there you have it. That's how you fix a crumbling or broken cement step. Not too
bad, right? So if you have your own suggestions, please
add those to the comment section. I don't have all the answers. I'm sure I might have
missed something. The purpose of this video is to help you learn,
and maybe you can help somebody else in the process, too.
All right. Well, remember you can always click the subscribe button over on YouTube to see
all of my videos. And you can go to HomeRepairTutor.com and sign up for the email newsletter that
comes out every single Friday along with the new video tutorial.
Until the next video, have a great day. Thanks so much for joining me. I really appreciate
it. And take care!
