Before anybody visits

How to document a concrete problem

Most of the difference between a vague enquiry and a well-defined one is within reach of somebody with a phone, a tape measure and a rainy afternoon. This is what to record, how to record it usefully, and how to get the most out of the visit when it happens.

None of it requires contacting us, and all of it is worth doing if you hire somebody you found elsewhere. Better records make for a shorter visit, a more specific proposal, and a much easier time comparing two of them.

Go to the checklist

Photographs: eight rules that matter

Almost every set of homeowner photographs has the same three problems. Everything is shot from standing height looking down, nothing has anything in frame for scale, and there is no wide shot to place the close-ups in. Fixing those three takes about five minutes.

Take the wide shot first: Stand back far enough that the whole surface and its surroundings are in frame — the building, the slope of the ground, where the driveway meets the street. Close-ups without a wide shot are frequently unplaceable, and the context is often where the answer is.
Put something in frame for scale: A tape measure is ideal. A coin, a credit card or a pen works. Without a reference, nobody can tell whether they are looking at something hairline or something you could lose a key down, and a photograph of a crack with no scale is close to useless.
Shoot along the surface, not just down at it: A photograph taken from standing height looking down flattens everything. Crouch and shoot along the slab: differences in height, dishing and tilt become visible from a low angle and are close to invisible from above.
Photograph the same thing more than once: Two or three angles of the same crack or the same corner. Angles disagree, and a reviewer who can see the disagreement learns more than one who is handed a single flattering frame.
Use daylight, and avoid the middle of the day: Low, raking light shows surface texture and level changes that overhead sun washes out completely. Early morning or late afternoon is genuinely better. Avoid using a flash, which flattens everything it lights.
Get the edges and the junctions: Where the concrete meets the house, the garage, a step or a drain. Those junctions carry more information than the middle of a slab, and where an edge is already exposed it is the cheapest look at thickness anybody will get.
Photograph what you think is irrelevant: Downspouts, irrigation heads, the tree twenty feet away, the patch somebody did four years ago. These are the details homeowners leave out and professionals ask about.
Write the date on it: Your phone records it, but say it out loud in your notes anyway. A dated photograph from two years ago that you took for another reason may be the most valuable thing you have, because it establishes change — which a single photograph never can.

What not to do

A short list, and worth reading before you go outside with a hammer. Two of these destroy information a professional would otherwise have been able to read.

Break, chip or drill sound concrete to see how thick it is. An already-exposed edge is free; making one is damage.
Lever up a slab or lift a section to look underneath.
Walk on concrete that is visibly unsupported, spanning a gap, or moving underfoot.
Dig against a foundation wall to see what is below it.
Pressure-wash a surface that is already losing material — you will remove more of it and change what a professional would have been able to read.

The checklist

Of the 20 things a conclusion about concrete tends to turn on, 8 are fully within your reach and 10 partly. That is the great majority of them, and working through this list is what turns “my driveway is cracked” into something somebody can actually respond to.

This prints on its own without the site around it. Tick what you have and take it outside.

You can establish these yourself

Drainage. Go out during heavy rain and watch. Photograph where water pools, where it runs and where downspouts discharge. This is the single most useful thing most owners can do.
Crack activity. Draw a line across the crack, write the date beside it, and photograph it. Repeat in a few months. This costs nothing and answers a question nobody can answer from a single photo.
Vertical displacement. Lay something rigid and straight across the crack and photograph the gap under it, with a tape or a coin in frame for scale.
Age and history. Write down your best estimate of when it was poured and when you first noticed the problem, and look through old photos of the house. Holiday photographs regularly settle this.
Previous repairs. Find any paperwork and photograph the patched areas. If a previous repair did not hold, say so — it is useful information, not an embarrassment.
Joint condition. Walk every joint and photograph any that are open, filled with soil, or have lost their sealant. This is quick and it is frequently where the answer is.
Use and loading. Say plainly what goes on it, including the occasional heavy thing. A skip delivery two summers ago is relevant and is exactly the kind of detail people leave out.
Access. Measure your narrowest gate or gap and photograph the route from the street. Mention anything that has to be protected or moved.

You can get part of the way on these

Soil movement. Mark and date the position of an edge or a gap and look again after a wet spell and after a dry one. Two dated observations are worth more than one careful description.
Slab thickness. If any edge is exposed — at a joint, a break, or where the slab meets a drain — photograph it with a tape or a coin against it. Do not break concrete to find out.
Reinforcement. If concrete has already broken and reinforcement is visible, photograph it. Do not create a break to look.
Freeze exposure. Note whether the affected area stays wet longer than the rest, and whether it is shaded. A north-facing slab that holds water behaves differently from a south-facing one that dries.
Water source. Note whether the wetness tracks rainfall, irrigation, or neither. Wetness that ignores the weather is worth investigating before anybody quotes concrete work.
Trees and roots. Photograph what is growing nearby with the slab in frame so the distance is legible, and note anything removed in recent years.
Whether damage is surface or full depth. Where material has already come loose, photograph the exposed edge so the depth is visible. Do not chip at sound concrete to find out.
Finish and sealer history. List anything applied to the surface, including de-icer, and roughly when. Photograph any patchy sheen or peeling.
What the concrete adjoins. Photograph where the concrete meets the building, close enough to see whether there is a gap, a sealed joint, or a continuous pour.
Local requirements. Ask your own municipality directly. We deliberately do not publish permit requirements for any location, because getting one wrong would be worse than not answering.

Leave these to whoever visits

Not because they are secret, but because establishing them means measuring, probing or opening something up. Knowing they exist is still useful: you can ask whether each has been established or assumed.

Void depth and extent. Probing, sounding, or drilling test holes. In some cases ground-penetrating survey. All of it requires equipment and access to the slab.
Subgrade and compaction. Excavation or test holes at the edge, sometimes original construction records where they survive. Frequently it is inferred from the pattern of movement rather than observed directly.

Getting the most out of the visit

A visit is a chance to have somebody knowledgeable standing on your concrete. Most homeowners use it to receive a price. The price is the least interesting thing available.

Questions worth asking

What did you look at that I could not have seen myself?
Which of your conclusions did you measure, and which are from experience?
What would have to be true for you to change your recommendation?
What is the cause, and what makes you say that rather than the alternatives?
If the cause is still active, what does your proposal do about it?
What is included in this price and what is not — removal, disposal, base preparation, reinforcement, jointing, restoration?
What would you expect to find if you opened it up, and what happens to the price if you find it?
What is not included that I might reasonably assume was?

There is a longer, structured version of this in the Contractor Vetting Standard, including what a weak answer to each sounds like.

Ask for it in writing

Scope, not just a total. Two proposals differing by a large amount frequently differ in what is included rather than in price for the same work, and you cannot see that from two numbers. The estimate decoder goes through a proposal item by item, and the scope comparison puts two or three side by side. Both run in your browser and neither asks for contact details.

Things nobody should be guaranteeing you

That a repair will last a specific number of years. Nobody can know that, and a promise of it is a sales technique rather than a warranty.
That no further movement will occur. The ground is not within anybody's control.
That a price is final before anybody has seen what is beneath the slab, on a job where that matters.
That a method is the only option. There is usually more than one defensible approach, and a contractor who says otherwise is describing their own capability.
A guarantee of safety. Nobody can give you one — that is a judgement about a specific structure by somebody qualified who has been there, and it has limits even then.

Keep it all in one place

The project record holds what you have established and prints a summary to have in hand when somebody visits. It stays in your browser and we never see it.

Why this matters

Because a contractor standing on a slab with your dated photographs and a note about where the downspout discharges can tell you considerably more, considerably faster, than one who has to establish all of it from scratch while you watch. That is a better conversation and frequently a cheaper one.

What homeowners commonly misunderstand about this

That more photographs are better. Eight good ones beat forty taken from the same spot. What matters is angle, scale and context.
That measuring is the important part. Dating is. One measurement is a position; two taken months apart establish whether anything is still moving, which is the question nobody can answer from a single visit.
That mentioning a previous failed repair looks bad. It is one of the most useful things you can say. A repair that did not hold is evidence about the cause.
That good documentation gets you a price remotely. It does not, and we say so plainly. It gets you a better visit.

Questions to ask next

Which of the things I recorded changes the recommendation, and how?
Is there anything you would like me to photograph or check before you come out?
If I wait and record this again in three months, would that tell us something worth waiting for?

Information still needed

Everything on the third list, for your property. Working through the first two lists does not close any of them — it makes establishing them faster and narrows what has to be established at all.

When you are ready, we will help connect you with a contractor who can evaluate your specific situation. If we cannot cover your area we will say so.