Q: I have an old house with a concrete porch with major cracks. Should I try to fill the cracks, tear it down and replace with new concrete or a wood porch? Or is there any way to cover the concrete porch with another surface?
A: Without knowing the extent of the damage in your concrete, that’s a tough question to answer. For small cracks in concrete and masonry, a product like DAP Concrete Patch might do the trick—it’s easy to use and comes in a squeeze tube like toothpaste (www.dap.com). For more extensive damage, you might try the wide variety of concrete repair products from MAPEI (www.mapei.com). Quikrete also makes some repair products, such as the company’s Concrete Resurfacer (www.quikrete.com). And yes, if you can repair the porch to the point that it’s structurally sound, then you can install a different material on the surface, such as slate tile.
Then again, if the porch is not structurally sound, you always have the option of tearing it down and rebuilding with wood. You have a lot of options.
