Can You Pour Rubber Over a Cracked Driveway?

This is the question that usually decides whether someone calls us at all, so it is worth answering properly. In most cases the answer is yes, and that is not a workaround. Going over an existing surface is what poured rubber is designed to do.

Why there is no tear-out

A poured rubber surface bonds directly to the concrete or asphalt that is already there. It is hand-troweled over the top of it, so the old surface stays where it is and becomes the base for the new one.

That changes the shape of the whole project. There is no demolition, no hauling away a broken slab, no waiting on a re-pour and no new concrete curing in your driveway for weeks. A typical residential install is completed in about 24 hours of work.

It also means the cracks and spalling you are looking at right now are not necessarily a problem to be solved before you start. Often they are simply the reason you are calling.

What makes a surface a good candidate

The honest test is whether the surface underneath is sound. Sound does not mean perfect. Sound means the slab is still doing its job as a base.

Cracked, spalled, faded, stained, or just tired concrete is usually fine. Surface damage is the normal case, not the exception. The same is true of asphalt that has aged but is still intact.

What raises a flag

There is a real line here and we would rather you know it before we show up.

If a slab is severely heaved, sunken, or broken up, we will look at whether it needs attention first. A surface bonded to a base that is actively failing inherits that problem. Putting a good product over a bad foundation is how people end up disappointed two years later, and we are not interested in doing that.

This is not usually a yes or no with nothing in between. Sometimes a section needs work and the rest is fine. Sometimes the movement has already happened and the slab has settled into a stable position. It depends on what is actually in front of us, which is why we look rather than guess over the phone.

How the assessment works

Looking at the surface is part of your free estimate. There is no charge for it and no obligation attached to it.

We will tell you honestly whether your surface is a good candidate. If it is not, we will say so. That costs us a job occasionally and it is still the right way to run this, because the alternative is installing something we know will not hold up and then owning that outcome.

Everything we quote comes with a written contract, so what was agreed is written down rather than remembered differently later.

Where to go from here

If you are weighing it up for a driveway, the detail lives on our rubber driveway resurfacing page. The same over-the-top approach works for a rubber patio, which is often the surface people address next once they have seen how the driveway turned out.

If you would rather just have someone look at it, request a free estimate and we will give you a straight read on what you have got.