Ask the Builder: Simple Concrete Patching Secrets

Patching up cement only requires four basic ingredients.

This botched concrete repair might be traced to poor eyesight, poor skills or an I-don't-care attitude. The truck keys, fob and Mike Mulligan charm are for scale. Tim Carter/Tribune Content Agency

Every seven weeks I sit in my barber’s chair and say to Mikayla: “Take no prisoners. Cut each and every one of them.” She giggles to humor me.

I have to step up from the asphalt parking lot to a concrete sidewalk to get to the shop door. Someone tried to patch a crack or a spalled area in front of the barber shop a few years ago. Spalling happens when the top surface of concrete pops off. The best analogy I can offer is peeling paint.