Many of us have plain ugly steps made from concrete that is chipped, cracked and crumbling. In this situation, we should consider repairing it. If the concrete steps are structurally unstable, we may need to perform demolition work. After we do this, we will need to remove the debris and start laying brick. It means that we need to buy brick paver that has smooth sides; so our end result will look durable and nice. Brick pavers don’t have holes and they are incredibly hard. It means, they are suitable for walkways, steps and even outdoor driveways. We can lay two courses at the proper locations of the steps. We should be sure about the curves that we cut at backside of the bricks. This should allow is to keep joints tighter when we make turns.
If we don’t do this, it is possible that we get mortar joints that don’t look good, because they are 2 inches wide. We could strike them up after we have the first two courses. Steps should be approximately 12-inch wide and there must be enough space for us to accomplish this. In order to get a 12-inch step, we can use one full and a half bricks. The 12-inch step should sit about 8-inch off the porch, so this would be ideal for step height. Joints must be completely full, as we go long. It is also important that we level it frequently. It is a good idea to make the surface slopes slightly, rainwater will shed of easily. The base underneath must be filled solid wit mortar or concrete, so it will last much longer. We can use some of the debris from the demolition work, so we can reduce the quantity of fresh fill. The debris can be encased in fresh concrete or mortar.
The next thing we do is to run our second step and this may include our top deck. It should be big enough that we are able to open our door and there’s enough walkway space. Once again, we need to lay down our two courses and once they are already in, we should fill the in-between area with concrete or mortar. Once the step has been completed, we should be ready to begin with our top deck. We need to be aware that the whole repair tasks can be quite time consuming. But, if we do this carefully, we should be able to make the steps look perfect again. Once we complete this, we could lay in our first perimeter of brick. We need to make sure that any surface is level from right to left; and the other way around.
In some cases, we could find ourselves in a rather big problem when we have finished the deck center. We need to strike the perimeter up after we have it in place. Try to start along the house and it is recommended to run the brick left and right. We could start with half of the brick, followed with a full one; to get the 12-inch step that we need.
