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You will wish you had the “blah” concrete back after the next winter.
VH07V
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10-12-2021, 05:24 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-12-2021, 05:25 AM by fredhargis.)
My experience is limited to a large patio area that is basically "thin brick" right off our back door. It's a headache to remove any snow from it at all. I have to shovel this instead of doing it the easy way (snowblower) and while it's fairly level the shovel still catches on (it seems) almost every seam in the bricks. Ice is even worse, the bricks don't seem to take to salt nearly as well as concrete. So if you do that, I'd go ahead and heat the walkway to melt the snow.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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Two houses ago, the prior owner did the same thing you are planning, it did look nice but I have to agree with others that its a PITA to remove snow, so that's my experience. We also get a lot more snow in NJ than MD...... so that might have something to do with my negative review.
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Rough concrete is bad enough to remove snow from, can't imagine shoveling brick...a snowshovel in the gut when it catches isn't fun.
Ed
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If you do it remember ...... Rotary Broom.
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Was living the good retired life on the Lake. Now just living retired.
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Wow, that's a lot more consensus than I was expecting! Thanks for the feedback. I'm fine, too, with the concrete if it's going to save me money and the future snow headache.
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I use a snow shovel with a plastic cutting edge on pavers. One with a metal edge will catch on everything, making it a real pain to use on anything but smooth pavement.
Tom
“This place smells like that odd combination of flop sweat, hopelessness, aaaand feet"
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Just my two cents...but I have a paver walkway set in a running bond over an old concrete walkway. Never had a problem walking my two stage blower over it. My neighbor has a smaller one stage blower and his never has a problem with it either (when he does a good turn in the winter and gets to my walkway before I do.)
If the concrete is level and in good shape, I don't see why anything installed on top of it would be in danger of being out of level and cause issues with snow clearing. A paver walk set on dirt or paver-base? Yeah...that I would worry about over the years...but not an existing, settled concrete walkway.
Good luck!
