LESLIE: Steve in Louisiana has a question about a patio situation gone wrong. What happened?
LESLIE: How?!
TOM: Yeah, and the note here says you broke the patio while cutting down a tree. That must have been some event there, Steve.
STEVE: I had a large pine tree just to the south of the patio …
TOM: Right.
STEVE: … and we hired a contractor to come in and drop the tree, which he did; and he dropped it over the corner of the patio.
TOM: Oh, I see.
STEVE: And we didn’t notice it at the time and it cracked it. And the patio is 24×20 and it was on the outside corner and it runs about, oh, four-and-a-half feet up one side, about four feet up the other side; so a triangle piece.
TOM: OK.
STEVE: And at the time it was a little more than a hairline crack.
TOM: Right.
STEVE: We didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. He put a planter on it. We didn’t notice it. (Leslie chuckles) Well, we put half of a whiskey barrel on there …
TOM: Right.
STEVE: … full of dirt and stuff and I guess over time …
TOM: Kind of weighted it.
LESLIE: And that got really heavy.
TOM: Yeah.
STEVE: The weight had pushed it down. Now keep in mind too, off of the patio the backyard slopes away at, I don’t know, a 20, 25-degree angle, I guess.
TOM: Right.
STEVE: And over time it has sunken down to where I’ve probably got an inch gap in it and the pitch on it now probably drops two or three inches.
TOM: Wow.
STEVE: Yeah.
TOM: OK.
STEVE: Now the surface of the patio is a rock surface; you know, where they put the heavy aggregate in there and then spray it down after you lay it. So it’s got the rock surface.
TOM: Right.
STEVE: We thought about – way after the fact – thought about like a QUIKRETE kind of [a feel; the little cement] (ph) but that wouldn’t work other than just to fill with cement.
TOM: Well, what you need here is an epoxy patching compound.
LESLIE: Can you go that deep with it?
TOM: Yeah, and it will solidify and – you know, the patching compounds actually have a little bit of substance to – a little density to them, so you can very carefully trowel it in there. Coloring could be an issue. It may look like a seam repair. The way you can get around that is to use a dye; perhaps a grout dye or a concrete dye to try to bring it in close to the color that it is right now, Steve.
STEVE: OK. We appreciate the help. You guys have a great day.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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