Portage Indiana Concrete Steps When Stoops Pull Away

A thin cap over dropped treads looks fine for a month. Then it cracks along the old edge, and the space under it is still empty. People also pack the gap at the siding with mortar. Because the stoop keeps moving, that mortar shears off and leaves a wider slot than before. We’ve pulled up jobs where someone pinned the new pour hard to the foundation wall. After the next season a new hairline showed in the wall. The steps were still low at the door. Concrete Steps in Portage get this a lot when a crew treats the face and leaves the base alone.

So the entry stays wrong, with the landing below the threshold. Water sits in the slot against the house. And a person coming home in the dark catches a toe on the high sill. When that is what we find, the base still needs work.

Concrete Steps in Portage and a stoop that meets the door

On Portage houses we’ve worked on, builders poured the front stoop on sandy ground. It sat separate from the foundation. We’ve seen the same picture over and over. The steps sit lower than the door. A dark gap runs along the siding. After a wet spring, people call us about that gap. When the walk has dropped too, it no longer lines up with the bottom step.

We won’t put a number on how far a stoop drops. Because the fill is different from lot to lot, the drop changes from house to house. For example, we’ve broken out stoops that looked solid on top. They sat on loose sand with no real base under the landing. A new landing sits up at the door, with a straight joint at the siding.

What a poor repair leaves on Concrete Steps in Portage

Caulk in that slot leaves the steps where they dropped. So the door is still high. Rain sits in the gap against the siding. Then the caulk splits, and the owner is looking at the same gap with a ragged edge. We’ve also seen a crew pour a new tread on the old one. They did it so the height matched the sill. Because the old mass was still sinking, the new tread cracked at the nose.

At that point we rebuild the entry. Front stoops on the sandy ground common in Portage settle and open a gap at the house. That broken entry is what owners hire a concrete crew to rebuild. When the steps have pulled away, Concrete Steps in Portage usually means a full tear-out. We put in a new base and a pour that sits on its own next to the foundation.

How we rebuild Concrete Steps in Portage

We break the old stoop out and haul it off. Then we look at what is under it. If the sand is loose, we dig out the soft stuff. Then we put in a compacted base before any forms go up. After that we set the rise and run so each step is even. The top landing has to meet the door without a surprise lip. We leave a joint at the foundation. So the stoop and the wall can move on their own.

The upper walk or the service walk sometimes drops with the steps. When that happens, concrete removal and a tear-out and replace cover that run on the same visit. People have asked for a wider landing on the same pour. We are a family owned and operated company, and we’ve been doing this work since 2006. Our work on Concrete Steps in Portage covers forming the steps and finishing the treads. Finished entries from other jobs are in our photo gallery. Other concrete work that goes with a stoop is on our concrete step replacement page.

Before we leave we check the rises against each other. We also check that the landing drains away from the siding. But the walk has to meet the bottom tread without a toe-catch. If the old walk is too low, we replace that run in the same pour.