How to Resurface Concrete for Beginners Part 2 $660 DIY Driveway repair / restoration project

In today's video, we're going to be resurfacing and rejuvenating this old driveway for less than $660 in materials and doing it ourselves and showing you guys how to do the exact same thing. We don't have to demolish and remove the old surface. In fact, we leave that in place. This saves us a ton of cost and demolition, excavation, and preparation work. So, let's get going. Love these results or hate them. The point is to understand the process so that you guys can create your own masterpiece. Now, for today's project, we're using a product called Flowcoat. This is a polymer modified concrete resurfacer. It can go from a feather edge, meaning micro thin, all the way up to a/2 in in thickness. But the important thing is this is designed to bond with your existing concrete driveway. Meaning that you can leave it in place without the hassle or expense of removing it. So, that was a full batch, a 40 lb bag of flow coat you just poured out. Yeah. Now, flow coat would typically be gray, but for today's project, we added a color just to give it a unique look. If you decide to add color into your project, you must first mix it into the water and thoroughly stir it up. Don't mix it into the flow coat because it won't distribute through the thicker material evenly. Once your coloring is thoroughly mixed into the water, then you can add flow coat. Here's a tip to make your life easier. First, add three quarts of water into the bucket. Then, add your material. And then add your last half a quart of water. When you're mixing your flow coat, precision with your water is key to get consistency over the entire project. Don't go by feel. Measure out your water quantity. Now, before we ever put any flow coat down, we've got to properly prepare that surface. And that means we've got to patch it, repair it, and clean it. And that's in part one of our three-part series. Make sure you check that video out before you go any further. Now, flow coat sets up relatively fast. So, make sure you section off a larger area into a smaller bite-sized chunk anywhere from 100 to 150 square ft at a time. Control drains must be maintained. The easiest way to do that is either with a foam insert or weather stripping. It's essential that you pre-wet the existing surface before the flows down to get the best possible adhesion. Now, would you get out of my way? Now flow coat is mixed up in small batches using a 5gallon pail and a hand mixer. You don't use a cement mixer with this product, but it's a continual process, meaning you go from one batch to the next batch to the next batch with no break in between. So it's good to have a few extra hands when you're tackling a bigger project. [Music] So, I tried the Milwaukee cordless drill and for mixing this and the problem I ran into is that drill actually has almost too much torque for the control that I had on it. I was I was having it like this and I was just kind of fighting it. It was all going all over. And the Milwaukee mud mixer is awesome because it has the right amount of torque and I have that extra handle to really give me that stable control to move it and be very precise with my mixing. Now, once you're finished resurfacing your driveway, you can walk on it in 24 hours and drive on it in 72. Now that we've covered a few of the dues on a project, let's cover a few of those things you think maybe you could get away with, but you better not. First off, never mix in different batches in the same area. They just don't go together. One batch has started to set up, you can't top coat that with the second one and think that it'll blend together. In fact, what'll happen is it'll ripple on you. Number two, don't overwork flow coat. It's easy to think that the more you work it, the better the results you're going to get, but the exact opposite is true. Once you pour it in place, you squeegee it off, leave it. If you have any imperfections, you can hit them with the broom, but if you overwork it, you could lose the entire batch. Number three, follow the mixing instructions precisely. It's easy to get flow coat too wet or too dry. It'll look okay in the bucket, but it won't look so hot in the finished result. Number four, when you divide a section up, make sure that you broom that section evenly. If you have uneven brood marks, it'll show up in your finished result. So, now that you've got your flow coat successfully installed, in the next video, we're going to show you how to create a custom look with barebones materials. So, make sure you subscribe because that one's coming next.