Sidewalks & Steps in Aurora, IL

Sidewalks and steps are where worn concrete becomes a hazard. A walk panel that rises an inch above its neighbor catches toes. A stoop that sinks pulls away from the house and opens a channel for water to reach the foundation. Steps that scale lose their crisp edges and turn treacherous in sleet. Aurora has a large stock of older homes, with 13.5 percent built in 1939 or earlier according to Point2Homes' Census summary, so plenty of front walks and stoops here have outlived their best years.

Private walk or public sidewalk?

Most Aurora lots have two kinds of walk. The public sidewalk along the street sits in the right-of-way, and the City of Aurora maintains it. According to the city's Sidewalk and Driveway Replacement page, the Engineering Division inspects public walks, and the city repairs sections that:

• Have lifted or sunk 2 inches or more
• Have broken into three or more pieces, each over a square foot, with cracks open an eighth of an inch or wider
• Have scaled half an inch deep over 50 percent or more of the surface

Water that stands on a public walk for over 48 hours after rain or melt is also investigated. For any of those, start with the city's Customer Services Division at 630-256-4636.

Everything else is yours: the walk from the street or driveway to the door, paths to the back yard, and your stoop and steps. That is the work we quote.

Warning signs

• A lip where one panel sits higher than the next
• Panels tipping toward the house
• A stoop separating from the foundation wall
• Step noses that are chipped, rounded or crumbling
• Risers of different heights that throw off your stride
• A rough, flaking surface

Rebuilding a walk

Old panels come out, soft soil is removed and a stone base is compacted. HomeGuide's sidewalk guide notes most walkways are 4 to 6 inches thick, with heavier traffic calling for more. The forms get a slight sideways pitch so rain drains into the lawn rather than sitting on the walk. We pour air-entrained concrete, broom it and tool joints at a steady spacing. If tree roots did the lifting, we talk through the options first, since a new walk over the same roots will heave again.

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Stoops and formed steps

Poured steps are built in place to match your door threshold and landing. Every riser should match and every tread should be the same depth, or people misstep. The landing at the top needs room to stand while a storm door swings open. Because the ground here freezes, support matters: a heavy stoop resting on loose fill will tilt and drop. We check what is under the old steps before planning the new ones. On some houses precast steps are an option too, and we can compare the two.

Handrails

Any set of steps with more than two risers is safer with a rail, particularly in winter. When we pour new steps we can set anchors for a rail in the fresh concrete, so it bolts down solidly instead of being drilled into a thin edge later.

Winter care for walks and steps

Shovel before snow packs into ice. Use sand the first winter and skip ammonium-based de-icers after that. Seal walks and steps every few years, and fill hairline cracks early, before ice wedges them open.