Concrete is one of the most used materials in the world, with the vast majority of it used on industrial buildings and infrastructure, which is typically constructed to a high standard and regularly checked to ensure that it maintains its structural longevity for decades to come.
This is why, for example, many of the concrete roads developed in the 1960s continue to remain roadworthy to this day, through preventative maintenance and regular checks.
However, because repairing any piece of infrastructure can be an involved process and require part or all of a structure to be closed off to facilitate such concrete repairs, some companies opt to defer repairs to a later date.
This is not always a big problem, as long as the repairs are done in a timely fashion, as it allows for alternative measures to be set up to reduce disruption, but in some cases, this “deferral” puts off a repair project until it causes a significant vulnerability.
Here are some of the reasons why an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Reduces Vulnerability To Extreme Weather
With flash floods, gale-force winds and extreme temperature variations becoming increasingly common, the damage caused by water ingress and the freeze-thaw cycle has become magnified in recent years.
This means that a small crack can quickly develop into a serious problem if hit by a few particularly rough patches of weather that exploit the vulnerability.
Much Lower Costs
The cost to fix a small patch of concrete in terms of both time and money is relatively tiny. In some cases, an expert can patch a piece of cracked concrete in very little time at all with as little disruption as is feasible.
Putting it off until it cannot be ignored, however, requires much larger teams, much more involved equipment and typically a much longer turnaround time for a repair that could have been solved much sooner and for rather less.