How salt and water do the damage
Water enters the pores of the slab, and in a cold spell it freezes and expands inside the concrete. Do that repeatedly and the surface begins to flake and pit, which is what spalling is.
Salt makes it worse in two ways: it draws moisture, and de-icing salt cycles the slab through more freeze-thaw than the weather alone would.
What the treatment changes
A treated slab sheds water at the surface instead of drawing it in, so there is less water in the pores to freeze, and less salt carried in with it.
The slab still breathes and stays slip-resistant, which matters on a driveway where sealing the surface shut would create its own problems.
What it does not claim
It is not a repair and not a permanent shield. Concrete that has already cracked, heaved or spalled needs repair first, and no surface treatment puts a slab back together.
It is also not a promise about how long a slab will last, because that depends on the concrete, the base under it and how it was poured.
Where the roof and the driveway overlap
They are the same conversation in practice: the roof sheds water onto the ground, the driveway takes the runoff, and both go through the same freeze-thaw. Treating one and not the other is a decision worth making deliberately.
Both start with a free assessment and a written estimate.
The order of work on concrete
Repair first, treatment second. Cracked, heaved or spalling concrete is a repair question, and a surface treatment applied over failing concrete does not fix the failure underneath it. We assess the slab and say so honestly rather than selling protection to a surface that is already going.
Where the slab is sound, the treatment is applied to exterior flat concrete in the same pattern as the roof work: assessed, quoted in writing, then done. No price is published because it depends on the surface and its condition.
What the assessment looks for on a slab
The same things a roof assessment looks for, adapted to concrete: whether the surface is sound, where water is sitting, and whether anything needs repairing before protection is worth applying.
- Surface condition: flaking, pitting, or a chalky top layer
- Cracking and movement, including joints that have opened
- Where water drains, and where it pools instead
- Salt and oil staining, which show what the slab has been taking