Tripod member ANGELFEL asks:
My sidewalks are cracking up. In three areas the crackes are about half an inch wide and about three feet long. The other two areas are being pushed up by two trees which have cracked them badly. Can you please tell me how this can be fixed by myself?

Handy Girl Bernadette suggests:
In those areas without the trees it sounds like you're well on your way to needing a new sidewalk. I can give you a temporary remedy but understand that it will be just that, temporary. The cracks sound a bit big for basic concrete filler so you have two options. One method, which I've seen done on sidewalks both public and private is the mosaic method. This involves concrete and various pieces of tile or other broken ceramics. Fill the cracks with the concrete and then decorate to your heart's desire. There is an area near the university here in town where this method was done on the sly one late summer night, long, long, ago. Believe it or not, it's still intact, despite it being such a high traffic area. Another method — this one quick and easy, albeit ugly — is asphalt. Not the prettiest remedy I know, but it will do the trick at least for a while. After that? Well, find the number for your nearest cement mixer and start making those forms.

When I was in high school I wrote a poem about how we try to squelch mother nature with our buildings, streets and sidewalks... "Sitting under a tree in this asphalt land, crying out for its roots to expand, they reach for the sun, up through the cracks or grow to where the sidewalk ends..." I'll spare you any more of my high school ramblings, but understand my point — when a tree decides to grow through a sidewalk, ain't a whole lot we can do about it, short of cutting that tree down. Which I'm NOT advising you to do. Sounds like a jackhammer and a change of course is in order for that sidewalk. Good luck.

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