Broken Brick Walkway Ideas

Repairing

• Your broken brick walkway may not need to be completely replaced. If only small parts of it are broken, and only a few damaged bricks exist, replace them. Replace whole brick pieces if the brick's location requires a complete brick for that particular spot in your walkway, and cut replacement bricks to fit damaged areas where you used smaller-than-normal sizes in your walkway. You can find "how to" directions at the This Old House website for cutting your bricks or replacing them (see References).

Removing

• Sometimes brick walkways are damaged due to the element contact they encounter because of their location in the landscape. An example of this includes a buildup of water and an inability for it to drain away properly in the location of your walkway. Bricks can deteriorate as a result. Remove broken bricks in a walkway that is largely damaged and likely to continue to be in the future. Replace with another material better suited for the location and anticipated element contact.

Replacing

• If your broken brick walkway was damaged due to too heavy a traffic load for the location and brick type -- like your teen drove his monster truck over it -- and it isn't likely to ever happen again, you might want to replace it all to help maintain color continuity and address soil weaknesses created due to the damage. If other vehicles need to drive over it on a routine basis, you should replace it all with appropriate brick pavers for the weight expected.

Considerations

• You could always opt to make a new walkway in a better location -- with brick or other materials -- if your broken brick walkway will be too costly or time consuming to repair or replace. Cover up the old broken brick walkway with raised planters, or remove the damaged pieces and fill in with soil and flowers. Broken brick walkways can become new sites for benches, shrubs or ground cover once the broken pieces are removed. And you can use the remaining pieces to surround a flower garden or make a fire pit.