Cabro Repairs and Relaying in Nairobi: Fix the Cause, Not the Dip

The blocks are almost always fine

Cabro is durable. When paving has settled, rutted, spread or gone wavy, the blocks themselves are generally reusable. The problem is underneath them or at the edges.

That is good news, because relaying with the original blocks costs far less than replacing them, and it means an area can be repaired without a colour mismatch.

What we actually find

Ruts in the wheel tracks. Inadequate sub-base, or a subgrade that lost bearing capacity when it got wet. The fix is lifting, deepening and recompacting the base, not adding sand.

The field has spread and joints have opened. Missing or failed edge restraint. Blocks migrate outward, jointing sand escapes and interlock is lost. Restraint has to be installed before relaying means anything.

A dip in one area. Frequently a trench backfilled without compaction, a water or power run crossing the drive. Fixed by excavating the trench line properly and reinstating in layers.

Standing water. Falls were wrong or have flattened with settlement. Corrected by relaying to a proper gradient, which sometimes means removing material rather than adding it.

Blocks cracked in a specific band. Almost always 50mm blocks where vehicles turn, or 60mm at a gate apron. Those get replaced with 80mm; the rest are reused.

Why patching fails

Lifting the dipped blocks, throwing sand underneath and putting them back gives a flat surface for a season. The base is still inadequate, so it settles again, and each cycle disturbs more of the surrounding field.

We will do a genuine patch where the cause is local and understood. Where it is a base failure we will say so, because a patch there is money spent on the same problem twice.

Lifting to reach services

One of cabro’s real advantages. A section can be lifted, a pipe or cable reached, and the same blocks relaid so the repair is invisible. Concrete cannot do that at all.