Seat and watch how we fix, maintain and renovate concrete.
Driveway and Foundation fixes are our everyday. Learn how to preserve your home or commercial Concrete.
You will find the following concrete related fixes: - Expansion Joint Sealing - Crack sealing - Crack injection - Concrete resurfacing - Pressure Washing, Stain and surface seal
Our initial intention back in the days was to prevent tires from staining and damaging the sealant, which is a technical solution, but not so aesthetic. We have now raised the sealant (but not the thickness), but still not flush with the concrete. Working on a new video showing our latest method.
Sorry for the late reply. Play sand from Home depot or Lowes can work. But if you want lighter, it can only be found on waterproofing materials retailers
Hey thanks for the video. I have very thin crack in my driveway expansion joint. I can't squeeze in backer rod. How should I prep before pouring the materials?
There are small backer rod diameters at lowes or home depot. I buy from commercial distributors, they smaller B.R. that at the day stores. But installing sand into the crack is also an option. Watch my "How to seal a crack" long video
The material itself should last about 5 years before it starts degrading. Sealants are only meant to withstand thermal expansion and contraction. But if your driveway is already undergoing heavy settlement due to bad soil, then the sealant will split due to the settlement forces that are are pulling the concrete down or up. But still, sealing cracks and Joints is a much better option and much more cost efficient than replacing the driveway. Waterproofing all gaps and cracks can buy your driveway more time
Soil erosion on one side (1:57 2:17)will cause the concrete slab to continue bending. Torsional tension will build up to a point when the concrete can no longer match that of the carbon fiber and explosion will occur.
Now we do! For the last 4 years at least. This video is little outdated. But you know, as long as there is no moisture under the slab that will try to evaporate, primer is not realy necessary, at least under my geographic environment.
Yes. First remove old woods, then pressure wash the joint, allow it to dry, then install and level backer rod, then install a sealant between the backer rod and concrete wall to lock in the backer rod, and finally, pouring the sealant over the backer rod. I also tool in the self levelin sealant to ensure that all concrete is bonding.
If it is black, I think it will stand out a lot. Most of my driveways are light gray, if not almost light tan after a pressure wash. But thanks for the feedback, I will look into it.
What brand or what department? I would appreciate the tip. We don't have any white sand in concrete depth. of Texas homedepots. Not even in specialty stores. Actually, the home depot sand is darker than the one in this video. Also the camera doesn't help, the sand on this video is lighter in person.
This is insane. The rocks need to be super small and crushed have the capacity to compress. That's what gives it strength. Compression. Go look at asphalt quality around the world and we have the worst knowledge on asphalt quakity and education. That underlayment is also bad its not comoressed and needs to be pours.
Chill...this is a driveway, not a highway. We did the compaction in layers to ensure best possible consolidation. I just did a 5 month inspection, and you would be surprised, ZERO cracks! The method works. And the whole point of this video is to make it approachable to home owners. Hey, at least we didn't just pour those cold patches directly over failed asphalt 😆.
@@joshuamcnew1200many benefits on doing so. No poly is perfectly self leveler, surface tension prevents absolute flatness. Tooling removes air bubbles, pushes a little material higher into the joint walls, ensuring more tensile strength. I have done with and without tooling, and believe, it looks a lot better after the tooling.
@@oliveraguirreconcreterepai4826100% agreed. It just seems to bond better, has the higher strength because of more surface area to grab onto and the 'fit and finish' of it is night and day. Great video 🫡
Yes, it is V shaped. Available online only or concrete doorfront stores. I use Sika, but you can use any brand. Most important is to not use acrylic based sealant.
1.25 inch backer rod only available at commercial construction shops (not Home Depot or Lowes). The sealant is self leveling polyurethane available at commercial stores, but you can also use SIKAFLEX available at regular hardware stores. And silica sand available at commercial stores.
It's a special sand that we buy at waterproofing supply stores. But before we used to buy Playland from home depot. You can also reuse the old concrete grinds. You can use any sand, just try to match the original concrete as much as possible, don't go to red in the sand color
Don't use cement! Use polyurethane based caulk, typically found at the concrete aisle of the hardware stores. And in regards the sand, just use any play sand of your preffered color, just make sure all grains have the same size and are as small as possible.
I think using a saw to open the crack draws more attention to them, to the repair, or maybe it's somehow less organic. I don't mind the look of the cracks as much as I mind that water keeps eroding the concrete and making them grow. I started using DAP liquid crack filler and found that in hot weather it's best to thin the product down with water and either inject it or pour it into the cracks even very thin cracks. It will either self-level or seep down and seal it lower in the crack. Wait a day and refill with unthinned DAP filler. I have an agraget driveway so once I have filled the crack I let them sit for a day or two and then paint or refill any de[sessions with filler and then cover with sand or fine gravel and let fully dry. Do it right and you can't see the filler at all. The driveway's almost 50 years old, poorly installed, never maintained, and is a turnaround point for every large truck coming down the dead-end road... in the world of Amazon that's a lot now. Some cracks were an inch and a half wide. I suspect that heavy garbage trucks pivoting on the corner started and have caused the majority of the damage. Using a pressure washer showed the bottom concrete panel looked like a crushed eggshell revealing cracks I couldn't see before being filled with moss and debris. 14 bottles of DAP crack filler and all the cracks I can find are sealed and filled, most are finished with sand and gravel, and the worst corner is sealed but still needs to be filled more. - photos.app.goo.gl/jADqdAj7QZTCSi9p6
Wow! That's commitment to your driveway. So in regards the opening and widening of the cracks, I do this so that the sealant, when applied, will be more wide than thick, otherwise the sealant will split apart from the concrete in the first couple of thermal expansion cycles. In regards your wide cracks, I suspect the got that big because you may only have wire mesh as reinforcement instead of rebar. Anyways, if the crack is bigger that 1/4inch, I suggest you treat the cracks as expansion joints (for which I also have a video). You should install backer rod and top it with polyurethane or silicone. I don't know about DAP active ingredients, but if it has acrylic, it will all get stiff and crumble in just 1 year. Acrylic sealant don't do well with UV rays.
Cement will hydrate and harden when water touches it and this will stiffen the repair. In order for the waterproofing to work, the sealant has to remain flexible. So it's better to just broadcast concrete dust or sand over it.
Are you able to paint over the sealant to try and match the concrete? I had collected a jar of dust to sprinkle on top but i had a bit of cleanup to do and forgot 😢
Concrete dust is the best. First, concrete should be stained with transparent stains, as non-transparent stains typically peal of in few years. Second, you can stain if you had applied some sand of concrete dust over the polyurethane. Basically, the sand is what gets stained. Polyurethane itself is not very good with transparent stains. You can always remove the polyurethane with a grinder to do the job again, but it is a lot of work.
@oliveraguirreconcreterepai4826 Thank you for the reply. I may just leave it. The stairs will cover it anyway. I'm just meticulous about things and will always know it's there lol
@@brandoncontreras7538 the only way to truly hide a crack is to resurface the whole concrete with a fake stone overlay. And hiding the cracks in fake Stone joints... I have done this before. The crack will reappear, but and I will then have to be sealed with the same method as in this video, but you truly won't see them. This whole process does come to be very expensive, but still not as expensive as a full scale concrete replacement.
what happens if you don't bother with adding sand or backer rod, and just inject a bunch of sealant into the crack instead? And apply more after the first application is dry?
If the sealant is not thin, it will not be elastic, if the sealant is not elastic, when concrete shifts due to thermal contraction (night time) the sealant will split away from one side of the slab. This can happen within just few days. And the worst part is that removing thick sealant is time consuming. Better do it right from the start, safe money on sealant and do the work only one time. And if it still splits, removing properly installed sealant takes less time than thick sealant.
Hi! To prevent the tires from damaging the product. This video is old, now we pour them a little higher. But always maintaining the proportion of "thickness of sealant = half of the width"
