How To Fill A Gap Between Garage Floor And Concrete Driveway

hey what's up you guys it's scott with everyday home repairs and today i want to show you a very common maintenance item and that is sealing off any cracks that are forming between two slabs of concrete specifically the one we're going to be dealing with is a three-quarter inch gap that i have forming and it's been forming for many years between my driveway slab and then my garage i'm going to walk you through the full processing you don't need too much for the job in the prep phase which a lot of these projects really the success is in the prep i'm going to use the shop back to get everything out and then also a small wire brush to make sure the surface doesn't have any debris or dirt on it and then once we're prepped i'll show you what i'm going to do with that sand there i have some spots to fill in and then ultimately we'll put the backer rod in place i'll introduce you to back rod if you've never used that product and then i'll be using a self leveling sealant by sikka now this was recommended i actually put this question out to my facebook group called everyday home repairs community and this was highly recommended as the best product on the market to seal between two concrete surfaces so this is something a lot of us put off but if you're in those northern climates where you're getting the freeze thaw cycles it is best to seal these off so you don't have water accumulating in the cracks and then starting to freeze maybe in the late fall early winter and then you go through expansion and contraction which can start to break down your concrete so if you want your patio to last longer if you want your driveway to last longer this is a great maintenance item for you to do so without further ado i'll show you the steps involved by sealing off this gap right here so we got to get all the old junk out of this gap so i'll just use the shop vac and an old screwdriver to pick up all the old debris and that includes that black old expansion joint you see me pulling out there in addition you also want to pull out any loose pieces of concrete because you just want a flat secure clean surface on both sides of the gap all right so the majority of the prep is done i have the leaves and twigs and sticks and dirt out of the gap but now what i want to do is just go through with some general purpose sand here i'm going to pour that down into any holes any gaps that are actually opened up and i can see down there and just fill those up because i don't want any cavities forming underneath the concrete so if a car pulls out and there's no support underneath that then the concrete would be more likely to crack so i'm just going to fill those up as much as possible not getting too crazy with it but just also not leaving big holes underneath the concrete then once that's completed i'll go back through with just one more round of white shop backing and then i'll be ready to start putting the backer rod in and then the self-leveling sealant what i also like about filling these cavities with sand is you're confident now once they fill up and you see that sand accumulating that you don't have a larger cavity than you would expect forming underneath your concrete so you just fill that up smooth it out a little bit and then i went down i have a 28 foot gap here and i put most the sand actually right in this section what it ended up being is i used a full 50 pound bag of sand to fill in those gaps and that was enough to complete it all the way down the gap then you'll do one more round with the wire brush brushing off any loose debris and shop backing that up to get prepped for the backer rod now this part of the gap is the narrowest on my project here so the 5 8 inch back rod fits perfectly and i press that down a quarter to a half inch below the surface the top surface of the self-leveling sealant per the instructions now if the gap is larger i can braid together the 5 8 backer rod to fill in the larger gaps now i would recommend maybe going a little bit tighter braid than i have right here because remember any of those low divots in that braid are going to have to be filled by the self-leveling sealant and you shouldn't have any divot lower than a half inch so you just keep braiding all the way down adjusting as needed and if you even have larger gaps you can find some specialty back rod that's much larger than 5 8 but the stuff readily available at your home improvement store is going to max out usually at 5 8. so you quickly notice that the self-leveling sealant has a thinner consistency than that of normal caulk that you're used to using so that'll just settle on the gaps but what you will see again in this braids is once it starts leveling out it'll kind of soak into those cavities left from the divots of the braid and i'll talk about that a little bit later on on how to correct that to make sure it's smooth long term when you have a single backer rod this is going to be easier to fill and you'll be using fewer tubes on the overall project so i just reached the finish line of the project and overall i'm happy with the results now if you have a gap that is smaller than that 5 8 and you can just use a single backer rod to fill that gap that's going to help you a lot and what you want to make sure is that the depth is between a quarter inch and one half inch and that's the depth that you would fill with the self-leveling sealant now if you have the larger gap like i did where you need to braid the backer rod to fill that in just understand that any of those gaps are going to fill in and that self-leveling sealant is going to settle down in so what i'm doing is you can see those little divots from the braid i'm going to let this set up for 24 hours and then i have another extra tube that i'm going to go back through and then fill that in after 24 hours to make a nice smooth finish even on the braided surfaces now to help you assess how much materials you need for your project i had 28 foot of total gap that i was looking to fill it varied between 5 8 of an inch and 7 8 of an inch i used about 50 foot of 5 8 backer rod and then i used four total 29 ounce self leveling sealant tubes now you can look down in the description you'll see the link of the supplies used on this project for your reference so four total tubes of this and 50 total feet of 5 8 background that's what i use to do this and then just one 50 pound bag of sand to fill in those gaps now let me know what questions you have down in the comments or if you saw something that you do a little different you think it works out better just let me know down the comments i always welcome the feedback and then before you take off don't forget to subscribe to our channel if you haven't already as we have multiple videos coming out per week to help you with repairs and improvements around the house and we'll catch you on the next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 173,368

Rating: 4.9720407 out of 5

Keywords: fill gap between foundation and patio, fill gap between foundation and sidewalk, fill a gap between concrete slabs

Id: OUnUkrqsbA8

Length: 7min 20sec (440 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 31 2021