How To Fix A Crack In Concrete With Fire! | Crack-Stix

how's it going you guys it's scott with everyday home repairs and today i'm continuing on with a little maintenance on this concrete driveway specifically we're focusing in on sealing up these expansion joints that have cracked and separated slightly over the years now i've already filled the gap right outside of my garage which is about three quarters of an inch to one inch in separation using backer rod and a sika self leveling sealant that worked great but that was completely horizontal so the self leveler could really level out and make for a good seal then after that i sealed up another expansion joint that was about an inch of a gap again with backer rod but this time i used a tremco product which is a semi self leveling product and can account for a six percent slope and still make a nice smooth level surface and you can find a link for both those videos down in the description below this video just in case that matches up to your project a little bit more today i'm using something a little bit different and i think quite a bit easier to use now this product is called crack sticks this comes in a bucket that's 125 foot in length and half inch in diameter open this up to show you so it comes in this coil which is that half inch cord of the ceiling itself and then wrapped in a plastic which is nice because it doesn't get all over your hands it's really easy to work with the beautiful part about this product is often it's a lot easier in terms of the prep work so i'm going to show you the process and why when it comes to fitting a half inch or below gap i prefer the crack sticks it's much easier to apply if you have a jagged crack across the middle of your concrete or sidewalk it's going to work for that so really the only other thing you need is some type of torch which is going to help you melt down that half inch cord and make a nice seal in the gap in your concrete sidewalk or driveway one other thing to note and i've had people ask me on some of the other is what do you do if you have asphalt and here's a little sample that comes in the bucket same thing half inch cord crack stick but it's made for asphalt so the same process can go for if you have an asphalt driveway as well so i'm going to jump in and show you a quick demo on this driveway of how easy the crack sticks is to apply but also let me show you a demo really quick of why i'm doing this maintenance on my concrete driveway so this example of basically what happens when it rains the water runs down the slope of my driveway but as you can see the crack actually has quite a bit of capacity to absorb and hold a lot of water so this is roughly about i'd say eight to ten gallons and it does not fill the crack and it does not come out the other end this is extr especially bad in my area during seasonal changes where you might get expansion and contraction so i'm going to do for prep work is i'm going to use that torch and i'm going to heat up the concrete a little bit the outside temp is about 40 to 45 degrees right now so it is pretty darn cool this is going to heat up the concrete slightly but it's also going to burn off any wheat any weeds that are going up through that crack any grass or other lawn debris and kind of clean it up then i'll just take my leaf blower and blow everything out but that is all i'm going to do if you have a larger crack in a big void i would fill that with sand be before putting down the crack stick so now i'll just lay out the crack stick from the bucket it's really nice really only using what you need and then putting everything back in the bucket for future projects i do like that about this product a lot now once it's in place i'll take the torch light it up and work about one foot section at a time because it is so cold outside i can't work too long of a section because then it loses all its heat now if it was 80 degrees fahrenheit outside i probably could work about three foot at a time and it'd be much quicker to relax that cord into a nice melted down seal so this is actually fast forward about 20 times speed so it took me a little while for this section to get everything to relax down because of the temperature of the concrete and just the wind kind of fighting against it and then finishing up the section here the only thing you need to watch out for is you want to relax it down but don't leave the flame on too long because you could overheat eventually burn and discolor the crack stick so i got my first section done and overall the product is easy to use now it's about 42 degrees fahrenheit outside and i would say i probably wouldn't recommend if this is the first time you're doing it you just want the project to be a little easier if it was 60 65 70 and up with direct sunlight on your concrete it's going to be a much easier job and you're going to use a lot less fuel to actually melt that down because the concrete is going to be so much warmer and it's not going to be pulling the heat out of the crack stick itself but for those smaller gaps that you're looking to fill the half inch and smaller the cracks that are irregular on a aggressive slope this product is awesome and the prep work is very little now i have a link down the description to the torch i use the 125 foot of the half inch diameter crack stick but also these shorter 30 foot sections called ply sticks it's the same material but just for those smaller jobs that you might have let me know what questions you guys have down in the comments and if you want to check out that video where i used to seek a self leveler up towards my garage check out this video right here and i'll walk you through the full process of how to get that done so thanks for joining me on this video and we'll catch you on that next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 92,379

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Id: uFvt7ZmTWwE

Length: 6min 14sec (374 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 24 2021