Two additional tips when working with the 45 SSL: you can fill the crack to almost over filling it because it does shrink a bit when it dries. Second: I ended up dumping a large amount of sand over the entire crack once it was filled and then came back the next day and swept/ blew the excess off. It ends up blending much better and does a good job hiding any over fill pointa

I live up here in the northwest. The big problem about cracks in sidewalks or driveways is water getting in the cracks and freezing. The frozen water expands the crack further damaging the area. I use 45 psi compressed air to clean out the debris. I enjoy your videos. Thank you.

I'm so glad I stumbled upon your video. I have almost an identical crack near my garage and need to address it as soon as it warms up. Thanks so much for taking the time to film this process!!

Great video and prep technique. I can say this is the most effective long term solution, as over 20 years ago I repaired my concrete parking lot using multiple methods (some areas used quikcrete other areas used Solonlastic SL1 with backer rod) the ladder method has held up for 20+ years. All the quikcrete repairs broke up after a few years. Of course a professional would know that would happen, but for me at the time it was an experiment…

I had to use the "pool noodle" method! I've got some areas which I forgot to prep . . . and needless to say, the sealant kept going down and I will have to go back and prep it and then add some more sealant. Funny thing . . . my wife question the "pool noodle" method and said, "Where did you learn that, KZfaq?" LOL! Thank you for your videos, they have save me a bunch of mistakes and money. On the end, where the crack really opened up, I used an aluminium, square blank that I had from other projects (4X4) piece and tapped it into the ground next to the end of my front porch. It served as a rigid dam at the end. Worked really good.

Solid video for a busy dad who is clueless on this stuff and needs to fix about 4 cracks lol. Thanks Man.

You can buy a concrete cutting/grinding blade for your angle grinder to open and clean the crack for prep. Also you can grind down the high side to prevent tripping hazards by rounding the edge.

Another very comprehensive but easily understood video. He seems never to miss important details and explains how to work around them. Keep up the fine work !!

Thank you. I am planning to work on some cracks on the garage floor and this just what aI need. Cracks are much smaller but the video seems to address the questions I had.

GREAT video. I like the prep work to ensure it sticks and lasts. I didn't know about SSL, and have only used the thinner stuff. I've got some gaps over 1" after slabs shifted when ground was saturated due to a neighbor blocking drainage (with my driveway on a berm). Using backer rod is the trick. Problem here (near St. Louis) is water/melting snow gets down in cracks and freezes/expands in winter, and pushes slabs apart and pops up more concrete

Great topic and instruction. I used that same Valkem product here in WI several years ago, We have temps from as high as 100+ to lows as low as -20 and this product works beautifully. Yes. per tube its a little pricey but it's worth it as it will last for years to come

One trick for matching concrete would be to pulverize the chips you remove and sprinkle that on the top instead of sand.

When I would do this, I always hated the filler not blending into the concrete and thus contrasting colors as an obvious repair. To fix that issue once I would add the filler to level it with the surrounding concrete, I would use either sand or pulverized concrete and add it as a light topper to blend it in, and what a HUGE difference that made as the sand\concrete would adhere to the filler and would be almost impossible to remove and would make the whole job look a million times better.

I totally agree with you about the tree root possibility helping or causing that crack. Thanks I have driveway cracks I need to fix with no close trees. So I will follow your advice! thanks so much!

I use a 5 in 1 tool for digging around in the cracks. Myself, I have several of these, and use my older beat up ones because it will take the edge off the tool. Also, I make sure I keep the tubes warm so they flow easier causing less hand fatigue.

Excellent, thank you! A very nice demo with great visuals. Also great tips from the comment section. I finally figured out how to shop at your store. You have to click on the right panel to get that sub grouping. Yay! Thanks so much for this series. Very good demos.

I get so much out of your videos. My partner and I are new homeowners learning to DIY, to revive our fixer upper to all of it's 1967 glory. Thank you a million times over!

I recently did moms drive. She had same issue. I put polymeric sand in first then watered it as Per instructions then did the SLC and did the sand trick on top to blend it in. She couldn’t believe how good it was

Thank you for the video. I have a home with a large circular driveway which has many cracks big and small. I was considering grouting and then painting / sealing to get a better looking result.

I have multiple very small cracks. I first slightly enlarged the cracks, then cleaned edges and add sealant! Final step was to add small sand/gravel to match but can adhere to the sealant. It is a 24-year old driveway in the Texas heat and cold and still looks good!

Hey man pretty good tutorial. A few tips from a guy that has owned a caulking company for 30 years. If you use a 2 part polyurethane caulk you stop a lot of bubbling issues because it cures all at once. Instead of the top curing first. Another tip, Sonneborn, now Masterseal SL-2 Slope grade works way better. You can over shoot it, then back tool excess and you have a perfect joint. That material would have also bridged the height difference of the crack at that one end. There are way more colors with the SL-2 too.

I prepared the crack as you and used Sika pro select self-leveling sikaflex*polyurethane 3 years ago. I pressure washed last week, and it still looks nice. I was going to add sand, but I figured it would promote growth.

Great video. Answered questions than I never knew I had!

Best tutorial I’ve seen on crack filling…thanks!

From my experience choosing the right size of backer rod and/or filling deep voids is important. Last time I did this I found one or two spots where the caulk just drained away and I had to quickly come up with a solution to plug the leak.

Very helpful. Few extra steps i never thought were necessary. Thanks for the quality tips.

thank you for teaching me how to work all the sides of a deep crack *hits pipe*

I did the same thing to my driveway two days ago but used the Sika self leveling sealant from Home Depot. So far it looks good. (I’m a diy person with little experience so I watch lots of videos on KZfaq. Thanks for your video.

I just purchased caulk backer, caulking & sealant as my driveway is doing this from so much rain. Thank you for this!

Amazing information. Thank you,

Hello Scott, When a crack on a sidewalk has different elevations, I'll take a grinder with a concrete grinding wheel and I'll grind the higher elevation so that there is a taper that levels where the crack is and gradually gets higher (a six inches taper in total). This way, when water travels across the sidewalk, it won't collect where the crack is & I've eliminated a trip-hazard. .... Then, I'll proceed with similar steps as you've shown in this video to seal the crack. 👍

Great job mate and very interesting thank you very much 😊

Thank you for your tip and take the time to sharing.

Something I do when repairing cracks and the cement has raised in some places is I will go and use a 4” diamond cup disc on my angle grinder to flatten it out then bacically paint the selant onto the cut portion and then apply some sand, for white/grey cement I’ll use a white/tan/black sand mix to match the original texture/color

Great explanation…. Thanks for sharing

Nice work dude

Great video. Here in cold Canada cracks means ice will form and ice will completely destroy the driveway in a few short years.

Great video! Can you do o a video on fixing cracks in asphalt driveways?

I think this was a great video. But if you going to do all that work I would of taken a expanding spray foam such as “Great stuff” (not the most rigid out there once it dries but the original formula is actually pretty stout) and sprayed it down into the crack. If you have a crack larger than a quarter inch or 6-12 months old you most likely have under washing beneath the driveway. Some subsurface erosion. If driveway had proper gavel, tamping, and installation. Only roots or water erosion will cause uneven heights in concrete. So the expanding foam will fill in all the holes and gaps left over from water erosion. And prevent for an extra extended period of time the sinking concrete sinking farther. Can’t be the extra soft cell stuff for like around windows and doors though. Then trim it 48 hours later and it will also act as your backer rod. Then seal it with any quality sealant like you used in video. Using the foam should buy you at least few years before any additional slab sinking and sealing the crack prevents future water erosion buying you at least a few years also. Lastly I would dig to and chop the roots 2’ back from the driveway. They should be only 4”-12” deep and close to in line with crack if it was involved. Well that was a fun book to write lol. Thank you to the 1 person that eventually reads this whole thing ha

Very informative. but I will need to look for a product to use on my asphalt driveway cracks.

I’ve had voids develop, washed out by the drainage behaviour you demonstrated. Without support any repair would flex & crack. I just had to drill a pattern of holes along the crack and up to a foot either side, holes pitched 6” apart. Then it was a matter of injecting grout very carefully to avoid hydraulic jacking of the concrete. A few holes took pints of grout, clearly voids! After a month to let everything cure I finished filling the crack, no need for backer. Four years on and no new cracks, phew,

GE Advanced Silicone has done a great job for my asphalt driveway.

Great video as always. I am dealing with similar issue on our driveway where there is some settling in the apron area as well as the stoop where there is a section of a through-concrete crack as well. For the area where the concrete is cracked all the way through, one side of the concrete is a bit higher than the other like you showed in this video (closer to the tree). For my fix, I was planning to use the steps in your other video to raise the slab using foam and hopefully bring the two sides closer in height before filling the gap with backer rod or pool noodle (as in yet another of your video) and then the sealant on top. As I was watching this video, I was wondering why you decided not to lift with foam where there was a height difference between the two sides of the concrete (closer to the tree) before filling with backer road and sealant? Just trying to learn if there might be criteria (e.g. use foam if the height difference is more than x inches?). Thanks for another informative video.

thanks very useful demonstration.

Thank you for your video. I have hairline long crack on my driveway which is visible when it wet. Any way to stop it now from further expansion?

Scott..suggestion (or video) for how i can fill gaps between my house & patio pavers?

Once you do this, can you use an exterior self leveling style concrete to refinish your driveway? I'm prepping my house for sale and want to make improvements for curb appeal.

They make a product specifically for this called silika no need for backing or sand comes on a big tube and it is self leveling.. works great! The reason you want to seal a crack in a driveway is to limit erosion. Water can create a hollow spot and destroy your driveway.

Great job on video!

I love a nicely prepared crack

Good job Poindexter!

Clean out the crack with a pressure washer. Use an Impact Drill to vibrate the sand down into the crack.

I believe it would be helpful to have a discussion of when to address cracking. We recently had a driveway poured that began to display cracking within a year of installation and was was faced with the consideration of what is normal and when should I intervene. I eventually intervened and applied a self leveling sealant (sika) that failed within a year. I am well aware that the elevated adobe clay content of the soil and high water table of the region are two factors that absolutely screw our chances of success, but still feel like the conversation would be beneficial.

Hi, I have a patterned concrete drive that has a very fine crack forming along it, the drive is sloping. It doesn’t matter about the sealant colour as I will be repainting the whole drive anyway. The crack is only about 1-2mm wide at most. Can I get crack repair that will fill such a small crack? Or should I wait until the crack is more substantial? I don’t want the cold winter months to do more damage.

That looks like a classic case of either no reinforcing steel in the concrete or the steel is too thin or laying on the bottom of the concrete.

To level out the surfaces outside of the crack, how about shaving the concrete down on one side to make it all even at that spot? Or is that too involved? I just thought that that would discourage moisture from finding the crack and insure that the repaired crack would hold up longer and stronger.

I wonder if your trick with the sand would work better if you used a polymeric sand rather than just conventional sand. You may not even need to apply the sealant since polymeric sand will harden once it is wetted. Maybe on larger cracks it would be necessary to do both sealant and polymeric sand. Polymeric sand is the same type of sand used for pavers and it works fairly well in that application. I've never tried it on a driveway crack, but your video got me thinking that maybe it would work better.

Good effort! some things I would have done differently 1) I would not have used backer rod. I would have used more calk instead 2) Since one side of the slab had dropped at least 1/4 inch, I would have used an angle grinder to make the two surfaces level before applying the sealant. By not doing that, you still have a trip edge

i would have done a rough 45 deg on the high side where the step is large with a diamond face disk prior to filling, but otherwise looks good for now. I like Sika.

Very useful video! There's always something new out there to learn

What type of caulk do you use when you have a slight down hill driveway grade?

Well, the difference I would suggest is, don't use a "Concrete Crack Sealer" such as the 45 SSL. I used a product for concrete from the box store, and after two years, it had dried out, and pieces were coming out of the cracks. I had to dig all that hard shrunken cracked stuff out and start over . What I started using several years ago is... don't laugh... Grey FLEX SEAL ! Yep, the stuff advertised on T.V. It's Liquid Rubber in a Can ! Seriously. I cleaned out the driveway cracks with a screwdriver, and pressure washer, then stiff wire brush. Blew out the cracks with my leaf blower, when it was dry, I was ready for the Flex Seal. I bought the Grey, for my first Driveway cracks, a whole Gallon of it, but you can get it in Quarts also. Some of the first driveway cracks were up to 5/8" wide, and of course , all the way through. Other areas were less than a 1/4" wide. So for that one, I punched two holes in the Can top 1/4" , one to pour through and the other a vent on the other side, then carefully poured the Flex Seal into the cracks all the way to the top, allowing for settling. After 6 years when we left that house, not one joint had failed, no pull away, the Flex Seal moved with the driveway. Being Grey, it matched the Concrete fine, but you can add some sand to the top when the Flex Seal is fresh and wet, if you want, and that looks good too. For smaller cracks, and if you are messy, I got a LARGE industrial plastic Syringe from off the internet, and just draw the Flex Seal out of a Quart Can, and slowly squirt it into the cracks. I've use this method several times, including a brand new sidewalk, in the expansion joints and where it joined the driveway, so water doesn't get in a freeze, causing cracking in the first place. Again total Success ! And No, Phil Swift isn't a relative or anything. The stuff just works well for Concrete Cracks.

Wow good job!

Excellent promo for Gorilla Tape. Really appreciated this video, hadn't thought to prep the concrete first.

Hi, I applied sealent to crack but it has blisters and bubbles and it is not solid at all. What should I do in this case?

good jobs guys

Thanks for informative video. First time i have seen your channel. To me it still looks obvious that there is a crack. How can we make it look better?

Thanks for this great tutorial, you explained it so well that I feel I can do this myself instead of waiting for my husband to do it 😂. I was wondering what do you think of using spray insulation foam instead of pool noddle for bigger and wider cracks? Since in the end is the same material as the pool noodle I think it can be great for bigger and deeper cracks, especially those that get narrower as the bottom and are hard to fill, the spray foam insulation nozzle can reach those narrow nooks and crannies with more precision.

How can you blend the crack more to the old concrete? What kind of sand are you using?

Always wonderful and thorough information, thank you!

Is THAT the final result? My Handyman customer would not accept that.

Thanks, good information and video. I will use the sand idea.

Well spoke and well detailed video. Thank you I appreciate it

I didn't use the Tremco Voice 45 SSL but Silka Pro Select Construction Sealant for my concrete drive way and side of my house is way much better. Why? Everything that I buy, I've always read the customer reviews (has to be 4.7 out of 5.00) based on their experiences and I've had no regrets before they have always worked .

Scott to your point of looking ahead actually try to “push the bubble” ahead of the tip. Takes a little experience but you have the skill and it will improve your caulking. I have taught MANY apprentices. The bubbles in high temps are more due to improper prep. Trapping air in your installation. Primarily due to using sand.Stop using sand. Search out “ sof rod” backer rod. It is an open cell backer rod( open cell is generally a bad choice for flatwork) but sof rod has a waterproof coating kind of making it a kind of hybrid that is significantly softer allowing it to be installed in much smaller joints. Also buy a “ crack chaser” blade for your mini grinder. It is specifically made for this and it’s “V” shape makes it very easy to follow the crack. This is what true professional caulkers do. I have repaired miles of these type cracks. I have many examples that are 20 plus years old Another reason to repair this is that much water running into the crack when it rains will also undermine the concrete leading to bigger issues down the road.

I used a power washer on the cracks, then used DAP Gray Cement 1.62-lb Crack Filler, powder then just spray lightly with your hose.

That is good crack advice, but concrete levelling is so good.

Structurally very good advice and undoubtedly a durable repair. But cosmetically, was hoping for a more robust way to blend in the concrete repair to the existing concrete. Because now you have a visually much bigger crack then originally. The sand is not much of a camoflage.

Thanks!

The expansion joints had rotted out on our patio. When I fixed that the first time I used the backer rod. Using that technique on larger cracks can lead to problems when the backer rod shifts under the sealant. IMO, a much better technique was to fill the crack with sand, pound it in using a board that was just smaller than the crack and a hammer. Then use a self made wooden scraper that left about 3/8 of an inch of sand in the crack. That produced a nice looking long lasting patch. One thing he might have mentioned ,that was at least true of the sealant I used, that stuff sticks like mad. He alluded to the problem when he talked about having something to lay the caulk gun down on was a good idea. Absolutely, if you are using full self leveling compound a lot of care is necessary to keep from getting the sealant in the wrong place. It is hard to get off. One other thing I learned in that project was how to remove sealant from a crack if it needs to be removed: Oscillating saws work very well for cutting the old sealant free.

I give it 2 years didn't get the right concave/convex shape for flexibility. it's essentially just flat on the top and bottom. Only sand the top for protection from getting stepped on it will eventually just wear off over time so using it for blending doesn't work. Grinding the sides to create vertical walls is recommended as well. Ive seen jobs that look 100 times worse than this but can definitely get some years added to its life span by swapping product and adding more prep. No sand ,only use closed cell backer. Finish by striking with caulking spatulas to give an hourglass shape for maximum flexibility.

Thank you for the video. What do you suggest for a walk in cooler at temps at 34-42 degrees?

It would be beneficial to find the invasive roots and cut them just outside the driveway to prevent further lifting

Out of curiosity, because the distal piece is higher than the proximal piece, won’t water still accumulate along the crack? This also doesn’t seem to address the trip hazard? What would be the best way to make it a more level surface between the two pieces? Thanks for the info! 👍🏻

Great Tips

I had a crack and my driveway too and moved. Problem fixed :) Good video.

And the crack is in line with that tree. The path is being lifted by the roots of that tree. Unless you either remove that tree or cutting the root off where it goes under the drive. If you don’t attend to that tree, you will be back next year on your hands and knees repeating this repair. The drive will also be another 1/4 higher than last year.

Good, I like it. Thanks.

Thank you very much…

Did you explore tree side to check your root theory? Another technique would be to get some pea gravel and compress into sealant help hide repair.

Thanks

Great job thanks

I need to do this to my driveway soon. It was kinda repaired similar to what you recommended but now it needs a little more.

thank you

Well done!

Great video Scott! Super common problem.

After watching your video I have to wonder if epoxy resin and sand might not be a good way to approach this. Pour in some resin add some sand until you have filled the crack with mix of sand saturated with epoxy I would think the sand/epoxy mix would add some mechanical strength to the repair at least in shear strength. and probably a moisture seal. I have a crack that I haven't repaired yet and have been noodling over how I might approach the repair.

OK next is a blacktop driveway whereas a root has slightly pushed it up and formed a crack. The idea being to prep for a blacktop sealant coat. I tried some of the caulking gun blacktop crack sealants of which truthfully all of them failed. 10 years later I tried brick mortar to fill the gaps which worked OK but I'd still call it a failure. I also used cold or that is bagged asphalt which worked extremely well for one large area whereas I removed cracked broken asphalt and replaced an "area" that spanned 6" across and about 1 foot in length but for small cracks was impossible or was extremely time consuming to get it to pack and fill cracks. 15 years later I'm getting ready to seal my driveway again and am dreading it in knowing of nothing that won't fail or look bad in a few years time. Recommendations?????

What about stains and splotches made by leftover mortar from the masonry company? They left several large splotches on the surface of the driveway. Is there a chemical method to remove the mortar splotches and not damage the pebble surfaced concrete driveway beneath the mortar splotches?

Is there a different technique to use if you're repairing a hydronically heated interior concrete floor? The cracks are much smaller than exterior driveway cracks. Also what do you recommend to use to replace the caulk/grout(?) between the interior heated floor rectangular sections? Does cement grout work for both? Thanks, Al