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 gonna 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 gonna walk you through the full process and 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 gonna use the shot 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 gonna 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 Backer Rod if you've never used that product .

And then I'll be using a self leveling sealant by Sica .

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 to 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 long , 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 back in 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 gab .

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 wanna do is just go through with some general purpose sand here .

I'm gonna pour that down into any holes , any gaps that are actually opened up that 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 gonna 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 light shot backing and then I'll be ready to start putting the backer rod in and then the self leveling seal it .

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 ft gap here and I put most of sand actually right in this section .

What it ended up being is I used a full £50 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 shot 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 58 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 five eights 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 gonna 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 five eights .

But the stuff readily available at your Home Improvement store is gonna max out usually at five eights .

So you quickly notice that the self leveling sealant has a thinner consistency than that of normal cack that you're used to using .

So that'll just settle on the gaps .

But what you will see again in those 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 crack that to make sure it's smooth .

Uh Long term , when you have a single backer rod , this is gonna 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 ceiling .

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 add 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 ft 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 ft of five eights back garage 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 five inch Sacca rods .

That's what I use to do this and then just 1 £50 bag of sand to fill in those gaps .

Now , let me know what questions you have done 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 in 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 .