My Attempt At Fixing A Crack In The Garage Floor With Loctite Sealant

I've had a crack in my garage floor since we bought the house 6 years ago.  It wasn't a bad crack at first, but each year it widened a bit.  It was finally time to do something, but there are so many different products out there to try.

I knew that if I just put some concrete back in it that it would crack again because of earth movement.  (Northern Climate, frost, etc.)  So I asked a friend what he did with his garage floor, and this is what he came up with.  We'll try it out.

So here's how we started.  First off I just bought some expandable foam.  It's the same stuff you blow in for sealing up window spaces, and other small areas.   The point of it is to fill in the empty space at the bottom of the crack, otherwise you'll go through a ton of the sealant.  The foam expands, so you'll want to try to not put so much in that it will expand over the top of the slab.  I did a little too much and had to cut the excess off with a saw after it dried for a few hours.

Next I took a wire brush to scrape away the material so that there was still at least a 1/4" gap between the top of the foam and the top of the concrete.  I wanted to make sure there would be room for the caulk to self level in the next step.

Next it was time to vacuum up the debri!

After that, I used self leveling cement crack sealer to seal it off.  This stuff is pretty expensive ($6 a tube) and you can go through a lot of it, so that's why I used foam to fill as much of the crack as possible.

The point of using this silicone sealant is that it will contract and give when the slab moves instead of cracking.  According to my friend, it has held up for years on his floor and his crack was worse.

It's leveled off now and it's in the process of curing.  We will see how it holds up.  The goal is to not allow water to get back in from the surface, and also prevent the crack from eroding anymore.  I'm hopeful this will buy me more time without having to replace the garage.