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Thread: Garage Floor Expansion Joints

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2015
    Location
    East San Francisco Bay CA.
    Posts
    206

    Garage Floor Expansion Joints

    Hey All,

    Like a lot of us, I have some back and knee issues that make it much harder for me to stand. So I grabbed a nice shop stool with heavy duty casters. Everything is great except for rolling over the expansion joints on my garage floor. It divides my garage into four equal quadrants, so no matter which way I go. I encounter one, and sometimes two of these canyons. They are about an inch wide, and the have slopped sides, pretty typical joints.

    My question is have any of you encountered these, and if there is some type offiller that I can use? I am thinking of some type of elastic epoxy that is trowled on. Does such a beast exist?

    Thanks in advance folks.

    Joe

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Location
    Trenton SC, in the CSRA
    Posts
    510
    I use this on the driveway:
    Sikaflex Self-Leveling Sealant, 10.1 fl. oz Cartridge, Gray


  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    NE OH
    Posts
    2,615
    I've used Big Stretch Sealant to fill similar gaps, stuffing backer rod into the crack first. But it will take a bunch of tubes to fill that big a joint and it's expensive! And I think 1" is about the upper limit for Big Stretch, anyway.

    I'd look for one of the trowelable crack fillers sold for concrete. They come in 5 gal buckets and are more reasonably priced. Flexible products are available.

    But what about just putting larger diameter casters on your chair? a 4 or 5 inch caster wouldn't bump much over a 1" joint.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Palm Springs, CA
    Posts
    1,085
    I used Simpson Epoxy Tie from the local home center to fill expansion joints for exactly the purpose you describe before I epoxy coated the floor. It worked well although it did have a slight shrink back as it cured but was imperceptible when rolling tools over the filled section. The shrink back doesn't separate from the adjacent slabs however it does leave the filled joint slightly dished on the upper surface. In the pic below there is a filled expansion joint between the doors running from front to rear and you can see the slight depression. I did two joints this way in this garage. The downside was cost as it was expensive.
    Morgan Hill floor.jpg

    When I moved into a new home a few years back I had a pro do the floor. I asked him to fill the expansion joints as my new floor had six sections and the joints were very large. He used an epoxy that he got from the floor coating supplier and it also had a slight shrink back which can be seen in the picture below. I didn't get the name of the epoxy, however a call to an epoxy flooring material supplier might yield some useful information.
    Palm Springs floor.jpg
    Dick Mahany.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Eugene Dixon View Post
    I use this on the driveway:
    Sikaflex Self-Leveling Sealant, 10.1 fl. oz Cartridge, Gray
    +1
    Used this in my garage and it was great. I have some heavy machines on casters and getting over the expansion joints was annoying. It was much easier once I used this. It initially has the consistency of thick pancake syrup, so I dammed up the joints and did 10-15 foot sections at a time. I don't know that it was necessary, but made it a bit easier to work with as my garage floor sloped and I was afraid of it all pooling at one end. Something like $9 a tube, just buy more than you need and return what you don't use.

    Edit: I did not fill the joints up completely flush with the surface, but I did fill them 1/16" to 1/8" short of flush. That gave me some wiggle room with my sloping floor and still made a significant difference for rolling heave equipment.
    Licensed Professional Engineer,
    Unlicensed Semi Professional Tinkerer

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Sep 2015
    Location
    East San Francisco Bay CA.
    Posts
    206
    Hey Folks

    This is exactly the feedback I was hoping for. Thank you so much!

    Matt - the pics prove your point - the first garage was not as obvious as the newer place, but the angle of the light makes a huge difference_. I very much appreciate you taking the trouble to include pics.

    Thx again everyone!

    Joe

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2017
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    2,758
    The main reason for the joints is to control the shrinkage cracks as the new concrete cures. Most of this will happen in a few weeks and after a couple of years it will be insignificant. You can fill it with a concrete crack filler as Paul suggests. This is basically concrete with fine aggregate. It might shrink enough to show a hairline crack, ignore that.

    Yours was probably built with some type of flexible board in it. You should remove enough of that to allow the fill to be about an inch deep. Maybe a driveway edger would do it.

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