How To Permanently Repair A Garage Floor Crack

10% Discount Code (Enter At checkout): Ehr10

I am preparing my garage floor to install an epoxy coating with the flake finish but before then I have some repair work to do. First up is permanently repairing a large crack that runs the entire length of the floor. This same fix could be done on your basement floor or your slab foundation. I am using a new fast-set epoxy for the first time and this should provide a bullet-proof fix that will stand up for decades.

Free Home Maintenance Checklist:

DISCLAIMER: This video and description contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission.

[EverydayHomeRepairs]

10% Discount Code (Enter At Checkout): ehr10

[pburchins]

Nice video! When I was in Commercial Construction, we had a crack like that and what we did was use a pneumatic crack chaser we rented for the tool rental store. It was a chipper that the point was “U” shaped. So, you followed the crack and it would leave a “U” crack. I believe they are making a grinder blade that has the “U” shape. Tool Rental stores are a great source of equipment!

A two part Epoxy works great! However, it can be expensive. At Home Depot and Lowe’s in the Quikrete area they sell 1-2 gal buckets of “Hydraulic Cement”. It is a great product ! Be sure to wear Nitrile Gloves! It will eat up the skin on your hands! Follow instructions by adding the correct amount of water. It will become the consistency of dough. Mix small amounts for the first few time so you can see how fast it sets up. Put some in your and roll it like Play dough. Roll it to the width or just a little smaller of the crack in the shape of a rope and press it into the crack. You will feel it get warm while rolling it out. Let the magic happen! Hydraulic cement expands as it fill all the voids. In fact, it will rise above the floor. Just take a trowel or and strike it flush.

Hydraulic Cement is a a great product! I saw pool repair guy use on the pool under water and it worked! He mixed it up and put in a ziplock bag and dove down and pressed it around a crack where the new light left a void. We use it in block and around pipe sleeves in a concrete wall where water was leaking through it. 10 minutes later no more water leaked through!

[willbraswell]

Structural engineer here. Great job! Very thorough, well explained, and well executed. The only upgrade I know of would be staples.

[daveufirst]

I didn't do near that amount of work. Scraped, used no grinder or mask, dug out cracks, swept, filled with a tube of concrete filler. Two years later, is fine. Even if I have to re-do in a few years, it beats all of this for me. But hat's off to you for your excellent video.

[richc]

I used a fine mortar mix for my cracks and it seems to have worked great for my situation. Same prep steps as you did, then filled crack with unmixed mortar mix and sprayed water on it till it saturated down thru the depth of the crack. That way I could get the crack filled to the top (which is near impossible with it already wet & mixed. Ground it down and it came out great. The epoxy looks like ti works as well, but I spent $8 on my bag of mix.

[ianbelletti]

A couple of tips: running the shop vac with the hose near where you're using the angle grinder will suck up most of the dust. Also, running the shop vac as you pick at the crack will suck up dust and debris as you go. Third, if you have a crack that's propogating you'll want to use a concrete blade on a circular saw to extend the crack in a straight line in order to control where it propogates.

[pan]

Very good work, especially on the prepping that is so crucial to get a proper result.
Just 2 details that I would change to make the fill stronger:

There is a reason why the crack happened in the 1st place, which is that the parts are drifting apart (or: were). Hence, I’d suggest to link the 2 platters by applying concrete connectors.
I‘d also suggest to, depending on the depth of the crack, to apply the epoxy on the sand in 2 layers to go for sure the epoxy soaks in deep enough and fill in really all the crevices, i.e. layer one first, sand only half full, get it really soaked, then apply 2nd layer of sand and do the final fill as you were doing.

[hassanbazzi]

This is some work. Living in my house for almost 30 years it might take me 2 days to empty where the cracks are. Great job demonstrating this technique. Thank for sharing

[seephor]

Nice work. It could get real expensive real quick with epoxy. I've also done this similar type of repair with Sika selv-leveler. It goes nicely into the crack and has a ton of glue which bonds to the concrete really well. Much much cheaper at like $20 a bag which makes close to 5 gallons of liquid.

[shane]

The fact that the crack ran along the entire length, and that the previous attempt didn't hold, means there's a big chance the floor is still under stress, and that crack will open up again.

What you SHOULD'VE done is to cut deep notchs (every 3ft or so) perpendicular to the crack, put a staple in each notch, and then do the epoxy throughout the crack and the notches.

You can still add them in now, before you do the epoxy finish.

[Hurtydwarf]

If theres anything people take away from this is make sure you have a good quality respirator. The dust that grinding kicks out is insanely hazardous to breathe in.

[joyceflorida]

You do videos so an old lady gets it. Thank you so much.

[gravelytractor]

Great work, I did my garage floor during Covid, tons of filling and grinding. One recommendation I would make, build a homemade dust collector. A 5 gallon bucket, lid and a couple tubes or buy one. Probably carried 15 pounds of grinding out. And a dust collection shield for your grinder. Don’t want to breath that stuff, mask won’t cut it. Well done!

[apackwestbound]

Clearly, this channel continues to be some of the very finest YouTube content!

[artstech]

I did this 2 years ago to my garage. The only thing different I did was add more silica sand on top of the epoxy mixture causing it to form a paste that was slightly higher than the concrete. When dry the epoxy is completely filled with silica then grind it smooth.

[chrisanthony]

Great video, I work in commercial construction and see a lot of polished concrete, what you did is very similar to what the professionals do but use a different epoxy manufacturer and a machine that mixes the two parts on demand. An open crack like your's they would use a carbon fiber type mesh to bridge the crack. The theory is the crack is likely to come back, the mesh keeps you from seeing it when it comes back.

[seen]

If you’re going to finish your basement, this would be a good practice to do on the concrete basement floor and possibly some smaller cracks in the walls to help with future problems. Bigger ones in the wall have to be dealt with a bit differently but very close to this process especially all the cleaning and grinding. Great video.

[aytviewer]

Added suggestion: I personally wear hearing protection too while doing grinding operations such as this. I either use ear plugs combined with ear muffs, or even more enjoyable I put my Apple Air Pods Pro II and turn on noise cancellation while listening to an audio book or music.

[UDoIt]

great demonstration! There's a few things I'll be doing to my driveway and garage floor thanks to your videos. - John

[fastglassman]

I was concerned when you introduced the idea of using fine sand under the epoxy. I've seen videos of sand being used under expansion joint caulking to reduce material volume used. This is a BAD IDEA because sand will prevent the joint from closing and opening with temperature changes. For caulking, foam backer rod is the product of choice. For repair of a settlement crack where movement is actually undesireable, fine sand is actually very good idea. The fine sand serves as "aggregate" that actually pulls the epoxy further into the crack, and absorbs the epoxy until saturation. Nice repair.