Question on replacing my driveway expansion joint wood?

Question on replacing my driveway expansion joint wood. I live in central Texas, and my drive way is made of concrete. The expansion joints have wood in them from when the driveway was pored 5 years ago.

With age, the wood is getting dry and beginning to deteriorate. I think by the end of this summer, some of them will need to be replaced. My question is, I can't replace the wood, what should I use?

Is there a kind of rope to fill the bottom and then a putty or type of caulk? I want to protect the driveway by not letting rain wash out the soil below the driveway, and not let ants dig it out either. Any ideas on what I can do to replace my driveway expansion joint wood?

Thanks! Asked by Scarecrow 46 months ago Similar questions: Question replacing driveway expansion joint wood Home > Home Improvement.

Similar questions: Question replacing driveway expansion joint wood.

Use a ployether sealant to fill both expansion joints and any cracks you have in the slab. Almost any polymer based sealant will do the job. I’ve used a product called Novalink SL to reseal expansion joints.

Its made by Chem Link. This product doesn't shrink, need mixing or have a lot of dangerous solvent in it. Here’s a link to their main site: chemlinkinc.com/index.php Here’s a link to their PDF describing the Novalink SL product chemlinkinc.com/products/index.php?page=... This stuff is easy to use, fairly inexpensive, skins over in 30 minutes and comes in small tubes so you don’t have to buy more than you need.To do the job you need to pull out the old wooden joint filler then just squirt the sealant into the opening.

No skill required and it lasts a long time (forever? ). You can buy it on the web or just call your local Building Supply Cos to see who carries it loaclly.

Good luck - but you really won't need luck to do this. Sources: personal experience .

It is pretty easy to reinstall wood, but there are other choices... Replacing the rotted wood with new wood does not take much skill. Maintaining the expansion joints properly is very important to keeping the concrete slabs around for many years. If the wood only lasted 5 years, I would guess it is treated southern yellow pine.

Modern treatment methods don’t do much for ground contact. If you replace the boards with new SYP, make sure the new treated boards are rated for direct ground contact. Western red cedar usually lasts 8-10 years here in Gulf Coast Texas, and redwood 20 or 30 years.

Regardless of which method you choose, you first remove all of the rotted wood and clean the joint. Choose a cold day when the concrete slabs are smallest to do your work. Use a flat pry bar (often called a molding lifter) against a short piece of scrap wood placed to protect the edge of the concrete.

You can easily crack the edge of concrete off is you do this without a board to distribute the pressure. The wood rarely comes out in a single piece. A large "trash" screwdriver can be used to lever up pieces that are down in the joint.

You want to remove all of the old wood and rotted wood. I made some pry tools from steel bars bought at the local home center that work better than a screw driver. Another trick is to insert a 3 1/2 inch long deck screw straight down into solid areas of the board in a pre-drilled pilot hole.

Predrilling the pilot hole is critical to prevent the wood from being expanded into the joint by the wedge action of the screw. Leave the head of the screw well above the top of the board and hook the pry-bar over the screw head to lift the board. If this is done at several places along the board at the same time, and the board isn’t completely rotten, the entire board often lifts out.(Assuming the slabs aren't "pinned to each other".

See below for more discussion of pinned slabs. ) If there are often a lot of joints to work on, finding or making the best tools and techniques is worth while. Another trick to clean a joint is to use a powered grass edger to cut the well-rotted material out of the joint.

A gas-powered edger can make short work of this, but often only extends down a couple of inches, leaving considerable trash to be removed in another manner. Use a fresh blade in the edger. Blades wear down fast and are often too short to be effective.

Don't try to go the entire depth in one pass. Take a little out at a time. Once the joints are clean, here are two methods I have used to fill the expansion joints.

Just remember, that these joints must have something in them that is elastic--something that can expand and contract as the concrete presses against it. Concrete expands with tremendous force when it gets hot, then contracts when it is cold. If you fill the joint with something that does not yield (for example, a piece of steel), your slabs will crack on some fine hot day.

So if you replace the wood with more wood, you want to use redwood or cedar. Both have a lot of air in them and will contract and expand properly. Redwood lasts longest (a lot longer in my experience) and its extra cost is worth it to me.

Western red cedar lasts longer than treated southern yellow pine. Pine is also harder, and may cause the slab to crack. Don’t use maple or any similar hardwood.

1x4 heart redwood is best (all a uniform dark red) as it lasts longest. There is very little wood in a joint, so even expensive wood isn't unreasonable. Often, adjacent slabs are "pinned" to each other with a piece of rebar that is embedded into one slab, but floating in a tube embedded in the adjacent slab.

If you have these, you will know it because getting the wood out from under the pin can be a hassle. To insert the new wood, you must measure down to the pin and drill a hole where the pin will be, then saw a slot from the bottom edge of the board back up to the hole. Thus, the new board simply sides down into the slot.

If the weather is cold, the new board will usually just slip into a clean joint easily. If it doesn’t, inspect for a problem. If adjacent slabs have tilted or moved closer to one another, the wood may need to be planed thinner.

If it is only a little snug, you can use a hammer to drive the new board in by hammering against a scrap piece that is held over the new board. Don't force a board in. The second method is to use products similar to what is shown at the following website http://www.gabrielfirst.com/products/techsheets/flexjointtechbulletin.htm A sponge backer rod (usually about 1 inch in diameter for a 3/4 inch joint) is pushed down into the expansion joint a set distance.

Select a piece of wood 6 inches to a foot long that easily slips into the crack. Attach a smaller piece of wood to the side of the first piece to act as a "stop" preventing the stick from over insertion into the joint. Now, if the backer rod is only inserted using the stick, the backer rod will end up a uniform distance down from the top of the slabs.

What distance should it be inserted? That depends upon the elastomeric caulk that is inserted next. The Gabriel product from the site above says it can be applied from 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches thick.

Pouring the elastomeric filler (caulk) into the joint can be troublesome. These products are urethane/epoxy (or some other similar compund) and must be mixed as they are being used. They are astoundingly sticky and if you don’t control them they are very messy.

I made a pouring aid out of two thin sheets of aluminum held apart by a wedged wood block. The result looks like an elongated funnel with one open end. The material is poured slowly and accurately into the wide side of the funnel, which is moved along the crack, allowing only sufficient material into the crack to prevent overflow.

The material "flows to level", especially in wide cracks, so wide, sloping joints are a pain. Pour them slowly. Clean the pouring aid often.

Here is some related information. Note that most of these products are designed for industrial use, where maintaining a slab is critical. The following site has innovative tools for setting the backer rod and a self-mixing applicator that looks like an oversize caulking gun: http://www.garonproducts.com/ind/prod/products.asp?cat=23 http://concrete-remediation-products.com/concrete-repair-procedures.php http://www.sauereisen.com/pdf/69.pdf One final note.

Resist any idea of filling the joint with sand or gravel. These are not elastomeric. They will pack into the joint when it is cold and then cause slab cracking on a hot day.

And note, if you do nothing, that is, if you just let the boards rot and permit grasses and trees to grow into the joints, the same thing will happen, but the roots will exert extreme point pressure on the slabs, and cracking won’t take a hot day. Agedwirehead's Recommendations Stanley 55-525 15-inch Super Wonder Bar Pry Bar Amazon List Price: $20.64 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 7 reviews) Vaughan B215 Original SuperBar, 15-Inch Long Amazon List Price: $11.92 Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 (based on 8 reviews) Stanley 55-101 14-Inch FatMax Wrecking Bar Amazon List Price: $8.99 SK Hand Tools 6694 Rolling Head Pry Bar 16" Amazon List Price: $31/20 17" Dominator Prybar (MAY60144) Amazon List Price: $11/21 2-pc. Solid Steel Pry Bar Set Amazon List Price: $1/20 Mayhew Tools 61361 - Dominator® 2 Pc Specialty Pry Bar Set - - Mayhew Tools - MAY61361 Amazon List Price: $91/21 Some of these are expensive tools, a couple are automotive tools.

You need to be cretive sometimes is finding the best tools fo this job. The Original SuperBar is great, but watch your fingers. The Stanley Super Wonder solves some of the finger pinching.

The width and depth of your expansion joints will determine which tools work best.

1 Remove the remaining wood. Tamp down the dirt below to approx. 1.5 inches.

Pour in 1/4 in masonry sand, tamp again - cut cedar, redwood, treated 3/4 in. Boards to the width of the joint - add more masonry sand to fill in around the board - brush/ vibrate the board so the sand fills in. With the remaining 1/4 to 3/8 to the top use a self leveling sealant (sikaflex is good) to fill in around the board &up to about 1/8 from the top of the concrete.Be careful not to get the sealant on the concret .

Remove the remaining wood. Tamp down the dirt below to approx. 1.5 inches.

Pour in 1/4 in masonry sand, tamp again - cut cedar, redwood, treated 3/4 in. Boards to the width of the joint - add more masonry sand to fill in around the board - brush/ vibrate the board so the sand fills in. With the remaining 1/4 to 3/8 to the top use a self leveling sealant (sikaflex is good) to fill in around the board &up to about 1/8 from the top of the concrete.Be careful not to get the sealant on the concret.

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