Old foreman told me not to trust self-leveling sealer, turns out he was right

I was working on a parking garage in Denver last month and used a self-leveling joint sealer on the expansion joints. My foreman warned me it wouldn't hold up in freezing temps, but I figured it was faster and easier. Three weeks later, half the joints cracked open after a cold snap. Now I'm going back to the two-part epoxy he recommended. Has anyone else had trouble with self-leveling sealers on outdoor slabs?

2 comments

2 Comments

hill.david1d ago

Oh man, that's rough but not surprising. I tried a self-leveling sealer on my own driveway a couple years ago in Colorado Springs. Looked great for like a week, then a chipmunk could have walked across it and cracked it open. My old boss had this saying, "If it sounds too easy for concrete, it's lying to you." I ended up ripping it all out and going with a cold-applied mastic that smelled terrible but actually held up through three winters so far. Lesson learned, I guess, we all gotta learn the hard way sometimes.

richard_sanchez4322h ago

That cold-applied mastic is the way to go if you're patient enough to deal with the smell. Did the same thing on a sloped walkway near my place, and it's been holding strong through four freeze-thaw cycles now. The learning curve on this stuff is real, but once you find what works, you stick with it.