That hairline crack on my last driveway pour taught me a lesson the hard way

I finished a driveway in Naperville last Tuesday and spotted a tiny hairline crack by the garage apron the next morning. I thought it was just surface stuff from the sun, so I brushed it off and sealed it. Come Friday, that crack had spiderwebbed half the pad because I didn't wet cure it long enough in the heat. Anyone else had a small flaw blow up on them after you thought it was fine?

2 comments

2 Comments

gray_roberts11d agoMost Upvoted

Did you use any kind of control joints on that apron or just wing it?

shah.ben11d ago

Hairline cracks by the apron are rarely just sun work - they usually mean the slab settled a little different there because the ground under the apron was compacted differently than the rest of the pad. Wet curing longer helps, but that joint where the apron meets the garage floor is always a weak spot if you didn't put a saw cut right there to control where it cracks. Control joints on the apron itself wouldn't have stopped that crack from running back into the main pad if the slab was moving from that spot.