Epoxy concrete floor repair usually involves fixing cracks or patching pitted and scaled areas on the surface.
With the right materials and tools fixing a crack in your concrete floor is something you can do yourself.
CONCRETE FLOORS CRACK FOR MANY REASONS:
1. The sub-base wasn't properly compacted and the concrete settled in one area causing the floor to sink and crack.
2. The concrete floor isn't heated in the winter and the dirt under the concrete freezes causing it to expand and lift, or heave, the concrete. This upward pressure will make the concrete crack.
3. Newly poured concrete shrinks when it dries. If no expansion joints are cut into the concrete floor then shrinkage cracks will appear at some point in the future. These are quite common.
There are some other reasons like; pouring the concrete too wet, or too much calcium chloride was added to the mix and it dried too fast, or the concrete wasn't properly cured. All these will lead to shrinkage cracking at some point.
If you determine the concrete floor cracks are due to settling or heaving, then that is a sub-base issue and the concrete may have to be removed to correct that problem. Repairing these cracks will only be temporary if the concrete continues to move up or down.
If you think the concrete floor is done moving, you can repair those cracks and the shrinkage cracks with an epoxy concrete repair material you inject into the crack and add a silica sand for a filler.
This will weld the crack together creating an excellent concrete floor repair.
STEP BY STEP EPOXY CONCRETE REPAIR:
STEP 1. Clean out the crack with a vacuum, remove any loose cement or aggregates.
STEP 2. Inject the concrete crack repair resin into the crack to wet it, it will soon get tacky.
STEP 3. Push the dry silica sand into the crack to fill it.
STEP 4. Thoroughly saturate the sand with the concrete floor crack repair resin and fill it to the surface.
STEP 5. In 10 - 15 minutes scrape the surface level with a putty knife.
STEP 6. Sand the surface smooth or lightly grind it with a hand grinder for a neat appearance.
Filling the crack
Crack after rubbed smooth
Use the moist material you just scraped off with the putty knife to patch any holes or chips in the concrete floor.
Hairline cracks can be done without the sand. Wide cracks can first be filled partially with the sand then start with step 2.
This epoxy crack repair material sets up very quickly, only do 10 - 15 feet at one time.
Applied Technologies
makes a Do It Yourself epoxy concrete repair Kit that has all the repair materials included. They also have a great video that visually explain how to use this epoxy crack patching material.
EPOXY CONCRETE REPAIR VIDEO:
Click on CONCRETE JOINT SEALANT to learn how to install sealant in expansion and contraction joints to keep them from failing.
