Weed-Free Driveways and Sidewalks: The Ultimate Solution!

How are you guys doing? I'm Scott, with everyday home repairs. I want to help you address a very common companion within them during the growing season around our house and that's where they have an expansion joint, maybe in the driveway or

sidewalks

, or maybe it's just a crack that it forms over time and you continue to have

weed

s or any other type of vegetation that continues to grow through it and no matter how many times you pull these

weed

s or spray them, they just come back within a couple of weeks, so I have two of my main culprits here right at the entrance to my driveway which I'm going to address today.

Let's clean this up and get a semi-permanent

solution

. This should solve your problem for a whole season, but then two, we'll put the permanent

solution

in, we'll remove this from your to-dos so you can focus on those other house projects, so let's get into it now, it could be as simple as this, just we have to go deeper. To remove grass and weeds you could use an old flathead screwdriver like this one, it will take quite a bit of work and you'll also want to dig to get those roots out. Now, if you have a string trimmer, you can cut through them.

Expansion joints are like an edging operation in which not only is the vegetation cut, but some of the soil or debris inside the expansion joint is also expelled, but even with the use of the trimmer of thread you're probably going to be left with something like this where you still have quite a bit of soil built up and this is like a flower pot, it's pretty perfect for greenery, so to make sure we don't have that ideal scenario, go ahead and grab your garden hose and work . your way down the expansion joint by shooting the jet down the expansion joint where you can get quite a bit of that material out where you can dig a couple of inches below the concrete surface, start from the high side and then work that ground to the low side, this low side is the street in this case, so I'm going to remove the rest of the dirt from that surface and then move on to my second expansion joint, taking my time and really letting the water do the work.

If you shoot that current down the expansion joint horizontally, you'll see it start to hit the hard surface of that compacted earth and be careful because this can hit you back and get you wet or muddy in the process and then it'll slowly go down and this will get all the dirt and dirt off of these expansion joints quickly and then after a little bit of drying time you'll be ready for the next step so now things have dried and for that temporary fix I'll do it which should last you about six months, now you're spraying some Preen on this actual expansion joint.

Now, if you need a reference, you can look at the link below this video to our Amazon store and in the outside section you will be able to see this product and the other products that we feature throughout this video as a reference to use in your own projects in house, so we'll just go through and spray this letting it sit in that crack and then that's it. A temporary solution when it rains again, this expansion joint will be refilled with more soil and debris, but the Preen granules should remain in that soil to help prevent those weeds from growing by killing them at the root, but for that solution permanent, let's go ahead and actually seal these expansion joints making sure that no water or light gets into the expansion joint which would promote weed growth.

You will want to check and see what the actual measurement of the space is. You can use a tape measure, but I just use a carpenter's tape measure. pencil because it's actually a half inch by a quarter inch and it's a good reference, now for mine it's mostly a half inch which means I'd like to get a backer rod which is the first step in this 5 8 process about an inch, but it's also nice to have some a little bigger ones, so I'll buy 5 8, that's the small one there, 5 8 in diameter and three quarters of an inch because you want the backing rod to be tight in the actual space when I press it into place, so I'm going to go over it and use the carpenter's pencil again just to press the backer rod down and really what you're trying to do is place the backer rod consistently about a quarter of an inch below of the concrete surface at the bottom. of the two concrete surfaces, so I can slide the carpenter's pencil.

Remember that it measures a quarter of an inch, so again it serves as a good reference mark. Now I will emphasize again that it must be tight in the gap if you don't do your If you tighten the rod in the gap again, you would get something that looks like this, with a baccarat that actually floats up and the sealant surrounds it and it is not the same to the final product that you want, so I'm going to go ahead and continue with my 5 8. of an inch of backing rod and I'm leaving small sections open, those sections are a little bit larger so I would go back with the three eights, sorry, three quarter inch backer rod filling them where needed, now you want to press them. two sections that join with the back rod, remember that we don't want to leave any holes that could cause problems in the final fit and finish, so as with most projects, the success is really in the prep work, so if the backing rod is in place, it is firm.

It's not going to float to the top, you're ready to apply the sealant. I use two different products. I use a Sika self-leveling product whenever I have a completely horizontal surface with no slope. This is a great product. He put up with me. for several years on some of the other cracks I have repaired in this canal. I also really like the tremco Vulcan 45 SSL. I'm actually going to use it on this crack right in the middle because it's got a little bit of a slope where I wouldn't want to use the Seca because the Seca will pool to one side if you're not careful and again you'll find the ones in the Amazon store for your reference.

I'm using the 29 ounce tubes but I only know if If you have a smaller job you can usually get the standard 10 ounce tubes as well and the tremco is a limestone it's not ideal to mix like colors but I'll show you a trick too to help blend them into your driveway. Now, when starting out, you'll just want to take your time and rest the tip of the tube on the concrete, which helps me apply it evenly. This is self-leveling, so it will settle. It doesn't have to be perfect in terms of your application now that it's very windy outside. today, since I'm actually spraying some sand almost right away, usually I would wait 30-45 minutes to let it settle a little and then I would sprinkle on the sand, but today, since I don't want sticks and leaves, petals and dirt to blow into the putty and then get trapped there.

I'm putting sand pretty much right away now the sand will help blend so that's the key since I had gray zika which I'm using in these longer cracks and then I had Limestone tremco the sand will help it blend and it you will see in the finished product. You want to take your time. I've had some problems in the past and ran into a few problems when trying to apply this in direct sunlight when it was about 80 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. What I've seen is that it can bubble up a little bit and then the overall finish isn't the best, so it's about 65 degrees.

It's very windy outside in degrees Fahrenheit, which isn't ideal, but applying that sand on top helps minimize the amount of stuff that's going to blow through and then sit there while it's settling. Now fill in these two cracks, sprinkle that sand and then I'll take out the tremco product. I wish I had a 10 ounce tube because this is just a nice little run to put the tremco in, but here is the finished product and you'll see how it mixes in Seca with a fine layer of sand. the top really helps integrate that into the driveway and then transition to that perpendicular crack there which is the tremco 45 SSL and Limestone, which looks pretty good now, believe it or not, a regular pool noodle is just a monster backing rod, so if some of your cracks are irregularly shaped and measure more than an inch in diameter.

Watch the video here and I'll show you how I use pool noodle to fix a large crack in one of my rental properties. So thank you for joining me in this video. We'll see you next time, take care.