That time I tried to fix a crack in my driveway with $20 stuff from Home Depot

I noticed a crack running across my concrete drive back in October, so I grabbed some cheap caulk and called it done. Two months later the whole thing was a mess, water got under it and made it worse. My neighbor came over and showed me how to actually route out the crack and pack it with proper filler, cost me about $60 total. I was so against spending that much on something I thought was simple. Has anyone else had a cheap fix backfire like that, or am I just bad at this?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_hayden1mo ago

I get what you're saying, but I actually had the opposite luck with that cheap stuff. I used a $15 tube of self-leveling asphalt crack filler on a small spot in my garage (huge mistake, I know) and it held up fine through a whole winter. Maybe it depends on the crack size or climate or something.

price.ray1mo ago

Same luck here up north" - you think temperature swings play a bigger role than the filler quality?

willowg881mo ago

I did a 4 foot crack in my driveway with that same $15 tube last spring and it popped out by October. Temperature swings here in Michigan are brutal, like 80 in September then 20 by November. I think the cheap stuff just doesn't flex enough when the ground moves. Might also be that small spots in a garage don't get the same freeze-thaw action as a full driveway.