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Channel 4 News Brief video

Street creep is a phenomenon that is occurring in concrete streets everywhere. Damage from street creep occurs as a result of nature’s uncontrollable affect on concrete slabs and joints. When considering street creep, nature affects concrete slabs two different ways, gravity and thermal (temperature change) expansion and contraction.

The first natural affect, gravity, literally causes streets to move or slide toward homes. This movement of concrete slabs from gravity is the most unpredictable. No person can predict when and where the concrete slabs will move. The most common locations are hills and street curves. Also, there is no definite way to predict how far these streets will move. Conventional expansion joints (fiber and wood) are not wide enough to allow the vast amount of movement of streets towards homes.

The second natural affect is thermal expansion and contraction. Thermal expansion and contraction occurs when the temperature changes over the course of a year. Everything in nature expands and contracts when temperatures increase and decrease. Conventional expansion joints (fiber and wood) deteriorate and allow rock and grit to settle into the joint during the colder months when the concrete is contracted. The rock and grit remain trapped in the joint when the concrete expands in the warmer months. This dirt and grit does not allow any expansion and causes the forces from the slab to increase.

From these natural affects on concrete a chain reaction occurs as follows:

Concrete slabs move toward homes exceeding the amount of conventional expansion causing the pressure between the slabs to increase uncontrollably.
Conventional expansion material deteriorates allowing uncompressible material into the joint eliminating any space for expansion.
Thermal expansion occurs from the warmer temperature causing the pressure between the joints to increase uncontrollably.
Increased pressure between the slabs causes the garage floor slab to push against the front, back and side foundation walls.
The foundation wall that is not designed to handle these forces cracks uncontrollably. Your home in the blink of an eye has depreciated in value.

There is no way to control nature. We can only prepare for what nature will bring. Our seamless, extruded, rubber expansion joint has been specifically designed to protect your home from natures potential. The only way to prepare your concrete for nature’s potential is to install our expansion joint.