LESLIE: Jacob in Arkansas is on the line with a crack in the garage. Tell us what’s going on.
JACOB: My wife and I have recently bought a new house and there’s a crack above the garage. It’s more cosmetic where it gets no – none of the support. But it goes through the brick and the mortar and so I was wondering if there’s a certain kind of putty or way I can fill this in so the water doesn’t get inside of it.
TOM: Yeah. And that’s exactly what you want to do. Now, mind you, the brick is also going to be porous, so it will still get wet. But if you want to stop water from getting in there, most importantly freezing and making the crack worse, what I would recommend you do is to seal that crack with a clear silicone caulk.
Now, when you buy the silicone, Jacob, you can buy it in a large tube or a small tube. If it’s just that one crack, I would just buy a small tube. But here’s the trick: when you cut the tip of that tube, you want to cut it so you have a very small hole there that the caulk won’t kind of come out in a big glob. You can always make it larger. But of course, once you cut it, you can’t make it any smaller. So then get up on a ladder, get real close to that.
And sometimes, with silicone, it’s pretty thick, especially if it’s cold. You may have to really squeeze it to get it to come out. But it doesn’t clean up with soap and water, so just try to kind of lay it on there nice and even. That’ll stop the water from falling into the crack and you should be good to go.
JACOB: Awesome. Thank you, guys.
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