Customer Reviews

Dalton Enterprises 35099 PLI-STIX Asphalt and Concrete Crack Filler

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My driveway has all sorts of cracks in it, ranging from small to large diameter. I have tried various methods of repairing the cracks, from trowel filler, to asphalt patch repair, to liquid fillers and crack sealers. By far, this method with the melted sealer is the best. All the other methods eventually fail due to weather, wash-out, and tire traffic, but the Pli-Stix works as it appears impervious to the weather, it bonds to the sides of the crack, and it holds up well to tire traffic. It has become my primary means of repairing larger cracks.

It comes in a 30 foot length. All you do is work the material into the crack with fingers or a hammer, and then melt the material with a torch. It melts readily and fills in the crack, bonding and sealing as it melts and sets up.

Forget the liquid crack sealers - they simply will not work as well as this product.

konedog

Latex-Ite "Pli-Stix" permanent crack filler is WAY too long and confusing a name - how about "Best Driveway Repair"? The beauty of this material is, just like the package says, its permanence. I used some two years ago to repair the joint between my asphalt drive and the concrete floor of my garage, and it's still fixed. Other repair materials I have used from the home improvement stores have been good for at best one season before they had to be re-repaired. The difference is that this product is melted into the crack where it bonds with the material being repaired. I tried a heat gun, but I strongly recommend using a torch as I wound up doing. This repair material will take a little longer to install, but you won't be redoing it over and over again. That's a good thing, and so is this product.

This product really works and probably the only one that works well in my experience. However, unless you are only trying to fill cracks the diameter of the product, it does not work too well the way the package suggest which is to warm it up and stretch it to the diameter of your crack. Most cracks on my drive are small and irregular in shape and if you try to warm and stretch the product, it will stick to your hand.

However, the good news is that if you hold the Pli-stix over the crack and use a blow torch to melt the material and let it drip into the crack, filling it up until approximately 1/8" inch from the surface, you will get a very good fix. A regular blow torch used for copper work does not work well as it is not hot enough, the best torch is one that use MAPP gas with an instant on torch head, this torch will allow you just the right amount of heat. If you drip the stuff outside the crack, just heat it up a bit afterwards and wipe the excess off with a paper towel. This way, you will not have the filler on the surface that may soften and stick to your shoes in the hot summer. To get a nice finish, sealcoat the whole drive afterwards and the whole thing will blend in.

One caveat is to avoid heating the asphalt itself too much with the MAPP gas torch, this can melt the asphalt and allow the liquid asphalt to drain away leaving the granular substrate, this will weaken your asphalt drive. The good thing is that you have to really try hard for this to happen, and if it does happen, drip some if the Pli-stix material on it and glue it back together.

Remmeber, I am not an expert and so use common sense and the above suggestion at your own risk.

The best product for filling driveway cracks, period.

A couple of advices; Sorry if I am repeating what the other reviewers have already said:

Use MAPP-fueled torch (yellow tanks, not green or blue). The hotter, the better!.

To fill narrow cracks, hold the end of the "stick" over the crack, melt it with the torch, and let the tar drip into the crack.

Wear cotton gloves coated in rubber, and keep a small container of cooking oil handy. If you need to touch semi-melted material, dip your fingers lightly in the oil, and it won't stick to the gloves. Just be careful to not let the oil contaminate the surfaces that the material does need to adhere to.

To fill wide cracks, lay two or three strings next to each other and melt them together. Very small gravel poured on the bottom of the crack 1/3 to 1/2 of the way up, will help to save the material.

Wear a face shield!

Have fun!

I was given a free sample of this Pli-Stix product to try. Since I was sealing my driveway this summer, I wanted to try to fill the cracks first.

In the past, I have used a Latexite product that pours from a bottle and hardens in the crack. But for the wider cracks, after 1 year the product has separated from the asphalt and was no good any more. This Pli-Stix is different though. It appears to be some kind of rubber/tar compound that you must heat up to melt over the top of a crack to seal it. I wanted to seal the gap between my driveway and the road gutter, which was about 1/2" wide in spots. So I pushed the Pli-Stix down into the crack and then heated it with a standard propane torch. It was slow to heat (took maybe 60-90 seconds to get to melting temperature), but once it was melted it flowed nicely to the edges of the crack and sealed it up.

The package says that for cracks smaller than the width of the rope, to stretch it out and make it thinner. But I could not stretch and keep it from relaxing back to its original size again. So what I did was cut it into pieces with some scissors and stuffed it into the cracks that way. When you heat it, then it will melt together. Once I was done sealing the cracks, I was able to spread the sealer over the driveway and the crack filler as well. I think it will last a good long time. It looks like it's similar stuff they use to seal cracks in the public roads.

One word of caution, if you are heating with a torch and are sealing next to concrete, don't keep the flame on the concrete too long - or... POP comes a chip of concrete at you! Don't ask me how I know. ;-)

I had a gap across my driveway that went through the entire asphalt layer. I cleaned the gap and filled it by splitting PLI-STIX for thin cracks or doubling when the crack was wide and deep. A few minutes with the torch and the PLI-STIX melted and sealed most of the gap. In a few places the melt fell below the surface leaving a bit of unfilled crack. I added more product and heat. Everything melted together leaving the gap entirely filled and level with the surface. Fast and easy. (Note: Buy the stand-up torch. It spreads a lot more heat than a small torch and saves wear and tear on the back. I also used MAPP which burns hotter than propane.)

A few years ago I tried an asphalt patch in different areas of the driveway. It worked well for a corner that had sunken an inch or so but the asphalt patch didn't work so well in a large crack. This works much better and I'm pleased with the result.

This stuff really works. It seals so much better than the liguid fillers that you pour into the crack. I used an acetylene torch to melt the filler rope into the crack. Very simple to use. One can also use a heat gun to melt the filler into the cracks. This product truly seals and sticks to the concrete. My previous experience with liquid fillers was marginally okay at best. The liquid fillers do not stick well to the concrete.

I used the product to seal a crack between my sidwalk and driveway. The crack was from 1/4 inch to 1 inch in width. I found the instructions to be both clear and complete. The product was packaged well and came with a membrane that keeps the one-half inch diameter rope-like coil from sticking to itself in the package.

The product is truly a permanent repair for such a crack. Unlike cold application products, pli-stix is permanently bonded to each side of the crack. It appears that as outdoor temperatures change and the crack moves, the rubber-like pli-stix will stretch and contract accordingly.

I found the product to be somewhat labor intensive to apply. One must heat the product in the crack with a propane torch until it melts and thus bonds to the sides of the crack. I had to continually add small pieces to my crack to fill irregularly-sized voids.

I had trouble keeping the pli-stix from blackoning the edge of the sidewalk. Instead of a nice, straight, seam, the project left an irregular line of separation between the grey concrete and the black asphalt. The project would look nicer if the asphalt was an least a half inch lower in elevation than the top of the sidewalk.

* READ THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR SAFETY ADVICE you don't want to

get this stuff on you when it is HOT - even a small spec burns

your skin~ (testament)

* Stix works easiest for .5+" cracks

* Make sure you clean the crack of debris before using stix

* The plastic wrapping around the stix burns off, don't remove it.

* Cut and place a couple of stixs next together for wider cracks

* Use the torch to melt the stix above smaller cracks

(use the end of the heated stix to feather the edges and than

a quick touch of the torch over the surface to level out.

The hardest problem in the whole project was keeping the torch

LITE. When you turn the torch upside down it goes out since the

propellant is inversed. My final solution was to buy a propane hose

and set the container upright on the concrete. You can also

purchase an adapted for your propane BBQ cylinder if you

have a big project.

* Use Mapp gas if possible (hotter and takes less time to heat up)

* Useful tools: old chisel and hammer to clean out crack edges,

small brush to clean out crack, gloves, old sissors or knife to

cut rope.

* You may after to reapply a second coat if your into "cosmetic"

finishes.

* This product is also available at many hardware stores for about $11

* After initial application it will seem "gummy" but it continues to

harden more after a few days.

* If a crack appears after the seal just just your torch on the area to reseal.

This is a good product but it is time intensive to do a good job BUT you will reap the benefits over the long haul. I had some "professionals" do my driveway 2 years ago and all they did was to DUMP some oil in the cracks. Now I am physically able again to do it right and this product really makes a real difference.

Over the last 6 years, I've used every imaginable crack filler/sealant I could find on the market. This one stands out, head and shoulders above anything I've used. The repairs I made on my driveway 3 years ago with this one are still holding up just fine while the other places I tried different products are either cracked again, or peeled off completely. It requires about the same amount of time and effort to use a torch to melt these down as it takes to use a caulk gun-type crack filler/sealant. These also have the advantage that they can actually gap much greater distances when necessary, where the others lose adhesion because of the size/shape of the crack. It just melts and stays there. Excellent product.