WHY AN EXPANSION JOINT?
Building materials comprising of walls and ceilings move due to thermal expansion and contraction, structural shifts, and seismic activity. These forces mandate the need for purpose-designed gaps that permit the building materials to move independently of one another without damage. Smaller planned crack locations are considered control joints while other locations need to accommodate greater movement and therefore require larger gaps. These larger gaps need to be fitted with structural expansion joint fillers. It is important to fill these joints with a sealant or expansion joint system, which preserves the attributes of the wall. These attributes may include a designated fire rating, sound attenuation, watertightness, wind resistance or a thermal rating. Many expansion joint systems on the market don’t take into consideration the importance of these requirements and only function on an aesthetic level at best. The ideal solution would match the attributes of the expansion joint syste
