Alchatek Blog

Unstable soil can be defined as soil that will not stay in place on its own, and there­fore requires extra support. It should be noted that unstable soil can threaten the stability, security, and safety of infrastructure and can damage, degrade, and even destroy a number of structures, such as buildings, bridges, and roads. There are a variety of factors that can cause unstable soil including erosion, poor compaction, freeze/thaw cycles and decomposition.

Alchemy-Spetec's H40 is a solvent and phthalate free, water reactive, hydrophobic, one-component low viscosity polyurethane injection resin designed for soil stabilization. You can use this product to stabilize soil underneath bridge approach slabs, warehouse floors, side walks and many other concrete structures.

You can also use H40 for curtain wall grouting, the process of injecting water reactive resin behind a leaking wall in a grid pattern. The water on the other side mixes with the grout and cures to a solid mass covering the surface of the wall on the other side.

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The past few months have been a little hectic in the upper west side of the country lately. In Seattle, Washington there has been construction taking place in the region’s most congested traffic area. The Northgate Link tunnel is being extended to connect the Northgate, Roosevelt and U District neighborhood transit stations to downtown Seattle and the airport.

One of our contractor customers has been an ongoing asset to this project as they have been patching the tunnel walls while the construction of these links have been in progress. They've also been patching cross hatches (the short passage way between two sections of tunnel). The main product being used for these projects happens to be Alchemy-Spetec's GT350.

Click here to read our previous blog post on GT350.

This particular polyurethane resin is ideal for waterproofing and shutting off water leaks permanently.
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The residential waterproofing market is huge and can be quite the cash cow for contractors who enjoy tending to a constant stream of smaller jobs. Let's review common residential waterproofing issues and the Alchemy-Spetec products you can use to address them.

Leaks - Concrete Walls

This is the most common problem in the residential market, most often found in basements. You can repair leaks in poured concrete and pre-cast walls with Alchemy-Spetec’s F400. This hydrophobic grout will not shrink after application, during spells of dryer weather. In addition, this product has a thin composition and can penetrate fine, hairline cracks. The application process involves injecting the cracks with the resin, which then reacts with the leaking water to form a durable watertight seal. 

Leaks - Non-Concrete Walls

Many basement walls are made of brick, block, stone or rubble. Leaks in these types of walls require a process called curtain wall grouting (a.k.a. “through-wall” grouting). Curtain wall grouting involves drilling holes in a grid pattern and injecting Alchemy-Spetec’s AP 700 through the wall to form a waterproof curtain on the other side.

Leaks - Floor/Wall Intersection

Sometimes builders will neglect to use a leak seal product at this critical joint in the structure where the floor and wall meet. Even if they do seal these joints initially, with a mediocre product there will be failure over time. When faced with these types of issues, you can inject F400 for a lasting, durable repair. This application process is similar to crack injection for leaks in concrete walls as described above.

For more details on these application methods, click here for my blog series on Crack Injection and Curtain Wall Grouting.

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It's time for another product profile. But THIS is unlike any of the others I've discussed in the past. How, you ask? It's a designed to be mixed with up to EIGHT parts water, so you can create large quantities of this gel from the pails or cartridges you buy from us.

What Is GT1100?

GT1100 is a water reactive, hydrophilic, one-component flexible polyurethane injection gel that is designed to cut off water leaks.

What are the applications & advantages?

GT1100 can be used in many applications. It can be used to shut off water leaks in concrete, brickwork, sewers, diaphragm walls, piling sheets, secant piles as well as curtain grouting behind tunnels, concrete, brickwork and sewer walls. This resin can be used to seal water-carrying cracks and joints in tunnel segments by injecting water-cut off membranes and liners. It's also used for curtain grouting and soil stabilization.

Depending on the amount of water you mix it with, this resin can be set to cure to a rubbery foam or a stable gel. Once cured, GT1100 is highly flexible. That's why, as I mentioned earlier, it's suited for structures that have a high degree of settlement and movement.

Packaging

GT1100 is available in 5 gallon pails and 10.5oz. cartridges (12 per case).

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What is Epicol T?

Epicol T is a putty with a simple mixing ratio that's primarily used for surface sealing cracks before the application of Epicol INJ for structural repair. Due to its malleability, it can be worked even after curing to fix mishaps. Its adhesive power is extremely high and once fully cured for a few hours it will become hard and impermeable. (Epicol T can also be applied underwater. It sticks to wood, stone, concrete and metal.)

What is the installation process for Epicol T?

Preparing the Application and Mixing

Make sure the surface is clean. Wear plastic gloves. Fill a bucket with water and wet the gloves.

Use equal quantities of Component A and Component B. Knead both components together until they become a homogeneous grey color. Keep the gloves wet while kneading. For better malleability: place both packets in warm water before mixing.

Application

Apply the putty with a good amount of pressure. Extra pressure ensures better adhesion, even on a rough surface when it is not perfectly clean. The surface can be smoothed out with wet gloves.

Use

Epicol T is cured after 12 hours. It is fully mechanically loadable after 4 days and chemically loadable after 7 days. The curing process can be sped up with warm air (maximum 158°F).

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In today’s blog post I am going to talk about Epicol INJ LV.

What is Epicol INJ LV?

Epicol INJ LV is a low-viscosity, long pot life epoxy resin designed for the structural bonding of cracks and micro cracks in dry or wet concrete. The low-viscosity allows this epoxy resin to deeply penetrate micro cracks and the long pot life allows the material to be injected as a single component. It has good chemical resistance to alkalis, petroleum derivatives, acid, diluted organic acids, salts and other solutions.

What is the installation process for Epicol INJ LV?

I'll briefly outline the installation process for you below, so you have an idea how the product is used. As with all of our products, don't hesitate to call us at 404-618-0438 for assistance.

Preparing the Application Surface

Clean the surface. Install injection ports. Apply a 2 to 3 inch wide band of Epicol T to seal the crack. Allow surface seal to cure prior to injection.

Mixing

Use a mechanical mixer to pre-mix Component A before use. Add the full amount of Component B and mix at 300 RPM for 3 minutes or until the mixture is homogeneous. Scrape the sides and the bottom of the container as you mix.

When Injecting Into Concrete

Epicol INJ-LV can be injected with a low pressure pump. The injection starts at the lowest point for vertical applications and at the smallest crack for horizontal ones. Start the injection at the first port. Inject the crack until the resin reaches the next port and repeat this procedure until the crack is completely filled. Never mix more resin than can be used within the pot life. Rinse the pump with a solvent. After one day the ports can be removed.

Use

Epicol INJ-LV can be mechanically loaded after 48 hours

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Over the years, I have been asked countless times for the best way to seal pipe penetrations and other irregular annular spaces, including how to seal pipe penetrations effectively. Pipe penetration scenarios often have to do with water supply lines, electrical conduits and gas lines just to name a few. The main concern is creating a durable watertight seal between the outside of the pipe and the structure the pipe is penetrating through.

Use oakum soaked in a resin such as F400, AP Seal 500, F1000, AP Fill 700 or H100. The soaked oakum can then be packed around the annular space, and forced back into the opening of the cracks with a screwdriver or similar tool. Soaking and packing the oakum this way creates a firm gasket that stops any immediate leaks. The next step is to inject one of these resins behind the gasket using an injection needle (contact us for more information on injection needles).

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Alchemy-Spetec products have many uses. Sometimes it's helpful to consider ways in which the products compliment alternate repair applications already being practiced in our industry. Today I'll take a look at how some of our products can assist in the application known as spin casting.

Spin casting is the process of sealing manholes and corrugated pipes that have deteriorated. A spinning machine evenly casts an epoxy coating around the inside surface of the structure. There's one essential pre-requisite, however - that inside surface needs to be dry for the coating to last.

This is where polyurethane leak seal products such as AP Fill 700 and H100 can be very helpful. The resins can be injected from the inside of the structure through drill holes to form a watertight barrier in the soil on the outside. These resins react with moisture to form a watertight seal. 

Our technical staff is very familiar with the process of spin casting. If you're doing this type of work and would like to talk about sealing leaks with resins, give us a call at 404-618-0438.

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As mentioned in the previous blog post Stop Erosion Through Your Seawall with Polyurethane:

When it comes to seawalls, there is a lot more to learn than meets the eye. A seawall is like a living, breathing thing: especially in the way that they are designed to function. But like all living breathing things, they have a finite lifespan. For many of them, it's a mere 20 – 30 years. For many seawalls, their lifespan is a mere 20-30 years and depending on where you live, replacing a seawall can cost anywhere from $150 to $500 per foot. Today however, signs of seawall distress can be solved before they get too bad through the application of polyurethane grouts to seal leaks, fill voids, and stabilize the surrounding soils.

Now that you're armed with this information, let’s take a look at a few advantages of pursuing large industrial seawall projects over residential projects.

Higher Budgets/Larger Areas Needing Repair

Industrial customers tend to have higher budgets. Commercial/industrial clients will usually have larger areas of seawall in need of repair than your typical residential customer.

Additional Properties

Industrial property owners and managers are more likely to have additional properties needing repair. After you complete your first job for an industrial customer, keep in touch with them regularly so that you're top of mind when their next seawall repair problem arises.

More Bang for Your Buck

Think about it this way. You have to spend a certain amount of your marketing budget per lead anyways. Why not focus that money on industrial sized customers? You're more likely to get a higher return on your investment in the short term and seriously scale up your business in the long term.

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Recently in Queens, New York, a property owner came to our customer George Laubshire of LJS Waterproofing with an incredibly dire problem. Previous contractors poured an 8000 square foot, 36 inch deep slab for him. But they skipped a critical step: They did not waterproof the slab. It turns out that there was water running through underneath. Within a few months the concrete began to completely fail.

The property owner tried to use a diesel pump to get the water out. As you can likely guess, this didn't help much (even after 6 months of running the pump 24 hours a day). By this point over 60 psi of water was pouring out of cracks. In some places, water shot out about 6 inches above the concrete floor. Oakum was applied to slow the water down. But the pressure was so high that it essentially blew the oakum back out - even when the contractors were trying to stomp the oakum down into the cracks.

After careful evaluation, we recommended they use AP Fill 700 (paired with the catalyst AP 107). We advised the contractor to drill ports at an even distance from each other, and then slowly inject AP Fill 700. First they curbed the water flow, and then eventually they permanently remedied the problem. The soil under the slab was solidified to the point that the water in the ground had no choice but to flow somewhere else. After months of failed repair attempts by other contractors, the property owner was happy to finally get this problem resolved.

Afterwards our customer George Laubshire said to me, "Anthony, I've been pumping grout for years. And this is the best product that I have ever used. This product will make any contractor into a hero!"

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