This article is an excerpt from Episode 14 of Alchemy-Spetec's podcast The Injection Connection, featuring veteran coatings expert Murray Heywood. (If you'd rather view or listen, an audio/visual version of this excerpt is posted at the bottom of the article.)

Murray Heywood: Water is a damaging substance when it gets in and starts working its way through concrete. And no coating - despite claims that people and manufacturers make about withstanding hydrostatic pressure and backside pressure - no, it won't. Not long-term. It might in the beginning until you drive away and maybe even until you cash to check perhaps, but water will be a problem at some point. And the only way to successfully do these things is by stopping the water from getting in. Don't let it get in, in the first place, and then it won't be a problem. That's why we line the insides to protect the surface. So we have to figure out some way to keep the moisture out. So grouting is it. And in a lot of cases, if you're talking about underground things of that nature, there are so many cool tricks that you grout geeks have taught me. These procedures can be done without as much invasive digging and prodding around, and ripping this out and putting this in. And you can do so much of it simply by knowing where to start and drilling holes and pumping grout in. I have learned a lot from you about it...a ton. It's one of those things that comes up all the time, but it's partially ignorance, partially indifference, and then just an afterthought.

Charlie Lerman: Right. I think a lot of it also comes down to - you have GCs and they're focused on their Gantt Charts and how to move this multimillion-dollar project along. Then you're talking about a small percentage of it, or it's not even a percent. It's a problem that's come up and they don't realize the long-term effects of just skipping over that because they're focused on what the fire is at that time right there. So a lot of the times we're brought in, we're dealing with people that are closing out a project or trying to finish it up. Now they're saying, "Oh, well, I heard months ago that it’s going to bite me in the butt and here it is now. I can't get my paycheck because we're still leaking on this tank" or whatnot.

Murray: Right. And probably one of the places that it's understood the most and it's used a lot in this way is the underground, in sewer manhole restoration. Most of the people that are playing in that game now at least understand inflow and infiltration and what it does to the system, and how it wreaks havoc on the plant and their capacity levels. I shouldn't say everybody, but anybody who's in the business has seen the classic manhole eruption. A few years ago, I was down in Louisiana in New Orleans for a conference. I can't remember whether it was WEFTEC or SSBC or something, and just outside our hotel, a huge rain event happened. You could hear the manhole lids dancing all around the streets. You could hear it. You could hear it, and people are saying, "What is that?" I’m replying, "Oh, just watch." Within probably five, six minutes all of a sudden, the manhole lids were coming off - and they're heavy. If you've never lifted one up, they're very heavy. And these things just popped out, and the water was spewing. When people see that, they kind of understand it. But it's understood a little bit more in that market. Where I find that there's a lack of understanding of it is in the wastewater treatment plant itself. Because there are all kinds of problems in water treatment and wastewater treatment with leakage and with cracks. I’ve been walking through plants, and there's just water dripping everywhere. But the mentality of the people who work there is like, "Is that a problem? It’s been doing that for years." They just walk by it, because it's always been there and they've never dealt with it. A lot of times you have to say, "Well, you know there's a solution." And their response is, "Oh, really? You know how to fix that? We've tried everything. We've put hydraulic cement in, and we've tried to plug it with silicone." They've tried everything. I say, "Yeah, there's actually a fairly simple way to fix this."

View the video version of this excerpt...

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