This article is an excerpt from Episode 13 of Alchemy-Spetec's podcast The Injection Connection, featuring Erin Rothman - Founder and CEO of StormSensor. (If you'd rather view or listen, an audio/visual version of this excerpt is posted at the bottom of the article.)

Charlie Lerman: Have you ever found or identified anything that’s just an anomaly, something that's completely unexpected that you surprised the city with, or anything like that?

Erin Rothman: Once or twice, yes. One example was in Memphis. We were working as part of a larger group to do a model validation study for the storm system because Memphis was dealing with a lot of flooding. And most model validation studies have sensors that are deployed in a limited number of locations and for a very short period of time - one to three months usually. We were deployed for about six months before we got a call claiming that all of our sensors were broken because we were reading four feet of depth, four feet of water in all of the pipes. And that it was flowing backward, and all that was impossible. This is why whoever was running the project didn't like new technology.

But we're thinking like, for every sensor to show this, there's got to be something. I mean, we've never seen it with even one sensor, but if the whole thing's acting up... So, we called the city and they had no idea what was going on. We asked them to go check it out and they came back and said, "Oh, my gosh, there is four feet of water in these pipes and it's flowing backward!" What could possibly be going on? So, they talked to the guys at the plant on the Mississippi River and they said, "Oh, yeah, every time the river hits a certain stage, we open up the gates and then use the storm system for storage." But you're telling me that it goes more than a mile into the system.

So, what we had is a situation where no one really understood that the river was filling the storm system and taking up at least half the capacity on a pretty regular basis. So, when you combine heavy rain and high-water levels, all of which are going into a storm system that is designed to hold only rainwater, you have some pretty significant flooding impacts. Now, what they do is before a storm comes, they close the gates, empty out the storm system, and clear that out.

This article is an excerpt from Episode 13 of Alchemy-Spetec's podcast The Injection Connection, featuring Erin Rothman - Founder and CEO of StormSensor. (If you'd rather view or listen, an audio/visual version of this excerpt is posted at the bottom of the article.)

Charlie Lerman: So, Erin, first off, let's talk about what StormSensor does.

Erin Rothman: Generally, we work with cities across the country to help them understand how much water moves through their storm sewer and coastal systems. We're deployed in every region of the United States. We are in sanitary systems, combined systems, and storm systems. And now we're also looking above ground. We're basically monitoring the volume of water that's moving through these systems and then combining that data with climate information to identify trends that may be tied to storm events versus those that are related more to groundwater or other I&I issues.

Charlie: So, ideally then, you're gaining real-time data detailing what's going on in your system rather than just some snapshot stuff?

Erin: Exactly. We typically deploy for a minimum of a year. Pretty dense resolution networks. Some are installed at almost every junction. These systems are so variable that understanding what's happening between them can give you an idea of where you can target specific mitigation actions.

Moisture and Coating Failure

When you look into why coatings fail, moisture is always in the top five reasons. It's often the main reason in below-grade structures. Coatings can act as negative side waterproofing even if that was not their intended purpose. Water and time are powerful forces, look at the Grand Canyon.

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Episode 13 of The Injection Connection: Who budgets $188 million annually to treat groundwater? The state of Tennessee does, not that they want to. A 2014 study (Kurz I/I Survey) found that roughly 45% of the water treated from their collection system was from inflow. But the treatment costs are just part of the issue. Inflow can and often does wash fines into the collection system. This has many effects. One, reduced system capacity due to these soils sitting in the pipes. Two, potential sinkholes from the loss of soils over time. A third impact is the increased wear and tear on the system, especially lift station pumps. Lastly, and the easiest to see is sanitary overflows and backups that pollute the environment and can damage property. So, with such a clear issue that obviously needs addressing, why isn’t it being addressed? In this episode, Charlie Lerman discusses these issues with Erin Rothman, the CEO & Founder of StormSensor.

Watch the episode in its entirety below, or check it out on TheInjectionConnection.com and the following platforms:

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• SoundCloud
• Google Podcasts
• YouTube

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In this post, I provide an overview of a series of articles I wrote in 2018 on the basics of starting up a slab lifting business.

Subjects Covered in This Series

In this blog post series, we address some of the key points and considerations that slab-lifting startups frequently face. With so many years of market experience, we are uniquely positioned and qualified to offer this guidance. Because we are passionate about what we do, we are motivated to be part of your success story! Some of the topics we will cover include:

• Key Considerations
• Identifying your target market
• Selling to your potential customers
• Marketing your business
• Essential gear & accessories for starting your business

So You’re Thinking About Starting a Slab Lifting Company: Key Considerations

Slab lifting is an economical alternative to complete concrete replacement, be it a simple sidewalk repair or providing a cost-effective remedy for an entire building foundation.

If someone asked you to drive to Seattle, would you get in your car and take off, or would you look at a map first? A business and marketing plan is the roadmap for your slab lifting/concrete leveling business. It will help you define and stay true to your path, and it’s a tool you will need to attain startup financing.

Whether your goal is to launch a slab lifting venture that caters to home or business owners, you also will need a dependable, knowledgeable supplier who will not only sell you slab lifting pumps, guns and foams - but also serve as a trusted advisor.
Click here to read more...

Slab Lifting Market Hot Zones

Once you’re ready to make the move to start up a slab lifting business, one of your first areas of focus should be identifying and defining your service areas and your potential customer base within each sector or area. Broadly speaking, there are three viable market segments to explore for slab lifting services: Residential, Commercial, and Municipal.
Click here to read more...

Selling the Customer: Why Polyurethane Slab Lifting Is the Better Choice

The first question any engineer will ask is “Does the solution fit the needs of the application?” When it comes to structural foams used for slab lifting repair projects, you can confidently answer “yes.” But if you want to guide your customer to a concrete leveling repair solution, you should also be able to illustrate the pros, explain the cons, and enunciate the selling points.
Click here to read more...

Marketing Your Slab Lifting Business

Marketing your new slab lifting business takes time and the right approach. If your slab lifting business is a small to medium-sized operation, tools and strategies that increase your market presence and help you attract leads are extremely important.
Click here to read more...

Essential Gear for Starting Your Next Generation Slab Lifting Business

Slab lifting with polymers is rapidly replacing old technologies because it’s fast, strong, doesn’t shrink, and has a low impact on the environment. So it’s no surprise that we get a lot of inquiries from contractors interested in adding this service, in addition to individuals wanting to create a startup slab lifting business. So what exactly are we talking about in terms of the essential gear?

A slab lifting rig is a rolling business unto itself. It is a self-contained, turnkey, mobile unit that has all of the equipment necessary to perform the work. There are a variety of configurations but all of these setups will contain the following: Trailer or Box Truck, Power Source, Compressed Air System, Fluid Transfer System, Proportioner Pump, Heated Hoses, and Impingement Gun. Let’s look at these in more detail.
Click here to read more...

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This article is an excerpt from Episode 12 of Alchemy-Spetec's podcast The Injection Connection, featuring Outside Sales Representative at All-Tex Supply, Inc. Josh Van Hook. Josh has over 18 years of experience as a distributor in Austin, TX and one of his passions has been chemical grouts. (If you'd rather view or listen, an audio/visual version of this excerpt is posted at the bottom of the article.)

Charlie Lerman: As manufacturers, we love to do all these demos and training sessions and all that kind of stuff. As a dealer, what do you see that seems to be most effective, that helps out your contractors the most, and that leads to more sales generation for you guys?

Josh Van Hook: In my eyes, as a distributor, we get paid to keep material on the shelf and keep stuff in stock. To me, that's probably the most important thing: being able to provide the product to the customer when it's needed. Unfortunately, chemical grouts are not something that most people have plenty of time to plan ahead for, and put together orders and wait for them to be shipped in. As a distributor, that’s what I’ve always focused on. One point I emphasize to the guys that have worked under me (and the guys that I’ve worked for have emphasized to me) is that you've got to have material to be able to sell it. That's the number one thing in my mind regarding a benefit that we can provide to the contractors. That and a little bit of knowledge.

Charlie: Exactly as I led off with at the beginning of our conversation, the three most important things - first off is it there? So, I remember when I was a contractor, we had a chemical grout company talk to us and it sounded great. We were all set, we're going to switch over to their products. And like, when do we get it? Like, you let us know and we'll ship it out to you, it’ll be there in three days. Like, okay, we're done here.

Josh: Yeah, that doesn't work. From our side of it, if we have it, we're going to sell it. That's the main thing.

View the video version of this excerpt...

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This article is an excerpt from Episode 12 of Alchemy-Spetec's podcast The Injection Connection, featuring Outside Sales Representative at All-Tex Supply, Inc. Josh Van Hook. Josh has over 18 years of experience as a distributor in Austin, TX and one of his passions has been chemical grouts. (If you'd rather view or listen, an audio/visual version of this excerpt is posted at the bottom of the article.)

Charlie Lerman: Going back through 18 years, what are a couple of unique, interesting jobs that pop up in your mind, specific grout jobs?

Josh Van Hook: There are quite a few. One of the first ones that I was on, this was probably 15 years ago, where I actually went to the site with one of my old bosses at that point in time - it was an elevator pit and the shaft was leaking. This was the first time I'd ever been on to a job site down in that capacity.  I sat there in the corner and just watched as they lowered the smallest guy on the crew down into a manhole or up to the elevator shaft, with a tube of grout and he started injecting. Obviously, that one sticks out just because it was one of the first ones I was on.

Charlie: Was that right next to a quarry?

Josh: That was, yep. I believe you were out there.

Charlie: We were on that together! Holy cow! I totally forgot about that job.

Josh: Like I said, for some reason after all these years, that's the one that sticks out the most. And then, there are some pretty neat ones down in San Antonio. There was a botanical garden job that we were on and we got to go out there on a regular basis. And it's just neat seeing some of that stuff and then also watching the contractors work. Some of those guys are like artists in how they do that kind of stuff.

Charlie: There are some people that are just really incredible and almost to the prima donna point where they've got to have everything set up perfectly. But yeah, they can massage the grout and do some special things out there. That one at the elevator pit, they were lowering a guy down into the shaft. There were only like 36 inches and it was filling up with water. He had like five minutes of work and then we had to pull him up. We'd get the pipe down there, drain it. It just kept going back and forth.

Josh: Yeah, and I was still green at that point. I’m sitting in the back corner just wondering to myself, what did I get myself into? And here we are, still doing it.

View the video version of this excerpt...

Want some information on Alchemy-Spetec products?

This article is an excerpt from Episode 12 of Alchemy-Spetec's podcast The Injection Connection, featuring Outside Sales Representative at All-Tex Supply, Inc. Josh Van Hook. Josh has over 18 years of experience as a distributor in Austin, TX and one of his passions has been chemical grouts. (If you'd rather view or listen, an audio/visual version of this excerpt is posted at the bottom of the article.)

Charlie Lerman: One of the things I’d like to say - and I hope you can add on to this because it's right there in the Austin area - is there's a standard kind of tick you'll find from distribution that people just come in, pick up a couple of pails a month or something like that. But then, we have these what I like to call “grout nirvana” jobs that just all sudden pop up. They're typically no bid. I think within the last couple of years, we had (without really going to the contractor's name or the job specifically) a close to $50, 000 just on the grout material side job that came up within a few days there, right?

Josh Van Hook: Yeah, obviously the grouting world is very up and down due to the weather pattern, too. And so, we'll go for a stretch without selling anything really big. Then all of a sudden, you'll have something break loose and you'll have a bunch of rain or you'll have the weather change. And all of a sudden, it’s nothing to sell 25, 50, $75 000 worth of grout on any given job just because they've got to have it.

Charlie: Those things get kind of hard to forecast both on the manufacturer side and on the distributor side because you look at, you’re like, well, how much we're going to do with Alchemy-Spetec this year? And you're like, well, last year, we did this but it's up and down because you hit those job specifics.

Josh: Correct. And with the grouts, you just don't know what you're going to get. We go into corporate meetings and talk about forecasting and whatnot. Over the years, I’ve learned that you really can't forecast your chemical grout sales for the year just because no one knows how far a bucket of grout's going to go. One bucket could do a whole job or one bucket could turn into 100 buckets. You have no idea until you get in there.

View the video version of this excerpt...

Want some information on Alchemy-Spetec products?

This article is an excerpt from Episode 12 of Alchemy-Spetec's podcast The Injection Connection, featuring Outside Sales Representative at All-Tex Supply, Inc. Josh Van Hook. Josh has over 18 years of experience as a distributor in Austin, TX and one of his passions has been chemical grouts. (If you'd rather view or listen, an audio/visual version of this excerpt is posted at the bottom of the article.)

Charlie Lerman: What are some of the common mistakes you see the contractors make with chemical grouting?

Josh Van Hook: A lot of times they just don't know, and they're afraid to ask the questions, or they think they know. Because everybody can read a piece of paper on the website and figure out, okay, this is what I need to use, this is how you do it, this is the right product. And then, without thinking about it, they'll just go out and start doing it - whereas they should have probably gotten the rep involved, a specialist, to come out there. Every job's a little bit different and that's probably the major problem that I see out there.

Charlie: Yeah, and that ties back into the fact that the product has to be available. So, you guys stock the product, which is wonderful. But it doesn't matter if you're loyal to a certain brand of chemical grout, if you need it that day, if it's not there, then that doesn't help you. But then, the second part is, like you said, getting that tech help and having somebody. Because it's not rocket science, I mean, we're not geniuses here but we have experience and this isn't intuitive. So, we can help people get through that and understand.

Josh: Yeah, because most people nowadays, especially on my side of things, there are not a whole lot of people who know the chemical grout world and the people that do are starting to become fewer and fewer. So, from the supplier standpoint, having somebody who knows enough to get somebody started or get them headed in the right direction, that's a big plus.

View the video version of this excerpt...

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As mentioned in this previous blog post, AP Pump Saver 195 can be used to lubricate and protect single-component pumps. Now we’ll look at how it can be used in two-component pumps to reduce isocyanate contamination in the lube reservoir.

Recent field tests have proven that AP Pump Saver 195 rejuvenates and restores seals on the A-side of two-component proportioners. Seal deterioration is the main cause of isocyanate leaking into your pump lube reservoir. Healthy seals will stop this contamination. Simply empty your pump lube reservoir and replace the lube or DOP with AP Pump Saver 195.

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