A property owner in Montana contacted geotech contractor Yellowstone Structural regarding a garage that was recently converted into a bedroom. The garage lacked effective rainwater drainage, thoroughly compacted supporting soil, and a proper foundation with a footing like the rest of the house. For these reasons, it had sunken several inches. Alarmingly, the “new bedroom” was now beginning to break away from the rest of the house. The property owner found cracks in the siding and wanted to make sure there would be no further movement.

Powerful Polymer

The technicians planning this deep soil stabilization job chose AP Lift 430, a widely used favorite in the industry. This multi-use structural polymer is ideal for compacting soil, filling voids, and lifting slabs and structures.

Painless Procedure

Without the option of a structural polymer repair plan, a contractor would likely have had to dig around the garage, add a new foundation underneath, and then use helical piers to keep it in place. This would require the demolition of decking and surrounding structures. Heavy equipment (which often causes additional concrete surface and lawn damage) would be needed to get all of this done.

Fortunately, contractors like Yellowstone Structural can achieve soil stabilization and compaction on projects like this with the smallest footprint and the least amount of heavy equipment required. These technicians chose to implement the Deep Lock® process to stabilize the soil at all levels with minimal imposition or downtime to the property owner. First, the crew identified the exact parameters of all the unstable soil. Next, they installed a pair of injection tubes every three feet along the footing of the house in the affected area. This job required 17 of these dual-tube injection points. Next, they created a high-strength durable polyurethane footer with AP Lift 430, injecting the structural polymer to depths of both eight and four feet at each injection point. The technicians performed these injections until significant backpressure was reached to confirm full soil compaction.

Rapid Result

This highly efficient “surgical strike” style job was executed by a crew of two within eight hours. No heavy equipment or messy excavation was needed. The structural polymer was cured in place within 30 minutes of injection. Water won’t erode it; insects cannot eat or bore into it. The property owner’s new bedroom is now sitting on stable soil.

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Unstable soil deep underneath private commercial property or public infrastructure can settle causing extensive and expensive damage. Poor compaction, water erosion, broken pipes, and organic material in this deep soil can make serious settling more likely.

How can you prevent settling and get long-term protection? Introducing the Deep Lock process. Alchemy-Spetec offers a unique combination of high-quality structural polymers along with the equipment and training needed to address deep soil issues. Now you can achieve soil stabilization and compaction on large projects faster without heavy excavation equipment, extended downtime, and risk of collateral property damage.

For a detailed explanation of the process, watch the animated video below...

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Soil testing equipment is extremely helpful for planning slab lifting and soil stabilization work. Contractors use ground penetrating radar systems and dynamic cone penetrometers to get a sense of soil conditions before they drill their first hole into a slab or push their first injection pipe into the ground.

Deep Look™ Ground Penetrating Radar

The Deep Look™ wireless ground penetrating radar collects data from hundreds of thousands of pulse reflections each second to help contractors identify objects below ground. The triple-frequency antenna design provides higher-resolution imaging than conventional GRP systems.

Dynamic Cone Penetrometer

The Pagini DPM30 dynamic cone penetrometer is ideal for testing soil strength and density at various depths. The fact that it is exceptionally small means it can be used on sites that are inaccessible to normal machines. A hydraulic pump raises and drops a weight onto a measuring rod, pushing it into the ground. To measure soil strength, the operator counts the number of blows it takes to drive the steel rod in 10-centimeter increments. Good soil requires 10+ blows to drive the rod 10 centimeters. Anything less is typically indicative of weak soil conditions.

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Causes of Unstable Soil

Poor compaction, water erosion, broken pipes, and organic material in the soil can all lead to the settling of a foundation or a roadway. Traditional methods of soil stabilization can strengthen the soil directly under concrete and structures, but they do not address instability at deeper levels. Other methods of addressing deep soil issues require heavy equipment, extended downtime, and collateral property damage. These situations create problems for property owners as well as opportunities for the elite contractors that know how to fix them.

Deep Soil Stabilization

Introducing the Deep Lock process! Alchemy-Spetec offers a unique combination of high-quality structural polymers (AP Deep Lift 420, AP Lift 430, AP Lift 440 & AP Lift 475) along with the equipment and training needed to address deep soil issues. Now you can achieve soil stabilization and compaction on large projects with the smallest footprint and least amount of heavy equipment required. The Deep Lock process is powerful, painless, and rapid. Deep Lock gets to the root of the problems in the soil, it stabilizes the soil at all levels and accomplishes this with minimal imposition or downtime to the property owner.

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