Alchatek Blog

I’m a big proponent of using chemical grout to fix all sorts if issues, be they geotechnical or waterproofing related. Most contractors and distributors that offer chemical grouts fall into one or more of the following categories: Residential Slab Lifting and Foundation, DOT Infrastructure and Roads, and Municipal Storm and Wastewater. Certainly, there are some others, but these are the main ones we see.

As the popularity of slab lifting with polyurethane continues to heat up, there is more and more competition for residential business. With the ability to electronically access bid data across the USA, there are few secrets; all the big players know about the DOT work and water treatment plant expansions, etc.

Why work so hard fighting over the same pie everyone else knows about? How about baking your own pie?

A healthy population depends on access to clean water and a healthy supply of food. North America is a world leader in producing both.  The US and Canadian agricultural industry though, remains untapped by specialty concrete repair contractors and their suppliers. Rather than tell you where to look for opportunities in "Big Ag", let me share an example in which I found myself advising a customer who was installing polyurethane. This example will be enough to get you thinking...

Three stories below ground level I saw a stream of water shoot all the way across a grain bin. I was in the great plains of Canada in the lower levels of a grain terminal. With a capacity for receiving 800 tons of grain per hour; and the responsibility of drying it and storing it, the owners of this terminal could ill afford water intrusion issues. Twin rows of belly dumping grain haulers pull into the facility on a regular basis and drop everything from wheat, barley, peas, lentils, etc. 

The noise was deafening as the hard seeds cascaded down through the facility into hoppers below. The problem in this hopper was slow water intrusion seeping into the bin. The effect was twofold as the ceramic wear plates that protect the steel were delaminating, and the incoming grain was getting wet. This made it harder for the augers and grain elevators to work properly, created a health risk, and created a lot of manual shoveling in a confined space environment.

The stream of water came from our contractor's first drill hole, an indicator of how much hydrostatic pressure surrounded the hopper. We had to overpower this pressure with some pressure of our own. Twin streamed warm water and AP Fill 700 (maxed out with 10% Cat 107) reacted instantly and were already making foam as they entered the cold 48 degree water surrounding the hopper. A thorough application of between 50 – 75 gallons encapsulated the bin we were in and pushed away the water. The ceramic tiles dried up and the owners were ecstatic; they did not even ask what it would cost because they had no other solution. To replace or reline those bins would have been next to impossible or would've required massive downtime and disassembly of everything above the bins.  We, on the other hand, solved the issue in one day. Appropriately, a “grain themed” celebration was held after the job was over later that day with cold beer and Irish Whiskey!

The point of telling this story is to make you aware that there is a huge untapped market out there, full of people who need the solutions your business offers. Whether it is stabilizing soil under slabs and structures or stopping water intrusion. Just about every state and province has major agricultural business going on, including crops and livestock. I won’t speak for everyone, but I would wager that most contractors are not calling on those types of facilities and businesses. Instead of waiting for the phone to ring about another driveway lift; make someone else’s phone ring with some good news about chemical grout. Do this consistently and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Need more information on Alchemy-Spetec products?

Product

AP Lift 475 is a two-component polyurethane chemical grout resin system (1:1 ratio) developed for the reinforcement and stabilization of loose bulk ballast stones on railway tracks.

Procedure

AP Lift 475 is mixed together, then poured on the ballast stones to increase the rigidity and stiffness of ballast. When applied, this product is a weather resistant solution that reduces vibrations and provides a buffer zone from the concrete slab track to the ballast track. AP Lift 475 helps to reinforce the ballast, reduce loose stones and dust, as well as prevent pulverization. The AP Lift 475 also provides an excellent binder for stabilization of the ballast, so when excavation is needed under the ballast and the tracks, for applications like Micro-tunnelling, AP Lift 475 will bind the ballast together to prevent cave-ins from occuring.

Solution

For rail infrastructure, compliance of Polyurethane Stabilized Ballasts may be favorable due to the strains that can be tolerated under the loads distributed from the superstructure down through the substructure. Large differences in mechanical behavior of clean ballast before and after polyurethane stabilization indicate that the introduction of Rigid Polyurethane Foam to ballast creates a geocomposite, referred to herein as polyurethane stabilized ballast, with different and generally superior mechanical properties to that of clean ballast, recycled ballast, and fouled ballast. Excerpted from “Mitigating Ballast Fouling Impact and Enhancing Rail Freight Capacity” by the National Center for Freight & Infrastructure Research and Education.

Want information on Alchemy-Spetec soil stabilization products? 

Poor compaction, water erosion, broken pipes, and organic material in the soil can all lead to settling of a foundation or a roadway. Traditional slab lifting can bring concrete and structures back into place but it doesn’t necessarily address the underlying issue or guarantee a long term fix. Other methods of addressing deep soil issues require heavy equipment, extended down time, 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.

Introducing the Deep Lift™ process! Alchemy-Spetec offers a unique combination of high quality structural lifting foams along with the equipment and training needed to address deep soil issues. Now you can achieve soil densification and lifting on large projects with the smallest footprint and least amount of heavy equipment required. The Deep Lift™ process is powerful, painless, and rapid. Deep Lift™ gets to the root of the problems in the soil, it brings the structure back to level, and accomplishes this with minimal imposition or downtime to the property owner.

Want more info on the Deep Lift™ process?

Finally, a polyurethane estimating calculator for slab lifting and void fill jobs.

This app is a simple, fast, and reliable way to take the guesswork out of estimating Alchemy-Spetec polyurethane slab lifting and void filling materials while prepping for a job.

Follow these steps to download and operate this app:

6. End Result

Want more information on Alchemy-Spetec products?

If you're not familiar with polyurethane soil stabilization, here's a basic overview excerpted from the brochure you can download at the bottom of this blog post:

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.

Soil can be stabilized with AP Soil 600, Spetec PUR H40, Spetec AG100 and Spetec AG200. Once the bearing capacity of the soil has been increased with this process, then the structure can be lifted if necessary.

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

Want more informaton on Alchemy-Spetec soil stabilization products?

Winter is coming fast and it is already the time of year when winter storms are a possibility. High winds, heavy rain, high tidal changes and large waves have already begun in some of the coastal areas of the country. Winter weather plays havoc with our beaches and shorelines and our seawalls really take a beating.

Alchemy-Spetec can help. We make soil stabilization resins that can stop erosion of unstable soils and sand. We can help stabilize the areas behind seawalls suffering from soil erosion and settling. AP Fill 700, AP Soil 600, Spetec PUR H40 and Spetec PUR H100 are just a few of the resins we have to address soil stabilization, erosion and water leak issues. We also have the AP Lift 430, AP Lift 440 and AP Lift 475 lifting resins to raise areas like concrete structures that have sink due to erosion.

Don’t wait for potential problems to become worse or serious. Let us offer you solutions with our powerful polymers and painless procedures that will give you rapid results. A lasting repair and peace of mind for your soil stabilization problems are only part of what we do.

At Alchemy-Spetec, we’ve got your back!

Want more information on soil stabilization?

Most of you are probably familiar with our most popular product offerings: polyurethanes for sealing leaks, lifting slabs, and stabilizing soil.  But it's important to be fully aware of all the tools at your disposal.  We also offer water stop, crack repair, and soil stabilizing acrylate products.  Let's take a closer look:

Water Stop

The Spetec Injection Tube System kit is used in conjunction with our leak seal resins as a primary waterstop in cold joints and pipe joints. This system can also be used in retrofit applications for expansion joints and other wide cracks or joints measuring over 3/8 of an inch.

SST500 strips are simply fastened onto an existing joint.  When in contact with water in a confined space, SST500 will swell and stop water infiltration.

Crack Repair

Epicol T is a putty with a simple mixing ratio suitable for filling and moulding.  It can be applied underwater and it sticks to wood, stone, concrete and metal.

Epicol INJ is a low-viscosity epoxy resin for structural bonding of cracks and micro cracks in dry or wet concrete.  It can also be used as glue for bonding and anchoring.

Acrylates for Soil Stabilization

These are three-component, water-swelling hydrogels based on acrylate that harden to an elastic form.  They are especially noted for their low blending viscosity that is almost equivalent to the viscosity of water.

AG100 has a 20 cps mixed viscosity.  It can be used for curtain grouting and ground stabilization.

AG200 has a 40 cps mixed viscosity.  It can be used for ground stabilizion, preventing erosion around floors, walls, etc.  In adddition it can be used for curtain grouting and crack injection.

Want more information on Alchemy-Spetec Products?

Part of my job is keeping an eye out for Alchemy-Spetec mentions on the web. The other day I found this article on the global soil conditioners market, featuring our company alongside industry leaders such as BASF, Dow Chemical and Eastman Chemical.  The article was published on TechSciResearch.com. Here's an excerpt...

Global Soil Conditioners market, which stood at around USD4.90 billion in 2016 is projected to witness healthy growth at a CAGR of 8.16% to reach USD7.83 billion through 2026. The growth in the global soil conditioners market can be attributed to the broad array of applications in the agriculture as well as industrial sectors. 

Global Soil Conditioners market is controlled by these major players, namely– BASF SE (Germany), The Dow Chemical Company (US), Akzo Nobel N.V. (Netherlands), Evonik Industries AG (Germany), Solvay S.A. (Belgium), Croda International Plc (UK), Clariant International AG (Switzerland), Lambent Corp. (US), Adeka Corporation (Japan), Eastman Chemical Company (US), Syngenta AG (Switzerland), Novozymes A/S (Denmark), Vantage Specialty Chemicals, Inc. (US), Alchemy-Spetec (US) and Adama Agricultural Solutions Ltd. (Israel) among others.  Read more...

Want more info on Alchemy-Spetec soil stabilization products?

When it comes to soil stabilization and void filling, I get a lot of calls to help local contractors. Recently I was advising LJS Waterproofing on a structure that had issues with unstable floors. I instructed them to use the technique of probe grouting.

They inserted the grout pipes about 22 feet in the ground. Next, they began to pull the probes out of the ground while pumping about 2 gallons of AP Fill 700 every foot. This was done 5 times until they reached the 17 foot marker.

After the grouting was complete, the damaged floors were removed and replaced. This time around the floors should have a longer lifespan since they are supported by solid, stable soil.

Want more information on soil stabilization?

It was about 2 AM when the fire alarm when off in my hotel room.  I have never heard an alarm so loud in my life; all I wanted to do was get out of the room but it was so disorienting that I could barely throw some pants and a shirt on.  My instincts told me this was a false alarm as I trudged down 5 flights of stairs to the bottom level.  I was behind an elderly couple so it was slow going as we navigated our way out.

This particular stairwell brought us out on the side of the building and I noticed it was dimly lit.  This was a nice ocean front resort hotel and the lighting in my opinion should have been brighter.  About the time I noticed that, the elderly lady in front of me tripped and fell right on her face on the sidewalk.  She was about 5 yards in front of me and I was first to her side; she had fallen behind her family.  Fortunately a quick responding fire department rolled up right then and I ran over to get their help.  They got her up and into the paramedic truck. 

It looked like the lady was going to be okay but the point is that this was probably avoidable.  When I ran to her side I could see the sidewalk tripping hazard that had caused her to fall.  Combined with the dim lighting it was a case of dual premises liability.  I give talks to groups like IFMA and BOMA just on the topic of Tripping Hazards and Premises Liability.  The numbers are staggering when you look at the amount of incidents and the costs associated with them.  The toll is financial: lawsuits, settlements, workers comp, bad press.  And the toll is physical: injury and sometimes death.  This is the cost of not knowing that you may have tripping hazards on your property; or worse it is the case of knowing and not doing anything about it.  Those factors weigh heavily in court.

Want more information on slab lifting?