Foundation Repair Methods – Epoxy and Urethane

Cracks in foundation walls have been a major source of wall seepage since the introduction of poured concrete. Cracks can be caused by a variety of factors, including foundation settling, external vibrations, and soil oversaturation.

All cracks have the potential to leak, but not all of them do. With each good rain, you can almost guarantee that a crack will leak again. Repairing the crack will not only save you a lot of time cleaning up water, but it will also prevent mold and mildew from developing in your home.

From the interior, the simplest and most cost-effective technique to repair wall cracks is by injecting sealant into the gap to prevent water from leaking out. To begin, your foundation repair companies will place injection ports throughout the crack's length. Once the injected material has cured, a surface sealer, such as Epoxy, is put over the whole crack to keep it in place.

Finally, the contractor injects sealant into each port to fill the crack. Epoxy and Urethane are the most often utilized materials for this purpose. Some contractors still use the old-school epoxy process, but homeowners can benefit greatly from the newer urethane alternative.

Epoxy Injection

Injecting wall cracks with epoxy for waterproofing reasons was the sole method of choice for basement waterproofing contractors for decades. Because of its strong bond with concrete, Epoxy is still used as a principal waterproofing treatment by a few companies. As long as there are no structural solutions in place, the epoxy will be susceptible to further movement or settlement of the foundation. This movement will cause the epoxy to break, allowing water to flow back in.

Urethane Injection

Wet concrete made it impossible for basement waterproofing professionals to apply epoxy to plug an active leak because it wouldn't stick. Leaks could only be rectified when the rain had stopped and ground had driest, which meant that homeowners had to put up with the inconvenience. An expanding sealant that uses water as a catalyst is used by today's more modern contractors to build an impenetrable gasket that fills a crack from top to bottom.

Urethane, on the other hand, has the highest flexibility of any of the materials. The flexible urethane keeps touch with the concrete and moves with the wall when the foundation is restored. The rigidity of epoxy, on the other hand, makes it more susceptible to cracking and allowing new leaks to occur.

Epoxy is still used by some basement water proofers, despite the advantages of Urethane. Ask the foundation repair companies if the Epoxy injection may be used as a structural solution without pricey bracing or piers, if you're considering employing one of these companies. "No" is the most likely answer. If the repaired crack leaks again, find out what the follow-up repair will be. Why not get it correctly the first time around? They'll probably tell you they'll use Urethane.

Until the mid-1990s, basement waterproofing contractors had only one option for filling cracks: Epoxy. When Urethane became widely available, we immediately grasped its potential and began using it as our primary material. By repairing the fractures in the foundation, we have been able to eliminate basement leaks for thousands of delighted customers.

What better way to get started in the waterproofing business than to follow the advice of the company that has injected more foundation cracks than any other in the last 55 years? The best approach to stop foundation leaks is to contact us at Ramjack in Oklahoma.