my results - crack injection


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Old 08-20-07, 08:05 AM
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my results - crack injection

I don't post here much, but I do search for, and find, lots of info so I figured it was about time I gave back a bit. Here is my recent experience with doing poly-urethane crack injection on a couple of cracks in our basement. Hope it can help out someone thinking about tackling this job.

We live in a 8-9 year old house with poured basement walls. The basement was unfinished when we moved in about 3 years ago. There were 2 cracks that were actively leaking/weeping during heavy rains.

One of the cracks leaked so infrequently and was behind the insulation the builder had hung that I erected a finshed wall in front of it before I even noticed it. :-( The other crack is in the laundry room area which I haven't gotten around to finishing off yet.

I purchased an "injection kit" from CrackSeal a few weeks ago after seeing a reference to it on this site. This was by far the cheapest of these kits I could find, even though they all seemed to include the same basic supplies. I paid $80 for 1 kit.

Briefly the process is this: using epoxy provided you glue injection ports along the length of the crack approx. every 8" or so, seal around the ports and over the entire surface of the crack with the same epoxy, wait for the epoxy to harden, flush the crack with clean water, then using a caulk gun you inject the provided poly-urethane crack sealent which will slowly cure when exposed to water.

Did it work? YES. Both cracks are now bone dry after a couple of good rains that would definitley have caused leaking in the past.

Tips and problems: Buy a lot of extra rubber gloves. Simply put, it's a very messy process and it's a pain in the ass if you get the epoxy or urethane all over your hands. I know.

The messiest part is the actual injection. You place a small plastic tube over the lowest injection port and begin slowly injecting until you see the poly-urethane begin to come out of the next highest port. Here's where it gets messy. You have to take the caulk gun away from the tube, remove the tube from the port, and cap the port with a little rubber cap so the PU stays in the crack to cure. Well the PU has been forced in to this crack under pressure and it damn well wants to come back out under pressure once you pull the caulk gun off! LOL Trying to handle the plastic tube and little rubber cap with rubber gloves covered in slippery PU is a feat in itself. Once you do this 6-7 times your crack is completely filled with PU and will begin to seal.

Unless you have blow outs........

Did I forget to mention the blow outs? Ha! In another cruel twist you may, like me, experience a couple of areas where the PU will find it's way out a weak spot in the epoxy you used to cover the crack. The instructions talk about this so I guess it's fairly common. they say to stop the injection process and reseal that area with more epoxy. I didn't experience any major leaks from the blow outs so I forged ahead with the injection and the blow outs eventually slowed and became sealed by the curing PU. if you have a particularly bad leak you will probably have to stop the injection and apply more epoxy.

Another issue I had was on the second crack I sealed I had previously tried to repair the crack using hydraulic cement. That didn't work as it was still leaking slightly. In order to do the injection I had to chip away all of the hydraulic cement, and since the hydraulic cement had penetrated the cracks slighty I had to drill some small holes into the crack so the PU would be able to get into the crack. This just added some additional work and frustration to the process.

The very bottom of the crack where the leak was the worst had also been chiseled out a bit when I used the hydraulic cement. this caused some additional issues because that chiseled section was a pain to properly place a port on, and then seal with the epoxy.

Oh well, nothing ever goes exactly as planned. I would say while it's not quite as easy as the 1..2..3.. instructions you see on thier website, this process is doable by the homeowner and in the end it did work well for me.

Good luck!
 
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Old 08-22-07, 07:13 AM
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A very interesting and informative post, Blip.
 
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Old 09-02-07, 01:40 AM
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Had an almost exact experience with the emecole product....
 
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Old 11-27-12, 05:22 PM
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Sorry for bumping the old thread but I am hoping for some long-term experience.

Has this crack stayed sealed and dry?
 
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Old 11-28-12, 02:46 AM
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Benjiboy, it has been 5 years, so I doubt you will get a viable response from the OP.
 
 

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