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How to Fix a Crack in a Concrete Foundation (NEW TECHNOLOGY)
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Jan 25, 2024
Demo of a new and unique method of repairing cracks in concrete foundations. READ MY POPULAR ARTICLES ABOUT: Polyurethane Finish - https://bit.ly/powerbuffing DIY Hoop House Plans - https://bit.ly/hoophouseplans Submersible Pump Installation - https://bit.ly/pumpinstallation Air-Drying Wood Tips - https://bit.ly/wooddrying How to Build a Table - https://bit.ly/tablebuilding How to Stain a Deck - https://bit.ly/deckstain Choosing Waterproof Outdoor Glue - https://bit.ly/exterioradhesives How To Build A Wheelchair Ramp - https://bit.ly/wheelchairrampplans SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/BLRchannel WATCH MY POPULAR VIDEO: How to Cut Perfect Miter Joints https://youtu.be/0wnjJ-Xi5FU WATCH MORE BAILEY LINE ROAD: Winter Tips - https://bit.ly/2rpnUcm
View Video Transcript
0:00
In this video, I'm going to show you a simulation that I've got going here to try out a basement
0:15
crack finishing product. It's unique in that it doesn't just fill the crack, but it also
0:19
reinforces the crack too, and you'll see that. This is my simulated cracked concrete basement
0:27
wall. It's two concrete blocks. I've put in wood spacers here. The gap is about an eighth
0:33
of an inch or so. Bound it all together with these clamps. This is what they call a semi-solid
0:40
block, so we get the flat face on both the front and the back. The block is actually
0:45
filled, partially filled here. It's hollow on the ends, but it's filled here in the middle
0:50
so we have a pretty close simulation of what a basement crack would be like. And I'm going
0:56
to go through the three-step procedure for using this product, but before I do, I just
1:02
want to explain it a little bit. So this system is by a company called Dricor. They make some
1:08
great basement subfloor tiles. They also happen to make my favorite wall finishing panel for
1:14
a basement. It's insulation and finished wall surface all in one. Their crack product has
1:22
three steps. This first step is to actually seal the crack superficially, so we're not filling it
1:29
yet. We're just going to be putting this epoxy coating over the crack so that when we do go to
1:36
inject, the filler is not going to come out the face of the wall. So this is the inside face of
1:43
the basement. That's the crack. We've got soil on the outside. Now, we're going to be sealing this
1:49
before filling except for the installation of these injection ports. The idea is that the port
1:57
is the only way that the filler can get in. Now, normally you'd put a port like this about every
2:03
18 inches along the crack. This is almost 16 inches from here to here, so technically we would
2:09
only need one, but I'm going to put in two so that we can inject into one, and if all goes well
2:16
we should see the filler as it penetrates the full depth of the crack starting to come out
2:22
here, in which case we can seal that port and then start filling here to complete our operation. So
2:29
this is going to be epoxied in, covered over, sealed, ready for injection. So step two is the
2:38
actual injection, and it takes a two-part cartridge as well. I should have mentioned this before
2:43
but here's the application gun. It squeezes out both sides of the cartridge at the same time. In
2:51
this case, this is not epoxy but expanding polyurethane, which is exactly what you want
3:00
for something like this because unlike epoxy, polyurethane loves moisture. It actually works
3:07
better when there's a little bit of moisture around, and since we're dealing with a basement
3:11
wall, there's going to be a fairly high moisture content in the masonry, so this is perfect. And
3:16
polyurethane also does something that epoxy doesn't do, and that it expands. In this case
3:23
this particular formulation expands by 18 times, so it should be more than capable of penetrating
3:32
the whole width of the wall. So step three, and this is where the unique part of this campaign
3:38
comes in here. Step three involves the application of carbon fiber fabric. This is extremely strong
3:48
intention, so intention I mean by pulling apart, and you will see later in the video we're going
3:56
to apply another kind of epoxy, a bonding epoxy this time, to the masonry, and then we're going
4:03
to put some of this cloth over top and then saturate it with more of the same epoxy and let
4:08
it cure. Now this, as I said, adds tremendous tensile strength to the crack, so much so that
4:15
I'm told anyway that the bond between the carbon fiber fabric and the masonry is actually stronger
4:23
than the masonry itself. When it's been applied to bare masonry and that this is saturated with
4:30
the epoxy and the bond is complete and optimal, the crack will not open up again. If the foundation
4:37
continues to move, you're going to get a new crack in a new place. So this is really as strong as you
4:43
can ask for, so let's get started. So now it's time to start with the step one. It's a two-part
4:51
caulking gun of sorts. You can see the two passages are divided there, and the mixing
5:02
will occur because of the baffles in the nozzle, so no exterior mixing is required. It would be a
5:14
lot easier for me to do this job with my simulated blocks horizontally, but that really wouldn't be
5:20
accurate. So it's vertical, and let's just see. There we go. Look at the colors coming through
5:29
here. You can see them getting mixed as they work their way along
5:35
Now, the main thing here is that I retain a passage. I don't want to have that clogged up
6:01
There's a little bit of oozing that has partially covered the hole, so when I finish my work here
6:10
I'm going to poke something through there to make sure that it's open. It's open now
6:14
I just want to make sure it's fully open. Okay, now this is not the sealing step
6:29
this is not the filling step rather, but I do need to cover, I do need to fill that gap in some
6:37
way, just superficially though, because the actual filling is going to happen later. Now normally
6:43
if this was an actual basement wall, and it wasn't perfectly bare concrete, but had some paint on it
6:50
or some efflorescence, or the concrete was spalling a little bit, I would apply an abrasive, a cup
6:59
wheel of some kind, and a grinder to get down to some bare concrete. So I'm just going to tool this on
7:09
We've got our crack sealed, our injection ports are in place. It's going to take six to eight
7:15
hours for this to harden, so this is not something that you can do all in one day. But just as a
7:20
final step, before I continue, and just set it aside, I'm going to make sure that we're open
7:28
all the way in here. That's pretty important, because it has to be open in order to inject
7:42
There. Now later, after injection, I'm going to knock these ports off, and we're going to remove
7:50
everything that's on the surface, because for step three, we want full bonding to the actual
7:57
masonry. So when we're done, step two, we're going to grind so that all you see is the filler in the
8:04
crack, and then bare clean concrete on the other side, ready for optimal bonding with the carbon
8:11
fiber fabric. So epoxy is one of those things that's messy to clean up, and the Dricor people
8:18
have these Pro Mighty Wipes here too. They're supposed to take care of epoxy, as well as adhesives
8:26
resins, and caulking, so it doesn't smell too harsh. I mean, there's a little bit of an odor to it
8:32
but it's quite a strong, kind of textured thing too, a little bit abrasive. But there's
8:38
definitely a solvent here, so let's see how well it cleans up. Well, quite well. Certainly better
8:52
than regular paper towels, that's for sure, because of the solvent, and I think the abrasive
8:57
texture also works pretty well too. So you might want to have a can of these along if you tackle a
9:06
repair like this. Well, at this stage, we're pretty much finished step one. We've got the epoxy covering
9:13
the crack. Before I go into the actual filling of the crack, I want to point out a couple of things
9:19
I've let this sit overnight. It's rock-hard now. We could have done the filling four
9:26
five, six hours after application. The purpose of this is to stop the filler from oozing out
9:30
These ports here need, of course, to be open all the way into the crack, like this, as it's possible
9:38
for epoxy to cover that hole up. These are clear, but if they weren't, I could just drill them out
9:45
There wouldn't be much to drill through, just a little bloop of epoxy that's hardened there. Now
9:51
if you're concerned about lining these ports up with the crack, once you can't see the crack
9:57
because all of this stuff is on, there's a tip. If you get a skewer like this, or a toothpick
10:05
or a popsicle stick, and you jam it into the crack before you put the port on, that will show you
10:12
where the crack is, because many times they can be erratic, and you don't really know exactly where
10:17
they are. So you can put that in, that'll show you where it is, and it'll also stop the port
10:22
from slipping down before this has a chance to grab and start to firm up. So that's the scoop
10:29
for the injection ports. So just before I go on, I want to show you an interesting thing. I didn't
10:36
use very much of this tube, maybe one-third of it or so, but because the mixing occurs in the
10:42
nozzle, I can take this off, and the components are still separate, so they're still liquid. I
10:50
can use this again. The nozzle's toast, of course, it's just rock-solid right now, but you can use
10:56
this for multiple applications as well. So let me explain something else before I get to filling
11:00
Now normally, this would be the inside of your basement, this would be the outside
11:06
there's soil here, but in our simulation, the crack is open at the back, and I'm concerned
11:10
that the filler will just ooze out here and not fill the space properly. So I've used some hot
11:15
melt glue to fasten that piece of wood. We can pry it off later, just to verify that the filler
11:21
has in fact gone all the way through. So I've got step two, the two-part expanding polyurethane
11:27
cartridge in the gun, and now it's time to start injecting. So I'm just going to keep pumping slowly until we start seeing something coming up the other
11:50
port. Now I can see we've got a bit of a leak there. That's no matter though
12:04
Oh, I can see it's starting to show through, just starting to show through on the other port
12:12
I'm going to stop there on this bottom one. Now before I take it out, I'm going to get this plug
12:20
ready because if I didn't put a plug in there, we would lose a lot of the filler out here
12:27
So relieve the pressure on the gun, pop this in here. Pop this in here
12:41
There we go. And now I'll continue my filling in the top
12:48
But it has reached all the way up there, which is a good thing
12:53
Now I would normally have another injection port further up the wall to see how far the
13:06
filler has gotten up in that direction. Since I don't have that now, I think I'm just going to
13:11
give it another couple of shots and then pop in another cap. So I'll let this cure and then we'll
13:26
come back and take a look and see how well it filled. The injection has fully cured. A couple
13:32
of things surprised me. One, there's a lot of expansion power here. I mean, it came, the filler
13:39
polyurethane foam came out of a little gap there that I didn't know existed. I was concerned or
13:44
wondering whether it would fill the whole gap, but we don't need to take off this strip to know
13:51
that it got to the end. In fact, I probably could have put in about half as much as I did because
13:57
I ended up scraping off a bunch of the foam here. But we're ready for the next step. And that would
14:05
involve knocking these off, knocking these things off and finishing the surface, bringing this back
14:12
to bare concrete. So let's just see what happens here. That was easy. Okay, now I'm going to be
14:25
going at this with different abrasive tools. I'm going to do it outside because I don't want to
14:30
fill the shop with all kinds of dust and things from this. But let's go and clean this up, get
14:36
ready for step three, which is the application of the carbon fiber fabric embedded in an epoxy adhesive
15:00
So I think this turned out rather well, don't you? I've removed the epoxy sealer on the surface
15:18
and I'm down to bare masonry. And that is so I can properly adhere the carbon fiber cloth. It's got
15:25
the epoxy that secures it needs to be able to soak in to bare porous masonry like this. And that's
15:32
what we've got. Now this third step, the carbon fiber step, is not strictly speaking, it's not
15:36
absolutely necessary, but it really does add a lot of tensile strength to the repair. Now this is a
15:44
cup wheel. This is the tool that I used to create this surface. It's a diamond wheel. It's especially
15:50
meant for surfacing concrete, and it just goes in a regular grinder like this. So let's get some of
15:56
that carbon fiber on right now. So this is the step three epoxy, and I'm going to be just applying it
16:04
to the surface here. This is not sufficient on its own just to square it out like this. I'm going to
16:17
be using that little roller to spread it around. I want a nice nice coat
16:47
In order to be strong enough, this is supposed to extend about seven inches from the center of the
17:02
crack. So that means we're we're dealing with a 14 inch wide piece here. That's the way it comes on
17:11
the roll. That's nestling in there nicely. Rollers a big help here. You wouldn't want to try this
17:18
without a roller. Now the carbon fiber is on there, but I want to make sure it's fully encased as it
17:39
should be. So I'm going to put on another coat here. So we'll let that harden. We'll come back and see how
18:00
it looks. Well as you can see, I've taken the clamps off. The blocks are holding together quite well. I'd be
18:08
surprised if the results were any different. This is the kind of thing that I cover in my online
18:13
basement finishing course. So if you're a homeowner and you want to hire a contractor intelligently
18:18
or if you actually want to do the complete finishing work yourself, check out the course. I
18:22
can save you a lot of trouble and a lot of hassles. I hope you've enjoyed this and drop by and see me
18:28
again sometime
#Home Improvement