If you are reading this article you’ve probably done some research online and decided that you would prefer an epoxy crack injection over a polyurethane crack injection for the repair of a crack in your poured concrete foundation.
Don’t know the difference? Click on this hyperlink for a comparison of the epoxy crack injection and the polyurethane crack injection.
Have Questions?
In this article, we will explain what matters most in the execution of the epoxy crack injection so that you will be able to ask the right questions, to sift through the offerings of different basement waterproofing contractors and determine which of them will give you the best possible epoxy crack injection for your money. In order to compare different waterproofing contractors it is essential that you know what actually matters; knowledge is power.
The most important considerations related to epoxy crack injection
Finding the best epoxy crack injection for your money requires that you understand what actually matters when it comes to epoxy crack injections. This understanding of the details is what will empower you to choose the best waterproofing contractor.
The most important factors influencing the quality and success of an epoxy crack injection are as follows (in no particular order):
- The skill and experience of the person that will be doing the crack injection;
- The work ethic of the person doing the injection; and
- The injection materials that the technician has available to carry out the epoxy crack injection.
Why a technician’s skill and experience should matter to you
As a homeowner who is likely looking to hire a contractor to repair a foundation crack for the first time, dealing with considerations such as the skill and experience of the person who will be sent to repair your foundation crack can be rather daunting. This is completely understandable.
We raise the issue of skill and experience in carrying out epoxy crack injections because it has become clear over the years that skill and experience matter very much. Anyone who has ever done repairs of any kind knows that any problem or challenge typically requires a unique solution. Given that, making the right decision when encountering different conditions during an epoxy crack injection requires that the technician use their experience in adapting to the situation they are facing.
Without proper training and sufficient work experience (at least six months of full-time crack injection experience), the likelihood of making a crucial mistake is greatly increased. A less than perfect epoxy crack injection could fail and result in wet carpets requiring replacement, damaged furnishings and the need to cut open your finished basement wall.
Consequently, it is imperative that you enquire as to the proposed technicians experience before you hire any company to repair your foundation crack by epoxy crack injection.
The importance of a technician’s work ethic
A second subjective, but critical, determinant of the success of any crack injection is the work ethic of the person that is hired.
When referring to the work ethic of a technician doing an epoxy crack injection, we are looking for three things:
- The importance to the technician of doing the job well;
- The willingness of the technician to spend however much time is needed to do a good job; and
- The willingness of the technician to use as much epoxy resin as necessary to ensure that the crack injection is done perfectly.
Time and materials are the two most significant cost factors involved in foundation crack repairs. Spending less time and/or material than required to complete a crack injection will result in a lower quality outcome.
The crucial importance of having a variety of injection resins
As alluded to earlier, every crack repair is unique; therefore, the technician’s skill and the actual injection resins used are of paramount importance.
The resin used to carry out an epoxy crack injection is of critical importance because the use of a resin with the wrong viscosity (thickness) will certainly result in failure of the crack repair. Using a resin which is too thin will result in the resin bleeding through the wall into the soil outside. The use of an injection resin which is too viscous will create problems during the injection such that the foundation crack many not be filled completely.
At AquaGuard Injection & Waterproofing® we have technicians that specialize in epoxy crack injection with many years of experience. Not only that, we use 4 epoxy resins of different viscosities to produce a great result every time. The 4 epoxies currently in use range from Super Low Viscosity to Extra High Viscosity as shown below.
The different viscosities are used based on the width of the foundation crack being repaired. Essentially, the Super Low Viscosity resin is used for hairline cracks while the Extra High Viscosity epoxy is used for very wide cracks; of course we can handle any crack size in between. In general, to prevent loss of the epoxy to the soil outside, you want to use the most viscous resin that can be injected.