URETEK Fills Voids and Stabilizes Foundation After Plumbing Break

Project Date: July 2018 | Location: Houston, TX | Customer: Mustang Cat | Service: Void Filling, Stabilization|

Mustang Cat is a privately-owned dealer of Caterpillar equipment. At their Houston headquarters, they sell, rent, and repair construction equipment and machinery. They’re construction equipment has aided Houston’s growth since their founding in 1952.

Mustang Cat contacted URETEK to investigate their Houston under-slab plumbing because an underground 8” water pipe burst near their machine maintenance building. The pipe supplied water to the fire sprinkler system inside the building.The burst pipe gushed water for approximately 14 hours before it was discovered. After ground-penetrating radar and probing, it was determined that two service bays had multiple large voids throughout. Voids were discovered as far as 60’ away from the burst pipe. Concerned with the slab foundation’s stability and longevity, Mustang Cat hired URETEK ICR Gulf Coast for this Houston, TX foundation repair using expanding polymer.

URETEK uses a zero-excavation process called the URETEK Method to inject high-density polymer underneath concrete. Their patented polymer expands to fill voids, stabilize soil, and can even lift sunken foundations.

Tasked with filling voids and stabilizing the foundation, URETEK technicians started by methodically drilling injections sites every 4’ within the affected area. Each injection site is a 5/8” hole drilled through the slab, which is grouted upon completion.

Next, technicians started injecting polymer at the injection sites.They closely monitor slab elevation with a Ziplevel while injecting the expanding polymer at each injection site. As soon as the Ziplevel detects the slights bump in elevation technicians know to stop injecting because the radius has been stabilized. The technicians then move to the next site and so on and so on until the entire scope of work is stabilized.

Technicians methodically injected at more than 300 injection sites across three service bays (one more than originally expected). Approximately 5,400 sqft of the maintenance building was successfully stabilized by URETEK’s foam foundation repair using high-density polymer.