How Winter Affects Your Concrete

One of the greatest feeling of living in the Mid-West is when spring hits and the air starts warming up, the snow begins to melt and grass begins to green. However when the snow melts, it reveals your newly cracked and sunken concrete slab. Why does winter have an effect on my concrete and how can I fix it?

Winter Effects

If you live in Minnesota or North Dakota, you know how our winters are; they’re cold, windy, icy and snowy. And as some of you might know, concrete is a very porous material. The combination of winter and concrete just don’t match. Due to how porous concrete is, when snow and ice cover a driveway, sidewalk, etc. water finds its way into the pores which can slowly break down the concrete causing it to weaken.

When we have falls like this past one (wet with late rain storms) then freezing a week later, the wet concrete doesn’t have enough time to dry out. This causes it to freeze with lots of moisture inside the pores. If you’re not familiar with water when it freezes, you should know that it expands. This is what causes the problem in the concrete – expanding, freezing ice! So when the ground thaws come spring, the concrete (and ice in the pores) will thaw as well causing it to settle and crack.

The Fix

So basically we can’t stop Mother Nature from doing what she’s going to do, but we can help with the repairs. PolyRenewal injection uses modern technology with the concept of mudjacking. Some of the biggest differencing are the weight, install process, and cure time.

Compared to mudjacking, PolyRenewal weighs far less at 4lbs/cubic foot whereas mudjacking weighs in at 120lbs/cubic foot. Where mudjacking will exert more pressure on the underlying soils, PolyRenewal wont.

As for the install process, mudjacking requires time to mix the materials, drill the large holes, pack them and then clean the area. PolyRenewal’s process is much easier. We simply drill, insert the injection port, inject the PolyRenewal, and patch up the small whole with concrete. No mess and no hassle.

One of the greatest things about PolyRenewal is its cure time. Where mudjacking’s cure time is 6-8 hours, PolyRenewal’s is 15 minutes. 15 MINUTES! That’s insane.

The Experts

Innovative Basement Authority is your local PolyRenewal injection expert. Call today for a free, no obligation estimate.