So you have a recommendation to pressure grout the soils to stabilize them for a structure of some sort, usually a building that is on top of the unstable soils. It seems that there is a lot of smoke and mirrors when it comes to the grouting world. Over the next few posts, it is my goal to share all of the inside information to remove the smoke and mirrors.
What are the various forms of soil stabilization accomplished with pressure grouting?
The point I am making is that we see ourselves primarily in providing innovative solutions to meet challenging problems that our clients present to us. So we have adjusted our name to more accurately reflect our primary core of providing solutions to foundation problems.
Because we also do large amount of commercial new construction and alterations, we felt that foundation repair did not encompass all of these types of services and that foundation solutions did encompass these services. So finally we bit the bullet and made the change. Hope you like it. Feel free to contact me and give me your thoughts.
Each of these techniques will have great results for applications specific for its use. Grouters and engineers with the proper experience know when the right time to use these techniques to achieve great cost effective results. By using a specific technique in the wrong application, an unsatisfactory and sometimes disastrous outcome is realized. If property owners or engineers are unfamiliar with these techniques and their proper applications, leaving it up the contractor, then many times the contractor will use the technique that they are experienced or familiar with resulting in less than optimal results.
Over the next few posts I will write more detail on each of these techniques, their pros, cons, applications, and important things to know to properly manage your grouting contractor. There are other techniques such as fracture grouting that are not commonly used that I won’t spend much time on. I will also try to show the drawbacks and dangers of using the various techniques in the wrong application. Here is a hint. If your engineer is telling you that the technique used for a specific application is to be solely determined by the contractor, your engineer does not have the experience to be helpful. Pressure grouting is not a black art. It is a science that can be measured and controlled with consensus guidelines. As a matter of fact the ASCE and the Geo institute have developed a grouting guide with some of the best grouting engineers and professionals in the country. They have performed hundreds of field tests and determined what techniques give the best results in each specific soil condition. You can buy the guide from the ASCE Website at http://www.asce.org/Product.aspx?id=2147488284 for $75.00. I highly recommend it for anyone involved in the grouting industry.