What Is PolyRenewal™?: Concrete Leveling with Polyurethane Foam

What’s the best solution for sinking and cracked concrete repair? Our answer: We PolyRenewal™ injection foam. It’s a specialized method for concrete leveling that is faster, stronger, and more affordable than alternatives like mudjacking and concrete replacement.

In this article, we discuss the ins and outs of PolyRenewal™, how it works, what it fixes, and how it can help you.

If you need concrete lifting and leveling, get started with a free inspection of your concrete and find your answer with PolyRenewal™.

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What’s the Problem with Sinking, Cracking Concrete?

Concrete is a heavy material and so are the vehicles, machinery, and structures that concrete slabs and footings are expected to support.

Sometimes, the combined weight of concrete and what it supports causes concrete settlement to occur. The soil beneath the concrete compresses and can cause major problems.

Uneven sidewalks, walkways, and steps can cause tripping, and sunken driveway slabs can make parking your car in the garage quite a challenge.

Old Concrete Lifting Methods

In the past, contractors often raised settled concrete by pumping a liquid mortar beneath the settled section with a method called mudjacking.

Mudjacking, also known as slabjacking, is an outdated repair method used to lift and stabilize sunken concrete slabs. This process involves drilling holes into the affected concrete and pumping a slurry mixture—typically made of water, soil, sand, and cement—underneath the slab to raise it back to its original level.

However, mudjacking is no longer the best solution for repairing concrete. Here’s why:

It doesn’t last very long due to its own weight
It doesn’t always lift evenly
It’s messy
It poses a risk to utilities
It usually comes with poor warranties
It’s not eco-friendly

For all these reasons, we don’t recommend mudjacking. Instead, our answer is PolyRenewal™.

What Is PolyRenewal™ Polyurethane Foam Injection?

PolyRenewal™, Tar Heel’s proprietary method, swiftly repairs damaged concrete by injecting a polyurethane foam underneath it. The foam mixture consists of two different compound liquids that are combined at the injection nozzle. Once injected, the foam expands to about 15 times its initial volume, filling voids and lifting settled concrete effectively.

It hardens fast, reaching its full strength in just 15 minutes, allowing for immediate use. This quick and powerful repair technique, controlled by experienced technicians, offers a considerable advantage over traditional methods. It can also be applied prior to construction to improve soil stability and strength, with injection depths reaching up to 20-30ft.

Before and After

Sidewalks

Pool Decks

How PolyRenewal™ Works

Here’s how we prep your home for a PolyRenewal™ injection:

We drill penny-sized holes in your concrete.
We insert injection ports into these holes.
We inject our eco-friendly PolyRenewal foam, filling the ground beneath your concrete.
We seal and smooth over the injection points.

PolyRenewal™ injections can safeguard your concrete slabs from slippage and even fill cracks in damaged foundations on a case-by-case basis, offering a solution to long-term damage.

Top Advantages over Alternative Methods

Lightweight: PolyRenewal™, with a weight of just 4lbs per cubic ft, is significantly lighter than the standard 120lbs fill material. Despite its lightweight, it can support substantial loads and is ideal for use where denser fill material might impose excessive load on weak soils.
Waterproof: Once cured, PolyRenewal™ is impervious to water, ensuring it won’t wash away. This property can be beneficial in specific applications.
Eco-Safe: PolyRenewal™ is an environmentally friendly solution. It doesn’t harm the soil or surrounding environment, making it a sustainable choice for concrete repair and lifting. Because moisture doesn’t break it down, it won’t leach harmful chemicals into the soil.
Cures in 15 minutes: PolyRenewal™ minimizes downtime. Full loading of the foundation, roadway, or other structural elements can usually occur about 15 minutes after injection.
Versatile: The density and expansive force of this 2-part foam are adjustable, allowing for diverse geotechnical applications. The material’s lifting force can be fine-tuned to accommodate not only the weight of the structural element but also soil characteristics and weather conditions.
Noninvasive: PolyRenewal™ injection equipment is compact and not cumbersome, enabling access to confined areas. The injection process is tidy and less disruptive than other slab and foundation-lifting methods.

What Is PolyRenewal™ For?

PolyRenewal™ is most often used to lift and level concrete structures that are sinking and cracking.

PolyRenewal™ can handle almost any concrete structure, examples include:

Driveways
Sidewalks
Pool Decks
Steps
Porches
Patios
Slab Foundations

If you notice these symptoms cropping up around your home, you’ll want to get in touch with a local foundation and basement repair contractor as soon as possible. These professionals will be able to inspect your home and provide you with a free quote on services, which may include a PolyRenewal™ injection.

Contact Tar Heel Basement Systems for expert concrete repair

Ready to see why PolyRenewal™ is the superior choice when it comes to repairing sinking concrete?

Get started by scheduling a free inspection from Tar Heel Basement Systems today! We provide written estimates for concrete repair in Greensboro, Raleigh-Durham, Winston Salem, Wilmington, and other areas in our service area in North Carolina.

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PolyRenewal™ FAQs

Is the PolyRenewal™ material environmentally friendly?

Yes, the PolyRenewal™ foam is environmentally friendly and sustainable. It is designed to be less disruptive to the surrounding landscape and safe for use in various environments.

How is the Tar Heel PolyRenewal™ method different from traditional concrete repair methods?

The Tar Heel PolyRenewal™ method utilizes a state-of-the-art polyurethane injection, ensuring a more precise, durable, and quicker repair process compared to traditional methods like mudjacking or repouring. Additionally, this method is less invasive, reducing disruption to your property and allowing for a faster return to normal use.

Why Is PolyRenewal™ the Best Solution for Sinking Concrete?

For decades, civil engineers have been trying to perfect the concrete lifting process by mixing different materials with cement and pumping that mixture under the slab. Even though these various mixtures have different advantages and disadvantages, the result is always the same: A short-term solution for a sinking slab that can sometimes make the situation worse. Luckily, we live in a time where we have the tools and the materials capable of providing homeowners with a long-term solution. That solution would be PolyRenewal™, our polyurethane foam injection procedure that permanently repairs sinking slabs. It’s a contemporary concrete lifting method that doesn’t disappoint, not only because of the results, but also because of its convenience.

What makes PolyRenewal™ so great is that it doesn’t have any of the downsides that makes mudjacking such a problematic method. The cement slurry in mudjacking eventually erodes with time as the particles get displaced due to water and expanding ice. The crack formed from this displacement makes it so that water permeates past the concrete and reaches the soil, which causes settling down the line. The polyurethane foam we use is impermeable, meaning that it doesn’t erode nor does it allow moisture to seep through and saturate the soil. The same amount of polyurethane foam that is injected under the slab will stay there for decades.

Polyurethane foam is also lightweight, perfect for the soft soil in Northern North Carolina, which shifts easily under too much weight. Cement is rough and heavy, so a mudjacking job does nothing but displace the soil further. Closed-cell polyurethane foam is dense enough to support heavy loads without disrupting the soil underneath. All in all, PolyRenewal™ is the superior concrete lifting option because it does what soil and cement cannot do: Provide the slab with a foundation that will not shift or wash away.

Michael Wilcher

Michael Wilcher is the Content Lead at Groundworks, helping us to answer all of our customers biggest questions about foundation repair, basement waterproofing, crawl space encapsulation, and concrete lifting. In his free time, Michael enjoys collecting vinyl records, watching Formula 1 Racing, and reading philosophy. He holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge.

_{*Disclaimer: “Concrete leveling” means the process by which cracked, uneven concrete is stabilized, and in many cases lifted, by means of PolyRenewal™ polyurethane foam. Tar Heel Basement Systems does not guarantee that PolyRenewal™ can make your concrete perfectly level.}