Sunken or unstable slabs are a threat to all types of apartment properties, from small multi-family units in quiet neighborhoods to busy high rise complexes.  If you own or manage an apartment complex with concrete slab issues, it’s important to understand the advantages of lifting with polyurethane vs ripping out and replacing the slab.

The following points are excerpted from our blog post Four Advantages of Lifting vs Replacement…

1. No Excavation

Unlike the disruptive process of tearing out and replacing a slab, polyurethane slab lifting does not require excavation.  No one will have to dig up your drive way and get dirt all over your yard.  Instead, a friendly and professional GCS crew will inject the resin through your existing slab using holes half the size of a dime.  The concrete will be leveled and the small holes will be plugged with either a non-shrink cement grout, durable epoxy or a high strength polymer cement.

2. Clean & Environmentally Friendly

The main lifting foams we use, Alchemy-Spetec’s AP Lift 430 and AP Lift 475, are NSF certified safe for contact with drinking water after they cure.  With that high level of safety certification, you don’t have to worry about the long term environmental impact.  Meanwhile, what happens to torn out concrete?  Very often, it ends up in landfills.

3. No Heavy Equipment Required

Slab lifting crews are like a small SWAT team: focused, efficient and precise.  There will be no need for heavy equipment on the job, tearing up your yard or making loud noises that disturb your family and/or your neighbors.  Instead, you would have a small truck parked near the slab and a small crew running hoses out of the truck to the slab surface where they are pumping the foam. 

4. No Permitting Required in Most Cases

One last thing to keep in mind: new construction often requires permitting.  Don’t want to spend hours down at your local permitting office dealing with the bureaucracy?  You most likely won’t have to if you just have the slab lifted instead.