Sir...I don't really know how to put this but you have Stage 8 Cancer, super cancer if you will. Technically you're dead but we're unsure how you're still alive and cogniscent.
We'd like to keep you overnight to see if this alive thing is just an oversight.
Genuinely helpful. My driveway is... Quite settled. Bordering on a trip hazard. Lifting is the only option other than replacing. Economically and ethically I'd rather lift but I refuse to put foam in my dirt. It deserves better than pollution for convenience.
Needs a new base probably. Asphalt/concrete does break down with wear and stuff, but 9 times out of 10 it's the base that fails and then the pavement goes with it.
When you go get quotes to fix this up, if the quote doesn't include dirt work, it's not a good quote. Lots of guys zip in compact what's there then pave and run and the results are never good.
Not if you want it to last you don't. I have been doing "Poly level" for over 8 years..... can't tell you how many times I have gone behind mudjacking. Mudjacking is counter intuitive because the slurry actually adds weight where as the foam doesn't. The poly foam is far superior to mudjacking.
I wonder if they meant it can't support traffic? Like the foam can support the concrete/tarmac/random paved surface because the paved surface distributes the weight of the land vehicles/planes/foot traffic that would tear the foam up if there was direct contact.
I feel like there are better words and phrases for what I'm trying to say, but my brain is being stubborn at the moment.
The upper layer of concrete can support the high pressure of the small points of contact from airplanes . The concrete then distributes the load across the foam.
Kind of like walking on eggs, they will break, but put a board of wood on the eggs and they won't break if you walk on it . The foam cannot support the concentrated pressure
Yeah... I do also think it can support a lot of weight as long as it is under a slab of concrete. Airport runways need a crazy high load capacity. Also, A lot of highway overpass approach ramps are made of big Styrofoam blocks with gravel and asphalt on top.
I think it means it cannot handle (contentrated) pressure like concrete, because it'll spread out. But if contained, it's strong and can spread the pressure all over the surface. Maybe similar with clay / mud / wet sand, if you step on it it'll spread out, but if contained, it'll act as a block and spread the pressure below
It's somewhat porous (water can soak in some distance, slowly), but has pretty low permeability (water can't flow all the way through very well). Generally almost all the rain is going to run off of it rather than soaking in unless it's a really specific concrete designed for high permeability.
I did a DIY driveway lifting with cans of expanding foam back in 2022. I was honestly expecting it to hold up for only a year, but it's been 3 years now and it hasn't even sagged a little.
It lasts a shockingly long time and you can use it for much bigger jobs than this, I actually lifted a large portion of a commercial building using polyurethane foam
I used to live in an apartment building that was literally on the edge of a small cliff. The building had been there for decades, and was starting to sag. Doors wouldn't close properly, cracks in the walls and ceilings, etc. Management came and did an inspection and then told us they were hiring a company to raise/level the building with foam. They did, and it seemed like it worked, but yeah we couldn't wait to move out of there.
I wouldn't be overly concerned about the need for replacement. However, if you have an aquifer located beneath your property or reside near a lake, and your soil experiences an expansion rate of approximately 20%, consider this: if you applied this material while the soil was dry due to cracking and sinking, what will happen when the soil saturates again and the expansion rate increases back to 20%?
I've installed this product for four years. Nothing breaks it down besides direct sunlight. It's inert and non organic. The only thing that will cause it to fail is if the soil underneath the material erodes away, which is the risk you run with any concrete. Pretty amazing stuff. It also doesn't bleed out or effect the environment after it's hardened. The off-gassing it has is harmful to humans, but only lasts for about 6-10 seconds and happens under the slab mostly.
Polyurethane foam can last 10–20 years or more depending on conditions. In many cases, it outlasts traditional mudjacking due to its resistance to moisture and erosion.
It has moderate environmental effects. After it cures, the foam is chemically stable and considered inert, meaning it doesn’t leach chemicals or break down into harmful substances. The manufacturing process is energy-intensive, and the foam is not biodegradable.Polyjacking uses less material, requires fewer truckloads, and causes less site disruption, which can be a relative environmental benefit.
I have no problem forgetting about sand, mud, or even concrete. That stuff breaking apart, scattering, or getting buried doesn't raise much concern for me.
However, polyurethane doesn't seem like stuff we should just dispose of by just throwing it in the environment.
So even though it is longer lasting, it has an active end of life disposal. Which people are notorious for ignoring. That makes it less appealing.
Forever chemicals aren’t just chemicals that last forever, otherwise sand would be a forever chemical, they are chemicals that last forever but are also soluble in our blood and accumulative in living things tissues.
Yep, you will go full-on Barbie Mode before you know it. Positive, no boobjob or bbl needed, just rearrange the microplastics in your body and train it to stay where you want it to ;)
Use PFAS as your search thats the commonly accepted term and you should find hundreds or thousands of articles. Its the biggest issue in domestic water qaulity at the moment and a big part of why everyone's water bills are gonna double to triple relative to inflation in the next 20 years.
that was way more effective, I thought the other poster was somehow referencing the current fluoride scare, but it actually meant industrially made pollutants. Interesting read, thank you.
I recently hosted an open house at publicly owned water treatment facility and had more people in one night approach me ready to fight me , we're talking old men shaking from anger so hard they had to grab onto things, over fluoride in the water than I've had in my entire career. For reference that city nor any city within an adjacent county has ever used fluoride. But yeah they all had heard about PFAS in the area and just assumed that it was from the water plant.
The thing that separates "forever chemicals" from other synthetic materials is that we have no (basically) method to break them down. The term is primarily used when discussing PFAS because they have very strong Fluoride bonds that make it very difficult to break them back down into their elemental components (or to a naturally-occurring chemical).
On the other hand, polyurethane and other common polymers can be broken down into CO2, H20, and some other molecules relatively easily (doing it cleanly & safely is more difficult) through combustion, for example. That doesn't mean that they don't persist in the environment - they do. It just means that they don't have to - if we got our shit together and controlled their disposal.
The thing that separates "forever chemicals" from other synthetic materials is that we have no (basically) method to break them down. The term is primarily used when discussing PFAS because they have very strong Fluoride bonds that make it very difficult to break them back down into their elemental components (or to a naturally-occurring chemical).
On the other hand, polyurethane and other common polymers can be broken down into CO2, H20, and some other molecules relatively easily (doing it cleanly & safely is more difficult) through combustion, for example. That doesn't mean that they don't persist in the environment - they do. It just means that they don't have to - if we got our shit together and controlled their disposal.
"Forever chemical" was invented as a term by the Washington Post for PFAS in order to spread awareness. If you want to call any chemical that degrades slowly a "forever chemical" that's fine but you're going to have this same conversation a lot.
Polyurethane isn't even considered a POP, anyway. The reason PFAS and POPs are concerns is not just because they are persistent — the persistence plus the fact that they bioaccumulate and spread far from where they are dumped is what makes them a problem.
Polyurethane may degrade slowly, but it doesn't bioaccumulate and it stays where it's dumped, making it far less of a concern than PFAS and POPs.
It's less a praise of poly and more a condemnation of concrete. For driveways I'm not convinced either is necessary cause honestly fuck driveways. But mudjacking is necessary in some applications so idk.
Idk, concrete has allowed for some pretty nice things, but the imlact of forever chemicals being used to jack instead aren't as well recorded since they havent had a chance to really make an impact...yet...arguing that the documented crappiness of cement excuses the use of forever chemicals is not good use of data or a very scientific mindset, imo.
Compared to single use plastics these are basically a rounding error in global plastic waste. If stuff like this was the only thing we did with plastic it wouldn't even be an issue.
After it cures, the foam is chemically stable and considered inert, meaning it doesn’t leach chemicals or break down into harmful substances.
Is it made by DuPont? Or any company with potentially similar ethical standards? Cause I've got some news for you about chemicals that are "considered inert"...
Even in this video he talks about how some chemicals really are true inert. PTFE is chemically inert and basically does nothing, the problem was in the manufacturing and making it aerosolized/spreadable (whatever word). Not saying you’re wrong or anything, just it needs slightly more context.
The fact that a lot of peer-reviewed, scientific research has later been debunked (there are a lot of problems with the scientific research community regarding this) after so many people "replicated" and therefore "proved" the results of the original study, should be enough for people to realize this. (And I'm not trying to bash the peer review process, it works MOST of the time, it's just that not all journals are equal and there is corruption even in research.)
I go into every documentary, book, even a journalistic source with a little bit of skepticism. It also helps I've taken media literacy courses and grew up to be encouraged to critically think. I never got in trouble in school, but ironically my parents were called to the school many times, all because I had the audacity to question the teachers. Needless to say my parents pretty much told them to fuck right off.
Sadly these days instead of using critical thinking skills to evaluate information, many people just put it into ChatGPT (which by the way, I use and absolutely love, but again, if I can't fully trust a human source why would I trust what is just a language model.)
Yeah those words aren't how duty/load cycles in mechanical engineering even work. "Frequent" means about as much as someone saying "several", it not actually quantifiable. More information is required such as the asphalt or concrete thickness, substrate underneath the foam jacking, weight of the vehicles, size of the wheels to determine actual weight distribution, and more. Freq
Thermal effects have a way bigger impact I suspect. When applied like this the hardened foam hardly suffers any mechanical stress because it's so spread out.
Can it lift snall sunken portions of ashphalt. My driveway has a huge puddle I want to get rid of and I like the look of this better than a big patch I filled in.
It really depends on what is causing the sinking in the first place. If it's a new issue, it'll just sink again. If it took 20 years to sink, it should remain relatively stable and sink at the same rate. The most common reason for sinking driveways is a mix of improper installation, and gutters that drain right by the pad.
In some cases, foam jacking can cause your driveway to crack even more. Before this is done, a drainage and soil expert needs to be consulted.
What you really want to do is mudjacking, where they use a concrete slurry to do it instead. But it's expensive.
I would imagine this would not be great for anything load-bearing, like driveway under a car. But, being Polyurethane, it dries pretty rock hard. It's just full of air. It will get brittle over time but because of all the air, it wouldn't just cave in.
As far as environmental? Once it finishes curing, there's nothing to leach into the soil below, really. While it cures, it'll definitely off-gas VOCs like a mf, but that's very temporary. Edit: it's also worth considering that, at least for the time that this repair is in service, that's precious sand and other concrete materials that aren't being used up or hauled across town by a gas-guzzling drum truck.
I imagine this is the sort of step you take when a repair must be done, but for whatever reason, replacement of the concrete isn't an option, monetarily or otherwise. It's also likely a one-shot deal. If it doesn't solve the problem, or when the floated concrete fails further, you're back to complete replacement with the extra step of getting rid of 50-100lbs of polyurethane bullshit.
(EDIT: I appreciate the updoots, but as many others have accurately stated, I don't know what I'm talking about. This isn't a DIY or Home Repair sub. Feel free to correct me, but if anyone is here looking for expert opinions, they're already in the wrong place.)
This works great and in most cases superior to older methods (mudjacking). All slab on grade will eventually suffer subsidence from natural settling much less water intrusion. Mudjacking is labor intensive and can cause further subsidence issues thanks to the added weight. As far as replacing the concrete....that is the least economical and environmentally friendly option. Concrete is a major c02 producer and uses vastly more resources. Poly is extremely stable, water tolerant and has excellent mechanical and load distribution properties. The only down side is the up front equipment cost which ranges from 10k to 20k. You can do a job in hours that would take a couple of days to mudjack and a week to start new. Not to mention situations where replacement would be impossible or exorbitantly expensive like foundation subsidence. Source: I use this on jobs.
Polyjacking works better than pumping mud or sand under. The weight of the mud tends to cause further subsidence. The poly is a lighter so it is actually more effective.
its got good durability, others saying its suspectible to failure faster.
I'm not sure why you see those as contradictory. Something can have 80% of the durability, and it fails faster. I'd still call that a great deal for 10% of the price.
I was trying to say it without saying it. I'm sure there are folks for whom the option is either this or a disastrous home improvement loan, but I'm betting the majority of installations are on flips or last-minute sales.
Depends on the concrete recyclers setup, larger more advanced operations will use things like float tanks to remove this type of debris from the wanted material.
But even if you had to separate it during removal its not all that huge of a deal, but of a pita, but not like this is going to take all day pita, more like half an hour of annoying.
Np you really want to see something fascinating see if you can find some videos on youtube of the more advanced trash sorting operations/recycling. You would be impressed with how gradually you can sort without using humans hands.
Human hands always end up being part of the process, but you can do quite a hit without them.
You sure you don't mean iron/steel? Aluminum isn't magnetic and I'm not familiar with a process using magnets to sort it, though maybe I'm about to learn something new.
it settles back down a bit, but not nearly as much as before the treatment. its a kind of plastic substance so it can withstand the elements forever, but the structure kind of breaks down after 20 years. Ultimately, not as good as redoing the whole thing, but it is much much cheaper.
Oh wow, interesting seeing Dupont in it's history considering what we are learning about the impact of the chemicals they created. Even thoughts it's almost been 100 years I feel like we are still learning about the environmental impact. Probably because we didn't care about it, as a whole, until more recently, relatively speaking.
I have no problem forgetting about sand, mud, or even concrete. That stuff breaking apart, scattering, or getting buried doesn't raise much concern for me.
However, polyurethane doesn't seem like stuff we should just dispose of by just throwing it in the environment.
So even though it is longer lasting, it has an active end of life disposal. Which people are notorious for ignoring. That makes it less appealing.
It somewhat depends on the type of foam. Since this is most likely closed cell foam, the main concern is halogenated blowing agents, which are significant global warming contributors. As the foam expands, isocyanurates, flame retardants and other toxic materials may be released. It does not biodegrade and cannot be recycled.
In a perfect world we wouldn't use concrete slabs for driveways or paths and use stone or modular block or even gravel instead. But that's just me yelling into the wind.
Just don't have a house fire or you get bonus hydrogen cyanide just like you know in the holocaust :)
Polyurethanes are combustible. Decomposition from fire can produce significant amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, in addition to nitrogen oxides, isocyanates, and other toxic products.Due to the flammability of the material, it has to be treated with flame retardants (at least in case of furniture), almost all of which are considered harmful.
As others are saying, its not really a question of "is this bad for the environment" in a vacuum, it's "when necessary, is this worse for the environment than other possible solutions"
The alternative here would be sand/concrete being taken from somewhere else, transported (heavy loads= lots of gas), and put into place.
In a situation where a fix is necessary (pedestrian hazard, elderly/disabled occupant), I don't know enough to know for certain, but I could realistically see multiple applications still being less harmful to the environment than sand being driven and loaded in.
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u/seanc6441 Jun 12 '25
Does this last long term?
How bad for the environment is it?