Discovered damage in your pit or chest linings? Regular inspections are key to planning work for mill outages. Once you’ve made an assessment, you have an idea of what you’ll need to plan for on the schedule and for your budget. Most people still wait to perform the repairs and assume the damage will have progressed by the outage.

Why not make the temporary repairs during the inspection? It could slow or prevent any additional damage that might continue to progress until your planned project date.

Take a look at some options that will keep the surprises at a minimum when you open up that chest or pit down the road.

Chest and pit lining repair products:

There are far too many repair options to cover them in a single email. So, we’ve picked two options for a very common issue. Look around the mill and you’re sure to see this one. A large piece of concrete cracked off the corner of a foundation. It may be on the floor or even still holding on to rebar or an anchor bolt. Here are two easy fixes for this condition that won’t take long to do.

Option 1

Clean separated piece of concrete and area if came from. Make sure they are both free of dust. Then liberally apply Ultrabond 1 epoxy adhesive to the surface of the piece coating it completely. Press the piece into the area it came from. Use a couple of clamps or a piece of lumber to hold it until hardened.

Option 2

Clean the area that has been exposed and saturate it with water to pre-soak the surface.

Repairing a foundation is the best way to reduce the chance it gets worse and eventually fails to do its job. But, when would you do it? You put it off because you don’t think you have the time or the expertise to do it yourself. Well, it really easier than you think. You just have to have the right material in the right packaging to pull it off.

Take a look at the most common foundation repair products and their ease of use:

Product Selection Guide for Equipment Foundation Repairs

So, you’ve determined that you need to re-grout a pump, but it’s not something you do very often. Refresh your memory with the guide below.

1. Make sure you choose the right grout for your application.

Utilize available application guides or call an expert to have them walk you through the selection process.

2. Prepare your foundation for the best bond.

This may mean roughening the surface by bushing or chipping and even pre-soaking with water depending on the grout you’ve chosen.

3. Form the area to be grouted.

Make sure your forms are sealed well enough that they could hold water.

4. Use the right mixer.

Make sure you use a mixer with the right mixing action for your grout. Violent action for cements and low speed for epoxies.

5. Fill the forms to insure

Owners, designers and general contractors demand high quality, along with rapid installation. For contractors installing self-leveling underlayment (SLU), this means new approaches are needed to complete work faster and more efficiently.

With ever-growing pressures to complete buildings on tight schedules, flooring and subflooring contractors often feel pinched from multiple sources. Modern flooring materials such as tiling and the associated adhesives are advancing to dry faster than before, and various construction trades demand access to rooms sooner. Owners, designers and general contractors demand high quality, along with rapid installation. For contractors installing self-leveling underlayment (SLU), this means new approaches are needed to complete work faster and more efficiently. Pumping of SLU can help address these challenges.

Still think your only option for re-setting and grouting equipment is waiting on a semi-annual shutdown? The truth is, cement and epoxy technology has advanced just like your office computer. New materials and additives have produced products for grouting that allow for equipment start-up in as little as 1 hour. A single field maintenance day can now allow time for demo, install, grouting and cure to happen in a 12 hour day.

Take a look at some of the grouts that can get your equipment re-set and running on a snap.

Product Comparison Guide to Quick Turn-Around Grouting

Take a look at the range of materials you can use to restore your foundation and grout in one step.

When restoring and protecting pump foundations, you can use the same chemical resistant patching materials (mentioned in our guide “Product Selection Guide for Chemical Resistant Concrete Repair Materials”) in one step.

You can use those same materials you used to repair your concrete slabs and containment areas with to restore and protect your equipment foundations. It’s a technique know as “encapsulation” and it can be done on a maintenance down day. You can remove all of the damaged concrete, form and pour a chemical resistant grout. It repairs and grouts the equipment in one step.

Take a look at some