No More Trip and Fall Hazards in SoCal Elementary Schools

Parents and caretakers of elementary school children all over the Southern California school district can now breathe a sigh of relief. They have one less thing to worry about, as their children can now walk to and from school with less risk of tripping and falling on cracked, sinking and heaving sidewalks and patios.

Things like poor soil compaction, erosion, and shifting sub-soils can affect concrete slab and walkway elevations causing dangerous trip and fall situations.  This is what happened in various elementary school areas as some exterior areas fell in disrepair over the years. 

The SoCal school district had to perform sidewalk leveling at multiple elementary schools to maintain a safe environment for teachers, students and visitors.  With tight budgets, labor intensive removal and replacement of concrete was prohibitive thus delaying any action. 

Various elementary school sites were inspected and a detailed map of trip and fall locations was plotted. After getting quotes and weighing their options, the district found that retaining and raising the existing concrete slab using structural-grade polyurethane injection saved them thousands of dollars and a lot of disruption. First used in Southern California by Lake Elsinore-based Saber Foundation, this process cures fast and requires no down time.

Sunken slabs were then raised by injecting 3.5 pound, closed-cell, structural polyurethane grout. Polyurethane grouting is an environmentally-friendly, permanent alternative to mudjacking.

The process for polyurethane grout injection consists of drilling multiple 3/8" holes thru the sunken slab, inserting a grout port into the drilled hole and injecting the polyurethane material. This product cures within minutes allowing the walkway to be put back into service immediately.

A few sidewalk locations that were raised by tree roots were repaired using dustless concrete grinding. This process utilizes a walk-behind concrete scarifier attached to a powerful dust vacuum to grind down the raised lip to an ADA-compliant slope without releasing concrete dust in the air. This method greatly reduces the chances of trip and fall accidents.

According to Mark Cook, from Saber Foudation the same affordable technologies used in this school district project are also available to fix residential walkways, decks, patios and driveways.