The Brew Cabin

Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council are using expanding foam as a repair medium for loose flags/paviours and setts. We in Northern Ireland are looking to trial this as a possible way forward for similar repairs here. We are currently looking for feedback from anyone who has carried out this repair method successfully as this information may prove valuable in our report.

We have used it as a temporary, "emergency" repair medium on pavings at a chain of nursing homes we used to maintain, but the foam was always replaced within a month with a 'permanent' repair.

We found it worked best with wider joints, especially on setts/cubes, but that is was less successful when it came to curing 'rocking' flags as it didn't sem to penetrate beneath the flags and fill the gap/void in the bedding. Also, on some paths laid on spot bedding (not laid by us, I hasten to add!!) the ability of the paving to swallow huge volumes of the foam was frightening.

We were obliged by the property owner to effect 'permanent' repairs as soon as practically possible, although some of the smaller repairs could have been left as they were. However, with some sett work that had been patch-repaired with foam, visitors to the nursing home in question were complaining that ladies' heels were penetrating the foam and getting stuck, hence the requirement to replace the foam with a solid joint medium asap.

I also seem to recall that it was less successful on pavements that were subject to bvehicular traffic, even though it was only low speed "car park" traffic. Several of the sett rumble strips we repaired in this way worked themselves loose again in just a matter of days.

I'll dig out the job records later and see if I made any other notes regarding the efficacy or otherwise of the foam repairs.


HTH