Experiences with concrete lifting

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scottyja
Posts: 240
Joined: Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:08 pm

Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by scottyja »

We have a fairly large concrete driveway that is buckling. The driveway consists of 9 concrete pads or sections, and each one seems to be lifting and sinking independently. The worst part has one pad dramatically sinking in one corner and the adjacent corner raising, causing about a 3-4" lip. The pads aren't cracking, just moving as a whole. I want to get this repaired and there seems to be 2 viable solutions - concrete lifting vs. re-pouring a new driveway.

We've had 2 initial estimates, one from a concrete lifting service and one from a driveway replacement service. Neither company impressed us, so we'll continue getting new estimates. But the driveway replacement rep had nothing good to say about the lifting. He basically said it's temporary and we'll be in the same boat in 1-2 years. This worries me, and I'm curious if others have seen the same thing. The lifting service is about 1/2 the cost of replacing the driveway, but I don't want to do this every couple of years.

Does anyone have any experience with large-scale concrete lifting - if so, how long has it lasted? Would you do it again?

Thanks all for the help.
Rattlesnake
Posts: 198
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2008 3:43 pm
Location: Michigan

Re: Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by Rattlesnake »

In our case it was 3 sections (approximately 3 feet wide by 6 feet long) of the walk to the front porch that were out of wack. We used a local concrete lifting firm about 3 years ago and all is well.... They do not do this work in the Winter so our work was done in May.... I would do it again....

Just my $0.02.....
9th Infantry Division LRRP (Ranger) | 1968-69
BuckyBadger
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Re: Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by BuckyBadger »

I recently had this conversation with someone and referred to it as "mud jacking," which is what I had heard it called. They had never heard that phrase before.

Anyway, we had an experience with mud jacking when selling our last house. The front steps (4 or 5 steps cast as one concrete section) had sunk about 4 inches and cocked slightly to the side. We wanted to fix this before putting the house up for sale. Interestingly enough, the steps were like that when we purchased the house, but we never fixed them for ourselves, but we decided to fix them for the next people to live there.

We looked into the difference between mud jacking the steps and replacing them. In our case, which was a fairly small amount of mud jacking, it was many many times cheaper. I think we paid maybe $200? Replacing the steps would have cost more than a thousand dollars. The trade off, however, was that the mud jacking wasn't as permanent. The guy who did it said we could expect a couple/three years before it resettled. But that was a fine time frame for us so that's what we had done. Obviously I can't tell you how well it's held up, though!

I'm not sure what your cost is, $X versus $(1/2)X, but if you want it fixed permanently, I'd replace the driveway - but make sure that it's done properly so that you don't have this problem again. If it was a bigger difference, $X versus $(much less)X, I'd consider mud jacking and rolling the dice.
tomd37
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Location: Middle Tennessee

Re: Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by tomd37 »

Our homeowners association had a large number of concrete sections surrounding the swimming pool "floated" (Google A-1 concrete leveling Nashville to see their home page) several years ago with excellent results. The HOA then put a new surface on that concrete decking and it has held up well. I believe A-1 is a franchise operation.
Tom D.
surveyor
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Re: Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by surveyor »

Unless the replace people know why the current slabs are moving (they don't unless they've cored) they have no business telling you that mud jacked slabs will continue to see movement. You have a subgrade problem of some type. Whether it was insufficient compacting at the time the drive was installed or a bad soil beneath the subgrade material you simply can't look at it and know. Frankly, if it is done moving (ie hasn't moved after a couple of years) I would think the mud jacking should hold. I'd also get another quote on the mud jacking. 1/2 the price of new seems a bit steep. You could also just mud jack the two worst slabs you mention and see what happens. Good luck.
BuckyBadger
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Re: Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by BuckyBadger »

surveyor wrote:Unless the replace people know why the current slabs are moving (they don't unless they've cored) they have no business telling you that mud jacked slabs will continue to see movement. You have a subgrade problem of some type. Whether it was insufficient compacting at the time the drive was installed or a bad soil beneath the subgrade material you simply can't look at it and know. Frankly, if it is done moving (ie hasn't moved after a couple of years) I would think the mud jacking should hold. I'd also get another quote on the mud jacking. 1/2 the price of new seems a bit steep. You could also just mud jack the two worst slabs you mention and see what happens. Good luck.
I think this is a good idea.
123
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Re: Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by 123 »

I'd lean toward the remedy of mud-jacking a couple of the worst slabs and see how well that works over time. I lived next to a house with foundation problems due to soil/grading issues. There may be no sure remedies for some situations without a complete do-over of the lot (adjacent soil may also impact your driveway). If you do a complete replacement of the driveway without addressing all the soil issues the problem will re-occur sooner or later. Maybe there's a solution involving smaller slabs?
The closest helping hand is at the end of your own arm.
Louis Winthorpe III
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Re: Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by Louis Winthorpe III »

We paid to have several spots on our driveway mud-jacked several years ago. Probably 6 or 7. It worked great for us, and we haven't had any problems since then.
Topic Author
scottyja
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Re: Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by scottyja »

Thanks for the responses. The good news is that the foundation is sound (so far). I think the builders just did a rush job on the driveway. The sidewalk the city put in after the driveway was down (and cuts through some of the driveway) is still level. This was all 15 years ago, so I'm hoping the soil is as compacted as it can be. I like the idea doing the worst offenders first. The biggest frustration is trying to shovel snow on an uneven driveway!
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LarryG
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Re: Experiences with concrete lifting

Post by LarryG »

We had mud jacking about 19 years ago. This solved the "sinking" problem. Eventually some of the slabs (not ones that were jacked) deteriorated so we had a replacement last year. The mud jacking worked until then.
I would recommend the mud jacking technique.
LarryG
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