Repair Type
Concrete Leveling and Slab Lifting in Grand Junction
Sunken driveways, walks, patios and garage slabs raised back to grade by injecting under them rather than replacing them.
Flatwork sinks for a different reason than a house does. A driveway, a walkway, a patio, or a garage slab sits on fill and subgrade that was compacted once, and when that material settles or washes out, a void opens and the slab drops into it. In the Grand Valley the usual culprits are poorly compacted trench backfill over a utility run, water from a downspout or an irrigation line finding a path under the edge, and the seasonal volume change in the clay underneath. Lifting is almost always cheaper than replacement and is finished in hours rather than days. Polyurethane foam injection is the current standard: small ports are drilled, expanding structural foam is injected to fill the void and raise the slab, and the ports are patched. Older mudjacking with a cementitious slurry is still used and costs less, but it is heavier and needs larger holes. Expect roughly $4 to $9 per square foot for foam lifting on typical residential flatwork, against $9 to $16 per square foot to tear out and repour.
What the scope covers
- Void mapping and elevation shots before anything is drilled, so the lift is planned to a target rather than improvised
- Polyurethane foam injection through small ports, with the slab raised in controlled stages
- Traditional mudjacking where the slab is thick, heavily loaded, or better suited to a slurry
- Trip-hazard correction on public walks and driveway aprons, which sidewalk maintenance rules generally make the property owner responsible for
- Void filling under garage slabs and interior slabs where the concrete is sound but unsupported
- Joint and crack sealing afterwards so surface water stops going straight back under the slab
- Same-day return to service on foam lifts, which cure in minutes rather than days
To get this priced on your own house, call (970) 644-6329 or send the quote form. Someone comes out, measures, and leaves a written scope and a price at no charge.
Read next
On concrete leveling, specifically
- Is lifting worth it, or should the slab just be replaced?
- If the concrete itself is sound, lifting is the better value nearly every time: roughly half the cost, finished in a morning, and no cure time before you can drive on it. Replacement makes sense when the slab is badly spalled, shattered into many pieces, or has failed reinforcement, because at that point you are lifting something that is already at the end of its life.
- How long does a lifted slab stay level?
- As long as the reason it sank is gone. Foam fills the void permanently and does not wash out, but if the same downspout keeps discharging at the same corner, the soil under it will keep moving. Every lift should come with a note about where the water was coming from.
- Will the holes be obvious afterwards?
- Foam injection ports are usually around five-eighths of an inch and get patched with a color-matched grout. On a broom-finished driveway they are hard to pick out after a season. Mudjacking holes are larger, closer to an inch and a half, and stay more visible.
- Can a settled garage slab be lifted with the cars still in it?
- The garage needs to be empty for the work, but only for the few hours the crew is there. Foam reaches driving strength quickly, so vehicles usually go back the same day.
From the Field Notes
More on this, written for the Grand Valley
Related Repairs
Scopes that usually travel together
Foundation problems here rarely arrive alone. A settled corner and a sunken driveway apron on the same side of the house are usually the same void, and piering without fixing the water that caused it buys time rather than a solution.
Foundation Settlement Repair
Steel piers driven or screwed past the moving soil to competent bearing, then the footing is transferred onto them
Basement and Stem Wall Repair
Cracked, leaning, and bowing foundation walls braced or anchored back so the movement stops
Crawl Space Repair and Encapsulation
Failed piers and posts replaced, sagging girders re-supported, and the ground sealed off from the house above
Foundation Drainage and Grading
Getting roof water, irrigation water, and yard runoff away from the foundation so the soil under it stops changing volume
Find out what the repair costs
Ring (970) 644-6329, or send the form, and a Grand Valley foundation contractor prices the work at no charge.