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Mud Jacking vs slab replacement

Lou N

Active member
Joined
Jul 21, 2009
Messages
41
All,

I have one section of my concrete driveway that has sunk about an inch or so and has a nice horizontal crack all the way across. One of the other slabs (there are four) is sinking, as is part of the sidewalk.

Has anyone had experience with mud jacking? I have a quote of around $800 to jack up the sinking sections, but of course that won't fix the crack. My wife thinks I'm crazy but I think the cracked slab looks terrible.

So I'm thinking of having the uncracked portions jacked up and replacing the cracked slab completely.

Anyone know what it might cost to tear out, compact soil, and replace a 11' x 11" slab?

I'm sure this occured because the builder failed to properly comapct the soil. I expect some cracking is normal, but it p*&) me off to have to spend money on something that probably could have been avoid.

Thanks,
Lou :)
 
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BL50

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
88
Location
Michigan
If the cracked slab bothers you, then all the holes that they will have to drill for mud jacking will really bother you. I had a couple sections of sidewalk raised a few years ago and I was surprised at the number of holes that they had to drill. Still saved me money over what the city wanted to replace the slabs but it looks like hell with all the holes. With a city sidewalk I don't really care ... but if it was my driveway it would drive me nuts!

I'd get a quote to replace the slabs and go from there.
 

Dan in Pasadena

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Joined
Feb 18, 2009
Messages
13,103
Location
Pasadena, CA
I've got a triangluar piece of floor in my garage that has been undermined over the years, cracked and the front right corner of my floor has probably dropped 1-1/2" - 2". I can't replace the floor because unlike modern garages, mine is built directly on the slab not on a perimeter footing with a slab in the middle. I have thought about the mud jacking too but never looked into the cost. Frankly, I think I'm just going to saw cut about 3" inside the wall, demo out the bad part and replace it tying old and new together with epoxied dowels and call it done. It's an 80+ year old garage anyway. I want to put VCT on it, we'll see how it comes out.
 

red

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Joined
Feb 20, 2009
Messages
719
Location
Hudson Valley, NY
Didn't mention how old the the concrete slab is. My concern would be a repeat. Ground not done settling or worse garbage buried under the driveway. Go for new slab!
 

NH Gearhead

Member
Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Messages
23
Location
Keene, NH
The apron of my old 2-car garage is doing the same thing as your driveway...

I'm sure that over the years, water has undercut and removed material below. The crack starts at the outside corner and moves diagonaly into the interior of the garage. Basically, there is a triangular slab of concrete slowly sinking into the ground and at this point is about 1" below it's original height.

I will be curious to see how you resolve your issues. Good luck.


-G
:beer:
 

LIVELY

Well-known member
Joined
May 8, 2010
Messages
362
Location
Illinois
MUD JACKING WORKS BUT---THE HOLES LOOK TERRIBLE AT TIMES:wtf:
TEAR THE SLAB OUT/ DIG ALL THE MUD AND MESS OUT/ COMPACT IT COMPLETELY WITH GOOD ROCK/ AND POUR A NEW SLAB:bounce:
Then After You Do All That--YOU CAN WATCH IT GET HARD AND CRACK LATER ON[ ALL CONCRETE NOW ADAYS CRACKS -IT SHOULDN'T--BUT IT DOES]:(:(
THE BEST YOU CAN HOPE FOR IS THAT YOU HAVE STOPPED THE SINKING PROCESS:thumbup:
 

z28snksknr

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Joined
Jul 8, 2009
Messages
1,827
Location
Turnersville, NJ
The apron of my old 2-car garage is doing the same thing as your driveway...

I'm sure that over the years, water has undercut and removed material below. The crack starts at the outside corner and moves diagonaly into the interior of the garage. Basically, there is a triangular slab of concrete slowly sinking into the ground and at this point is about 1" below it's original height.

I will be curious to see how you resolve your issues. Good luck.


-G
:beer:

I'm in this boat as well - almost an identical situation, but mine has dropped 3-4". the corner of my slab is busted out, and I was thinking of using multiple car jacks to raise the slab up, back fill as much as possible, repeat as necessary until it is level or even raised slightly to allow for settling, and then patch the crack and the busted corner.

granted, it will probably be 2-3 years before I'll get it. Let me know how you make out.
 

Ch3No2

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Joined
Nov 27, 2009
Messages
356
Mud jacking does leave holes as it is mainly used for houses with carpet....the biggest problem here is that the mud jacking won't fix the lack of poor soil compaction
 

dan76

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Joined
Jul 14, 2009
Messages
230
I have a similar problem with a rental unit. The neighbors tell me the affected area was filled with construction debris by the builder as a means to avoid renting a dumpster. As the slab is now pooling water in the direction of a basement area, I have to do something.

I have a bid for raising the slab by mud jacking (mis-named as an expanding polymer is the material used) or replacing the slab. As the bids are only a few hundred dollars apart it makes little difference financially but the slab is crack-free and nicely finished. I doubt if the replacement slab would look as good.
 
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a3tripod

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Joined
Dec 30, 2008
Messages
89
Mudjacking is often just limestone and water pumped at a low psi (5psi)...never heard of a polymer one. Anyway, I vote for mudjacking. they do drill a lot of holes to get it done, but they back fill them with concrete. After 3 years of being in the sun, i can hardly see them, except when it rains, then they become more obvious.
 

LegacyIndustrial

ALLIANCE MEMBER
Joined
Jun 7, 2010
Messages
7,993
Location
deerfield, IL
Slab jacking is only as good as the sub-surface. If it sank the first time, it may do it again.
The bad part is, the slab-jacker will have cashed your check by the time it starts to sink again.
 

mebedave

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Joined
Jan 17, 2010
Messages
260
Location
Atlantic county area, New Jersey USA
Mud jacking is fast, no disturbance to surrounding landscape and only a fraction of the cost compared to tearing out and pouring a new concrete, ready for use the same day.
I have a mud jacking company and we save customers thousands of dollars ever day!! For 40 years my family has been doing mud jacking and we only had a few recalls doing that period where it settled again, so we went back re-drilled the same holes and adjusted the concrete, and never had to adjust it again.
If you know what your doing, mud jacking is the way to go. Click on my Facebook link and read my post "BEWARE OF PYRAMID SCHEME" this will explain the most common reason why mud jacking fails.

https://www.facebook.com/kbmudjacking
 

ford33

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Feb 26, 2011
Messages
2,118
Location
Chicago, IL. USA
I had a sidewalk into my home mud jacked Raised it about 3 inches. They drilled many holes in the sidewalk to pump the mud. It looked good for about 3 years and then it started to settle again. After about 8 years it eventually settled back to the way it was.

I had the sidewalk replaced entirely. My experience with mud jacking was not good. Too many holes in the concrete and it only lasted about 3 years. I would not do it again.
 

Ch3No2

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Nov 27, 2009
Messages
356
Like I said before mud jacking is only as good as the base soil....I mean why did it fail the first time?
Reminds me of putting perfume on a pig
 

volleyball

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Aug 29, 2011
Messages
4,127
Location
NY, not NYC
I'm in this boat as well - almost an identical situation, but mine has dropped 3-4". the corner of my slab is busted out, and I was thinking of using multiple car jacks to raise the slab up, back fill as much as possible, repeat as necessary until it is level or even raised slightly to allow for settling, and then patch the crack and the busted corner.

granted, it will probably be 2-3 years before I'll get it. Let me know how you make out.

Seems your is down enough you could drill some holes, put in rebar and pour over the top to level. Should last for years.

You won't be able to lift, fill in and reseat,
 

77thor

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Mar 2, 2013
Messages
1,308
Location
Milwaukee, WI USA
I had mujacking done a couple of times... and it hasn't lasted more than 4 years before settling again.
I vote new concrete- Do it right the first time.
 

mebedave

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Joined
Jan 17, 2010
Messages
260
Location
Atlantic county area, New Jersey USA
Reasons Why Mud Jacking Can Fail,Read on...

BEWARE OF PYRAMID SCHEME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before you hire a mud jacking company Here are some very important facts you need to be aware of. One negative issue sometime associated with mud jacking is a term called “pyramiding” or “coning”
This “pyramiding or coning” occurs when the mud jacking slurry is too stiff. By allowing the slurry to be too stiff, it will build a pyramid or cone directly under the injection hole, which prevents the slurry from completely filling the voids under the remaining concrete. If the concrete is raised using this technique, unbeknown to you, the voids are not completely filled the concrete will soon settle again.
KB Mudjacking’s of Perry Kansas method of a professionally mud jacked slab evenly raised by first filling the void, then continuing to pump, floating the slab back up into place.

This “pyramiding or coning” is a practice some mud jacking companies will use to quickly raise concrete back up, but fail to fill the voids for numerous reasons such as:

• The mud jacking company may have employees working for them that are not properly trained.

• The mud jacking company has placed an unrealistic work load onto their crew scheduling more jobs than they can handle, the crew struggles to keep up and cuts corners by pyramiding or coning to quickly raise the concrete without filling the voids, so they can move to the next job.

• Some Mud jacking companies are under equipped and do not…or can not...carry enough mud jacking material on their truck, therefore “pyramiding or coning” is a common practice among such mud jacking companies to quickly raise the concrete, but they are unable to fill the voids due to the lack of material. Beware of these companies that do not have the load capacity or who are working out of the back of a pick-up truck or trailer. We carry 10 yards of material on our truck, weighing 28,000 lbs!!!

• Most all Mud jacking companies do not own fully automated equipment and are limited to shoveling the material by hand out of the back of a truck (no one likes to shovel!) so, to reduce the amount of back breaking shoveling, its much easier for them to cut corners by “pyramiding or coning” to raise the concrete but fail to fill the voids.

Yes, If you have poor soil mud jacking can fail, but if you tear out and replace concrete on top of that same bad soil, that to can fail. My experience is, in most cases soil will self compact itself in ten years with the weight of the concrete on top of it. So if you have a slab of concrete that has been there for ten years that has settled and you correctly mud jack it back up filling all the voids and use a non organic material such as pulverized stone like we used mixed with portland cement, that slab can last a lift time. My family has been in this business for 40 years, we have jobs that we mud jacked 25 years ago and has not settled to this day. So say want you want about mud jacking but please know all the facts first :) We save people thousands of dollars everyday and have many very happy customers. Out of the 200 plus mud jacking jobs I did last year I had one recall, it was a driveway that was down 3" we jacked it back up, over the winter it settled back down 3/8", we stand behind our repairs, without any questions I went back out re-drilled the same injection holes and made the adjustment. The client was very happy, he told me he had estimates before contacting us to replace the driveway, lowest bid was $6000.00, we mud jacked it for $900.00, so you decide, not everyone has $6000.00 laying around they want to spend on a driveway!
 
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GS-Louie

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 10, 2013
Messages
135
I've got a triangluar piece of floor in my garage that has been undermined over the years, cracked and the front right corner of my floor has probably dropped 1-1/2" - 2". I can't replace the floor because unlike modern garages, mine is built directly on the slab not on a perimeter footing with a slab in the middle. I have thought about the mud jacking too but never looked into the cost. Frankly, I think I'm just going to saw cut about 3" inside the wall, demo out the bad part and replace it tying old and new together with epoxied dowels and call it done. It's an 80+ year old garage anyway. I want to put VCT on it, we'll see how it comes out.

We had a garage with a badly cracked and sloping floor. We could not get anyone out to level it because of the weight of the garage. Instead we redid the garage area. They broke out the floor almost to the walls. Then they jacked up the garage a couple of feet and broke out the rest. They then poured new footers and built up the base with block. They lowered the garage and then poured a new floor.It came out very nice with the new driveway and sidewalks. Go with the new floor and be done with it.

Lou
 
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