Slab Jacking Can Fix Your Foundation

Industrial & Manufacturing Blog

If your foundation has started to sink, you may be looking for ways that you can fix it. One thing that you can do is to have a concrete contractor come out and do something called slab jacking. 

Slab Jacking

Slab jacking is a way to lift your concrete slab. It's a specialty process, so not all concrete contractors do this. The process requires finesse to do right because it's easy to raise the part of your slab that is sinking up too much. That can cause the slab to go past level, and you could end up with the sunken level up too high. 

Process

The basic process behind slab jacking is actually reasonably simple. The way that it works is that holes are drilled in several places in the foundation or concrete slab. They aren't drilled willy nilly; the concrete contractor doing the job will spend time figuring out the right places to drill so that they get the maximum effect for the minimum amount of invasion into the concrete slab. 

Once they have drilled holes in the concrete, it's time to start the next step in the process. The concrete contractor will start to pump a special grout in through the holes. That grout will spread out from where the grout has been inserted and start to raise the slab up. The contractor will monitor the process to make sure that they aren't adding too much. After the contractor has pumped in all the grout, they will wait for it to dry. As the grout dries, it will form a solid mass under the slab. That solid mass will be a firm bed for the concrete slab to rest on. Since many foundations fail because the concrete's substrate wasn't compacted right, leading to air pockets and soil shifting that makes the slab crack and sink, the grout ends up acting as that substrate. This can also help to put some of the soil and substrate beneath the slab as well, and this will lead to a better foundation.

A sinking slab can cause your foundation to crack. It can lead to the walls of your house cracking and the entire house going out of plumb. A house that is out of plumb will end up with water coming in through the walls and a whole host of other problems, like doors not shutting and drains not draining properly. Having a concrete contractor come in and jack up your slab will help to alleviate all those problems. 

16 December 2016