A sunken slab isn't an eyesore first. It's the thing that catches the trash cart wheel every Tuesday.
Nobody calls us about a settled slab because of how it photographs. They call because the stroller wheel stops dead at the same spot every morning, or the trash cart tips on the way to the curb, or the garage door shows a wedge of daylight that wasn't there five years ago. Concrete failure shows up as friction in your week.
Mudjacking answers it directly. We drill a small pattern of holes through the slab and pump a wet mix of sand, portland cement, and water underneath until pressure carries the panel back level with its neighbor. Old method, still a good one. It works when the ground below can carry the weight we add, and that call gets made standing on your concrete.
| Slab and how it gets used | What the drop does to your routine | What the lift has to account for |
|---|---|---|
| Garage apron, two cars a day | Tire thump at the joint, daylight under the door | Wheel loads, so traffic stays off longer while slurry firms |
| Front walk, deliveries and kids | A lip catching toes right where nobody looks down | Both ends held flush, not just the low corner |
| Side walk to the gate, cart twice a week | The cart bangs down and the lid pops every trip | A narrow ribbon, easy to over-lift, so we go slow |
| Patio under a table and chairs | Wobbling legs and water standing after storms | Fall restored away from the house, not merely level |
| Pad under the AC or a generator | Equipment out of level with the line set strained | Small area, gentle pressure, connections watched throughout |
| Curb walk where the mower crosses | A step between panels and a scraping deck | Neighboring panels matched, since the walk reads as one run |
The slurry is what it sounds like: sand and cement mixed wet enough to travel down a hose and spread into a cavity. It's heavy. A cubic foot runs well past a hundred pounds, so filling a large void puts permanent mass on ground that already gave way once. Over compacted road base that's a non-issue. Over a few feet of loose fill, it's how you buy the same problem twice.
The holes are bigger than people expect. Slurry needs a port around an inch and a half across to flow at pressure, and we patch each one when we're done. They stay faintly visible. On a garage apron nobody notices. On a stamped patio you'll know, and we say so up front rather than letting you find out Saturday.
Cement also has to cure, which shapes your week more than the lift does. Foam sets in minutes. Slurry needs real time before heavy wheels cross it.
Lay a straight board across the low spot, photograph the gap underneath, and text it over. That one picture usually tells us the whole story.
Slurry is cement based, so it wants ground above freezing to set the way it should. That alone rules out a stretch of the calendar. The bigger problem is that frozen subgrade holds a slab artificially high while we work. Lift to that false reading in January and you inherit the original dip in April, plus a bill.
Late spring is our busy run, because winter finally shows everybody what it did. Fall is quietly the better booking. Soil moisture has evened out by September, the panel is telling the truth about where it sits, and the work gets months to settle in before a hard freeze.
Summer brings its own timing question. A cloudburst soaks a subgrade in twenty minutes, and pumping into saturated ground buys nothing you keep. When the plains storms roll through, we give it a couple of dry days and come back.
You learn more in the first ten seconds of drilling than in the whole estimate. Sometimes the bit punches through concrete and just keeps traveling through open air. Other times it hits packed gravel an inch down and we stop and rethink the job on the spot.Our crew lead, after the walkthrough
A lift restores the surface. It doesn't change what moved the dirt, so your habits afterward decide whether you see us again. Get roof water out past the concrete with extensions that actually reach. Turn the sprinkler head that's been soaking the slab edge every morning. Both are cheap, and both matter more than the pumping did.
Winter care is simple. Shovel it, sand it for traction, and leave the ice melt in the garage, magnesium chloride above all. Snowblowers are fine with the skid shoes set high enough that the auger never touches concrete.
Newer streets around Bradburn and established blocks near The Ranch send us the same call for different reasons. One has trench backfill still consolidating years after somebody's utility work. The other has flatwork poured on native dirt, back when nobody put base under a walk.
Still unsure about something?
Call the crew at (303) 569-4046 and we will talk it through.
Get a free, no-obligation estimate from a crew that knows Colorado soil, Colorado weather, and how to finish concrete that lasts.
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