I recently relocated to the great plains near
Kansas City Kansas (USA). While riding around, and house shopping, I was struck by the number of crooked houses, and uneven pavements. A bit of reflection on the
landforms, especially the proximity of 3 major rivers led me to the conclusion that there must be a plethora of underground water. Combine that with a lot of subterranean limestone, and it is understandable that the ground is not as stable as say,
Georgia, where the ground is mostly granite.
When I first saw a truck bearing the logo XYZ Mudjacking, I immediatly knew what they did, but the details were a bit sketchy. After having hired one though, I think the principle and process is pretty amazing, and worthy of noding.
Imagine a large concrete patio slab, that has sunk 4-5 inches down at the home's foundation. Now imagine the ill effects of the surface runoff into the homes basement during a torrential rainstorm. That is what I was facing, so I called in the mudjacker. Here is how they cured my problem.
- Drill several strategically placed holes about 2" in diameter through the concrete down to the earth.
- Mix up a big batch of cement, mixed with water and river clay, until it makes a thick gooey pastelike mess.
- load the muddy slurry into a really cool hydraulic pump. This holds a quantity of the mess, which can be driven safely over the yard to the sunken slab.
- connect the pump line to the drilled holes, and start pumping. The slurry spreads out and fills all the voids under the slab, until it has no where else to go but up.
- Continue pumping and the sunken slab begins to rise under the pressure, until a positive slope AWAY from the house is achieved.
- Patch up the drilled holes and leave.
It is hard to believe, but it works very well, and aside from a few slightly lighter concrete patches where the holes were drilled, the slab is flat and looks like it never moved!
I was pretty impressed. This process works just about anywhere that the ground has settled, and is far far cheaper than tearing up all the old concrete and pouring new.