Centennial Mudjacking

The slurry gets mixed in your driveway, not at a batch plant. People are always surprised by that. Our rig shows up with dry material, a mixing box, a water supply, and a hose, and the first real task of the morning is bringing that mix to the right consistency. A shovelful should hold a ridge without slumping over. Too wet and it runs out into the yard instead of doing any lifting. Too stiff and the pump labors and the line plugs.

So a lift day is really a mixing day with some drilling attached to it. Below is the whole sequence, gate to cleanup, so you know what your Tuesday looks like when we park out front. Settled flatwork is common work in Piney Creek, Homestead, and Willow Creek, and most of these jobs are done and swept before the school bus comes back through.

Grade shots and chalk lines come first

Nothing gets drilled until we know the target. The crew shoots elevations across the whole run, not only the panel that bothers you, because raising one square to match a neighbor that also dropped just moves the problem down the walk. We mark the panel that hasn't moved and lift everything to that.

Then the chalk comes out. Every panel getting raised is numbered and every port location marked before a bit touches concrete. We walk it with you at that point. If a hole would land somewhere you'd stare at every day, this is the moment to move it, and moving a chalk mark is free.

Last comes protection: drop cloths over adjacent hardscape, plywood under the hose run, planters pushed clear. Slurry that splashes and sits for an hour is a stain. Rinsed off in five minutes it's nothing.

Drilling, pumping, and reading the panel

Ports go in fast, and then the pump starts slow. Here's the part homeowners misread: for the first several minutes nothing appears to happen. The slurry is finding the cavity and filling washouts, and only once that space is packed does pressure begin turning into height. Fill first. Lift last, and the lift is measured in fractions of an inch.

One person runs the pump. Another stands up on the concrete with a level, calling for pressure and calling it off. We move between ports rather than pouring everything through one, so the slab comes up evenly instead of hinging in the middle. When we see slurry weep out of a joint, we know the void on that side is full and it's time to shift.

And we stop early on purpose. The last quarter inch is where a lift is either landed clean or a good panel gets cracked, so we creep at it. A slab raised a hair shy of perfect is a success. A slab cracked in the name of perfect is a replacement quote.

Where the ports go on different slabs

Plugging, cleanup, and the two days after

Once the grade is right, every port gets packed with a stiff mortar and struck flush. You will see them. Round patches, slightly off in color, fading as the whole surface weathers past them. Anybody promising invisible holes is selling something.

We rinse the hose, pull the drop cloths, wash down whatever got splattered, and take a last set of elevations with you standing there. Joints between the raised panels and their neighbors get cleaned and resealed, since an open joint is how water gets back down to the base and starts the cycle over.

Then the mix does its part. Walk on it right away. Give it a day for light use and up to three before vehicles, longer when it's cool and we pumped a lot of material. Loading a fresh lift early can press the panel right back down where it started.

Everybody watches the drill. The drill is nothing. The whole job lives in the hand on the pump valve, because a slab tells you it's had enough about a half second before it cracks.Our crew lead, after the walkthrough