847-336-3400
Concrete Leveling and Raising in Racine, WI
53402, 53403, 53404, 53405, 53406
Can a settled slab in Racine be raised instead of replaced?
In most cases, yes. SAVE Concrete drills 1 3/4 inch holes through the slab, pumps a calibrated Portland cement slurry into the void beneath it, and lifts the concrete back to level. Most residential jobs in Racine take a few hours and the surface goes back into use the same day.
The work costs one half to one third of full replacement, and it carries our No Questions Asked 4 year warranty.
Why concrete sinks in Racine
Racine sits on the Lake Michigan clay plain, and the ground under the city is not one material. Construction in Racine County works glacial till, glacial outwash and red lacustrine clay, and each of the three compacts by different rules.
That is the whole problem in one sentence. A slab is a rigid plate. If the ground under one end of it settles at a different rate from the ground under the other end, the slab does not settle evenly. It tilts, and eventually it cracks along the line where the two rates meet.
Red lacustrine clay is the layer that does most of the work here. It is fine grained, it holds water, and fine grained lake bed soils are exactly the soils most prone to differential settlement. It swells wet, shrinks dry, and repeats that on an annual cycle.
Why the older streets in Racine show it first
Racine's housing stock includes a great deal of pre war and mid century construction, and age matters here for a reason that has nothing to do with the quality of the original work.
The longer a slab has been down, the more freeze and thaw cycles it has been through, and the more chances water has had to move the fine material out from under it. A driveway poured in 1962 has had sixty winters of that. A stoop poured last year has had one.
It also matters what the slab is attached to. Wisconsin's Uniform Dwelling Code requires footings for landings and stoops to reach at least 48 inches below grade. The walk leading up to that stoop needs no footings at all, which is why the two so often end up at different heights.
What SAVE Concrete has raised in Wisconsin, and what we lift in Racine
Your slab will not be the job where SAVE Concrete learns Wisconsin. We have completed 266 concrete raising projects in Wisconsin, most of them in Kenosha County, which begins about ten miles south of Racine.
266 is a statewide count and not a Racine count, and we will say so plainly rather than let you assume otherwise.
In Racine, the work means:
Driveways and driveway aprons
Garage floors, attached and detached
Front walks, service walks and rear walks
Patios, porches and large stoops
Steps and stairs
Pool decks
Sun room and interior floors
Warehouse and factory floors
Commercial walkways
Void filling under seawalls, loading docks, and abandoned ductwork and sewers
Why raising beats replacing
Save time. Most jobs are finished in hours, not days.
Save money. Generally one third to one half the cost of full replacement.
Minimal disruption. Little mess, no extended downtime, and no re landscaping afterwards.
Keep it out of the landfill. Replacement means breaking up your slab and hauling it away. Raising it does not.
Sunken stoops, steps and front walks in Racine
A front stoop that has dropped away from the house is the single most common repair we are called about, and it is the one that worries people most, because it is the piece of concrete every visitor stands on.
The mechanism is straightforward. The stoop's own footings, where it has them, hold one part of it. The soil under the slab and under the walk in front of it holds the rest, and that soil is going nowhere in a straight line. Water gets into the joint between the stoop and the house, washes fines out, and the whole assembly starts to rotate away from the wall.
The trip hazard is the reason people call. The open joint is the reason it happened. SAVE Concrete lifts the stoop and the walk back to a level plane, fills the void underneath, and caulks the joint so the water that caused it stops getting in.
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Common questions from Racine homeowners
How long does concrete leveling take?
Most residential jobs in Racine are finished in a few hours, and the surface can usually be used the same day.
My stoop has pulled away from the house. Is that a foundation problem?
Usually not. In most cases the house is where it has always been and the stoop and walk have settled away from it, because they sit on soil rather than on deep footings. SAVE Concrete will tell you honestly on site if what you are looking at is something else.
Is my old driveway too far gone to raise?
Age on its own does not rule a slab out. What rules it out is the condition of the concrete itself. If a slab is broken into many pieces or has lost structural integrity, raising it is the wrong answer and we will say so.
Will it sink again?
The calibrated Portland cement slurry cures into a load bearing subgrade rather than a soft fill, and the work carries our No Questions Asked 4 year warranty. Caulking the joints afterwards is what keeps the water out.
What size are the holes, and what do they look like when the job is done?
One and three quarter inches across. We drill them through the slab to pump the slurry underneath, then patch them when the lift is finished. They stay visible on close inspection and they weather in over time.
It is a real hole and we would rather give you the number than call it small. The size is what the material needs: a calibrated Portland cement slurry is a mineral mix moving under pump pressure, and it does not travel through a smaller opening.
Do you work in Racine, or only in Illinois?
SAVE Concrete works in Racine. We are based at 470 Keller Dr in Park City, Illinois, in Lake County, and southeast Wisconsin is one of our nearest markets.
Call SAVE Concrete on 847-336-3400, or request an estimate online.
We look at the slab, tell you whether raising is the right answer, and tell you if it is not.