847-336-3400
Concrete Leveling for Associations, Property Managers and Facilities
SAVE Concrete has been raising and stabilizing concrete slabs from 470 Keller Dr in Park City, Illinois since 2004, on residential, commercial, industrial and community association properties across Lake County, the North Shore, northwest Cook County and southeast Wisconsin. This page is for the person who is responsible for somebody else's concrete: a board member, a property manager, a facilities director, a plant or warehouse manager, a village or park district engineer. It covers what gets lifted, what the work costs against replacement, what paperwork to require from every bidder including us, and when the work should be scheduled.
Can settled concrete on a commercial or association property be lifted instead of replaced?
In most cases, yes. SAVE Concrete lifts a settled slab by pumping a Portland cement slurry through small holes drilled through the concrete, filling the void underneath and raising the slab back to grade. The work on a given slab is finished in hours rather than days, the surface is normally back in service the same day, and nothing is demolished or hauled away.
That difference is the whole reason this page exists. On a residential driveway, lifting against replacement is a question about money. On a common walkway, a campus path, a parking apron or a warehouse floor, it is a question about how many days the route is closed, how many people cannot use it while it is, and whether the repair can be finished inside a window that somebody else set.
Lifting is not right for every slab, and this page says plainly further down when SAVE Concrete will tell you to replace instead.
What a quarter of an inch means on an accessible route
Under the 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, a vertical change in level on an accessible route may be up to 1/4 inch with no treatment at all (section 303.2). A change between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch must be beveled at a slope no steeper than 1:2 (section 303.3). Anything over 1/2 inch is no longer a surface defect to be smoothed. It has to be corrected under the ramp provisions, sections 405 and 406.
Those three numbers are why a settled slab on an accessible route is a different problem from a settled slab on a private driveway. The threshold is published, it is measurable with a ruler, and it does not depend on anybody's judgment about whether the walk looks bad.
A settled slab is also the rare defect that records its own history. It moved slowly, it is visible in photographs, it appears in inspection reports and resident complaints, and it is usually already in somebody's minutes. That is the part the person responsible feels: not the concrete, the file.
SAVE Concrete lifts the panel back to grade, which removes the offset rather than grinding the edge off it. Grinding takes the lip away and leaves the slab where it settled, still low, still collecting water, still moving. Lifting corrects the cause and resets the elevation, and the walk reopens the same day.
Who this page is for
Four buyers arrive here with four different constraints. The work is the same and the sequence around it is not.
An HOA or condominium board member. The call is triggered by a resident complaint, an insurance inspection or a reserve study line item. What decides it is personal exposure, and a decision that has to survive a board vote and outlast the current board.
A property or association manager. The call is triggered by a trip hazard report you now own across several properties. What decides it is three comparable bids, a certificate of insurance naming the right parties, and a vendor who does not create a resident war.
A school district or university facilities director. The call is triggered by a walk, bus loop or campus path that has to be safe before students return. What decides it is a fixed window, usually a break, and procurement paperwork that has to be right the first time.
A commercial, industrial or municipal facilities manager. The call is triggered by a settled loading dock, a warehouse floor lip beating up forklifts, a void under a slab, or a sidewalk programme. What decides it is downtime, load rating, and the cost of closing a bay or a route.
School districts and universities have their own page, because their calendar is the one constraint no other buyer on this list shares: concrete leveling for school districts and university campuses.
What SAVE Concrete lifts and stabilizes on a commercial or association site
SAVE Concrete raises and stabilizes nearly any concrete slab on grade. On association, school and commercial properties that means common walkways and sidewalks, gangways, entry stoops and steps, patios and pool decks, parking aprons and driveways, garage floors, interior floors, and industrial and warehouse floors.
Two related services matter more on a commercial site than they do on a house. Void filling closes the space under a slab before the slab drops into it, including abandoned ductwork and water and sewer lines set in or below a floor slab, which is a common cause of sudden interior floor failure. Exterior caulking seals the joints after a lift, which is what stops the surface water that caused the original washout from starting the process again.
SAVE Concrete also provides foundation crack repair, concrete sealing, and power washing. The full service list is on what we do, and the before and after archive is at before and after photos.
Lifting against tear out and replace, on the four constraints that decide a facility job
On a facility, the four things that decide between lifting and replacement are downtime, cost, disruption and waste. Lifting wins on all four, and downtime is usually the one that ends the discussion.
Downtime. Lifting: work on a slab is finished in hours, and the surface is normally back in service the same day. Replacement: demolition, haul off, forming, pour, finish, then cure. Concrete is specified at its 28 day strength (ACI 318), and ACI 308.1 sets a minimum curing period of seven days or until the concrete reaches 70 percent of its specified strength.
Cost. Lifting: SAVE Concrete's published figure is one half to one third the price of full concrete replacement. Replacement: the full replacement price, plus the cost of the route being out of use.
Disruption. Lifting: small drilled holes, patched when the lift is finished. No demolition, no heavy haul off, no re-landscaping. Replacement: heavy equipment, spoil, a closed route or bay, and landscaping and edges to make good afterwards.
Waste. Lifting: the existing slab stays where it is. Replacement: the old slab goes to landfill.
The downtime point is the one to read twice if you are scheduling around people. A replacement walkway is not available the afternoon it is poured, and it is not fully loadable for weeks. A lifted walkway is normally open the same day.
What goes under the slab, and why it matters on a loaded surface
SAVE Concrete pumps a premium Portland cement based slurry under pressure through small holes drilled through the slab. The slurry displaces trapped air, water and unstable material, fills the void, and hydraulically raises the slab back to level. What it leaves behind is a cured cement subgrade that carries load, rather than a soft fill or an expanded cushion.
The independent test figure: 780 psi at 28 days, independently tested by Wisconsin Testing Laboratories.
On a loaded surface this is the number that matters, because the question on a loading dock, a warehouse floor or a fire lane is not whether the slab can be lifted. It is what the lifted slab is now sitting on. The slurry is also engineered to support greater loads than typical native soil while staying lower in density than standard concrete, which is what allows future excavation if a line under the slab ever has to be reached.
The full three way comparison of cement slurry, polyurethane foam and traditional mudjacking, with the sources, is published at an honest comparison of concrete leveling methods. Two sections of it are worth a facilities buyer's time on their own: what holds up your slab after it is raised and what goes into the ground under your concrete.
The five documents to require from every bidder, including this one
Procurement, not price, is what usually stalls a concrete decision on a board or in a district office. These are the five documents worth requiring from every bidder before the bids are compared, and asking for them from all three at once is what makes three different quotes comparable.
1. A certificate of insurance, with the right parties named. General liability and workers compensation, with the association, the board, the managing agent, or the district named as additional insured where your governing documents or your policy require it. Many association documents set that requirement at a contract value threshold, so check your own before you ask.
2. A completed W-9. Small, dull, and the single most common reason a first invoice sits unpaid for a month.
3. Prevailing wage and certified payroll, on public work. Under the Illinois Prevailing Wage Act, a school district, village, park district or other public body pays prevailing wages on public works, and the contractor files certified payroll records monthly, by the fifteenth of the month following the work. If your project is public, ask each bidder to confirm in writing that they will file.
4. A written scope, slab by slab. Not "lift the front walk". A count of panels, the location of each, the lift required, and what is included at the end: hole patching, joint caulking, and site cleanup. This is what turns three different looking quotes into a comparison you can put in front of a board.
5. The written warranty terms. Duration and, more importantly, the threshold, which is the next section.
Ask SAVE Concrete for all five at the estimate. If a bidder cannot produce the first three, that answer is information as well.
The one warranty question worth asking all three bidders
A warranty in this trade has two dimensions and almost every quote states only one of them. Everybody publishes the number of years. Almost nobody publishes the threshold: how far the concrete has to move again before the warranty actually does anything for you.
So ask all three bidders the same question, in writing: how far does this slab have to sink before your warranty responds?
Both numbers are needed to know what you are buying. A long warranty that ignores the first half inch of re-settlement is worth less than a shorter one that responds to a movement you can see, because the movement you can see is most of what a facility will actually complain about.
SAVE Concrete's work carries a four year No Questions Asked warranty. Ask us for the threshold in writing alongside the estimate, the same way you should ask everybody else.
When SAVE Concrete will tell you to replace it instead
Lifting puts a slab back where it belongs. It does not repair the slab itself. SAVE Concrete will tell you replacement is the right answer when the panel is broken into several pieces, when the surface has spalled or crumbled through, when the concrete is too thin or too deteriorated to take pump pressure without breaking further, or when what is moving is not the slab but the structure under it.
That is not a small share of the calls, and saying so is cheaper for everybody than a lift that fails a season later in front of a board. A free on-site evaluation exists to sort the slabs that lift from the slabs that do not, and either answer is a useful one to have in writing before a budget meeting.
When this work should be scheduled
The work needs thawed ground and temperatures high enough for the material to cure, so the working season in northern Illinois and southeast Wisconsin runs from spring through mid autumn. Inside that, four windows matter for a facility.
February to April. The damage from winter freeze and thaw becomes visible. The right time to survey, count panels and price the work into a budget.
May to June. Peak season for every contractor in the market, so schedules fill.
July and August. The break window for schools and universities, and the quietest window for scheduling multi slab association work while residents are away.
September and October. The last honest deadline of the year. A void left open through a freeze and thaw cycle does not stay the same size.
Reserve studies and annual budgets are set long before any of these, which is why a written panel count and a per slab scope is worth having in hand a cycle early even when the work is not being done yet.
Get an on-site assessment of your property
SAVE Concrete will walk the property, measure the offsets, count the panels, and tell you which slabs can be lifted and which cannot. The evaluation is free and there is no obligation.
Call 847-336-3400, Monday to Friday, 8:00am to 4:00pm, or request an estimate online. SAVE Concrete, 470 Keller Dr, Park City, IL 60085.
Common questions from boards, managers and facilities teams
How long does the work take on a commercial property?
Work on an individual slab is finished in hours, and the surface is normally back in service the same day. How long the whole job takes depends on the panel count, which is why the scope should be written slab by slab rather than as a single line.
Can the work be scheduled around residents, students or a shift pattern?
Yes. The work is done slab by slab with small equipment, so a route can be taken in sections rather than closed all at once. Tell us the window at the estimate and the sequence is built around it.
Does SAVE Concrete work on public projects with prevailing wage?
Illinois school districts, villages, park districts and other public bodies pay prevailing wages on public works, and the contractor files certified payroll monthly, by the fifteenth of the month following the work. Ask us, and every other bidder, to confirm in writing that this is covered before you compare prices.
What documentation comes with the job?
Ask for a certificate of insurance naming the parties your documents require, a W-9, a written scope with the panel count and the location of each slab, and the written warranty terms including the threshold. Those five make three different quotes comparable.
Will the slab sink again?
The Portland cement slurry cures into a load bearing subgrade rather than staying a soft fill, and the void that let the slab move is filled in the same pass. Sealing the joints afterwards is what keeps the surface water that caused the original washout from starting the process over.
How much does it cost compared to replacing the concrete?
SAVE Concrete's process typically costs one half to one third the price of full concrete replacement. The saving on a facility is larger than that figure suggests, because the replacement number does not include the days the route or bay is out of use.
What is the material, and how strong is it?
A premium Portland cement based slurry, pumped under pressure through small drilled holes. It tested at 780 psi at 28 days, independently tested by Wisconsin Testing Laboratories. The full comparison against polyurethane foam and traditional mudjacking, with sources, is published on our blog.