Concrete Leveling vs. Replacement: What Homeowners Should Know

When a concrete slab sinks and goes uneven, the first instinct is to tear it out and pour a new one. That is not always necessary. But "concrete leveling" covers several genuinely different methods, they are not interchangeable, and not every company offers all of them. Here is what the terms mean, so you can tell what you are being sold.

Why concrete sinks in the first place

Concrete is heavy, and it is only as level as the soil under it. When that soil settles, washes out, or was never compacted well to begin with, voids open up underneath and the slab drops into them. The concrete itself is usually still sound. It is the ground under it that failed.

The methods are not the same thing

Mudjacking pumps a cement and soil slurry through holes drilled in the slab to push it back up. It is the oldest method and the heaviest. Polyurethane foam injection, sometimes called polyfoam or poly lifting, injects an expanding foam underneath to do the same job with less weight and smaller holes. Both work by filling the void beneath the concrete and floating the slab upward on the material.

Structural slab bracket piers are a different idea entirely. Instead of filling the space underneath, steel brackets are fitted to the slab itself and carried on piers driven down to load-bearing strata, so the slab is supported by the pier rather than by whatever is packed under it. The lift is done under controlled hydraulic pressure.

That distinction matters, because the first two depend on the ground beneath staying put and the third does not.

Which of these Anglin's does

We use custom slab bracket piers. Where a structural slab has settled, we can stabilize it and lift it by carrying it on steel driven to load-bearing strata. Whether a particular slab is a candidate depends on what it is carrying and what is underneath, so it is something we determine on site rather than over the phone. You can read more on our foundation repair page.

We do not currently offer polyurethane foam lifting. We have done this work in the past, and it may become something we offer again, but it is not part of what we do today. We would rather say so plainly than let you assume otherwise from an old article.

We do not offer mudjacking.

If a contractor is vague about which of these they are actually doing, that is worth pressing on. The methods have different costs, different lifespans, and different situations they suit.

When replacement is the better call

Some concrete is too far gone to save no matter what is under it. If a slab is broken into many pieces, crumbling, or spalling apart, lifting it just raises a broken slab. At that point replacement is the honest answer, and it is a job for a concrete contractor.

The only way to know for certain is to have someone look at what the slab is carrying and what the soil beneath it is doing. If it is a structural slab tied to your home, that is a conversation worth having with us.