Mudjack vs Replace

I have small patio with concrete steps off my back door. It has sunk in the middle and the steps are pulling away from the house. I have an estimate to mudjack it for $1,300 and a quote to replace the damaged area for $2,800 (the first estimate I received was $5,800 to replace).

If the quotes had been similar I would opt to rip it all out and pour a new patio, but a $1,500 difference is significant. It's a small area, 14 foot by 4 food that needs to be lifted. Has anyone had experience with mudjacking? I've seen a good job done on my neighbors house but online there is a lot of info why it fails.

subscribed... I'm interested in this group's opinions and experiences too.

I have the same problem. The builder poured a small back porch (6X8) and it sank and pulled away from the house and damaged the stucco. I bought some steel roof trusses and I am going to build a much larger deck that is free floating and doesn't actually touch the house. I believe mud jacking in the soil type my house sit on, it will just happen again. The soil here is a bentonite that becomes fluid with excess rain.

I looked into doing a deck. I'm on the edge of town that backs up to the prairie, my wife is worried snakes will take up residence under a patio. She is from TX and had some traumatic experiences with rattle snake dens, so the deck idea has been scrapped.

I had some mud-jacking done at my last house and it worked great. It was just the walk from the driveway up to the front door though.

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Originally Posted by SSChameleon

I looked into doing a deck. I'm on the edge of town that backs up to the prairie, my wife is worried snakes will take up residence under a patio. She is from TX and had some traumatic experiences with rattle snake dens, so the deck idea has been scrapped.

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Honestly, I'd talk to her again. There are thousands and thousands of decks in Colorado that don't have any issues with snake dens. Animals do love living under decks though.

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I think the rattlesnakes are going to be around no matter what. If they build a den, I will poison them. The secret to a stable deck is to set the verticals 48" in the ground. I built my fence out of telephone poles and set them all at 48" with 6 bags of premix each. None of the poles has budged. You can come to my house in Pueblo West and see what I am talking about, if you want. I have enough truss material to build 3 decks. I am planning on using the recycled plastic decking.

My large concrete porch settled a couple inches and I had it mudjacked. The mudjacking raised and cracked the concrete porch but I was warned of the risk of cracking by the person doing the mudjacking. The front porch settled again a year after the mudjacking so I tore out the concrete and replaced it with reinforced concrete which was attached to the house with rebar drilled into the foundation. I never had another problem with that porch.

My experience was not good with mudjacking and it didn't work for me.

Bushmaster, what is the thickness of that steel (the 90 L portions) on the trusses? Would you be interested in letting any of that go when you're done?

L90 is 1/8" longitudinally. Endcap L90 is 1/4" And the round is 1/2". There are two sizes of truss for height 14" and 18". These were 40' and were cut in half. Probably be for sale after I'm done. Can't do much right now as I have cluster headaches and the heat makes it much worse.
The plan is to put the verticals in Sonotubes and mount the trusses on the verticals. Sonotubes are cardboard tubes you fill with concrete. Then screw the decking across the trusses. I figure once done the deck is finished, it will be almost maintenance free.

Cool, post them up when you're done. Thinking it might make decent scrap for welding.

Code for deck posts is min 6x6 and no ground contact - either use cast in post bases that are set at least an inch above the concrete surface, or use the plastic spacers. Don't sink deck posts into concrete, they rot even faster than if you just bury them. Using cast in bases let's the posts last as long as the deck itself... A long $&#@ time. Note that for some illogical reason, most lumber yards have stopped stocking all forms of structural 6x6. At least on this side of the state. What you do see is "6x6" agricultural timbers for landscaping. Those are all actually 6 by 6" and will not fit into any post supports or other hardware, and are not structural rated. Wtf l?mber yards don't stock the posts that code requires is beyond me. If you set cast-in post supports into 18" concrete footers, they will be good for life..15k weight rated and immune to uplift. Must be frame supported, don't use for free standing (fence posts) though.

Mudjacking will only work well if the ground is done settling. If you think it will continue, go with ripping it out, prepping, and pouring a new one.

I had my front porch mudjacked (some poly BS) and it failed after a few years. Had it ripped out and poured anew and it's been great since.

I had my garage floor mudjacked and it's been very stable. Had some voids under it from improper builder prep and water infiltration due to lack of (prior) homeowner maintenance. Seams are all sealed up with Sikaflex now.

Depends on the underlying issues and potential for recurrence I suppose.

The first question should be why did it happen?

Resolve that then tear it out and repour it.

The problem is the soil expands and liquefies when wet. So when it rains it this semi-arid desert, the poured concrete slides around in a wet clay. The soil is so powdery, I once drove off the side of the driveway and sank up to the axle. So your base foundation needs some drainage. Most of the decks in this area are simply poured on un-compacted soil. I know, because I have seen the same problems with the neighbors houses. Also I took a sledge hammer to my deck and there was no foundation of gravel and it was completely absent of any rebar reinforcement.My rear deck simply listed and floated away from the house. It made the sliding door rail jam. Cabinets have pulled away from the wall. Floor tiles have cracked. I can go on ad nauseum about the bad engineering practices around here. The only reason this house has not collapsed is the fact that the foundation footers are on a shale bedrock.