Hello. I have to level out parts of my (concrete slab) patio and driveway. Anyone have any experience or recommendations regarding providers of mud or foam jacking services in (far) North Dallas? Thanks…
Hey Marshall,
I have a great provider, Power Jack Foundation Repair. I do printing for them and was on one of their jobs not but 2 weeks ago!
My contact is Heather Frank, she is the marketing manager for the company.
Here is her contact info:
Heather Frank
[email protected]
Office # 214-416-8522
Website: www.gopowerjack.com
They are based out of Fort Worth, but they do jobs all over Texas. They offer foam jacking and and other forms of slab leveling / stabilization. Plus, their crews are all employees of the company so your not getting a General Contractor that is just marking up the price of some other Sub-Contractor they found in the yellow pages.
If you want them to contact you, I can pass your phone number to Heather. She’ll get someone right on your job.
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I have need of some of this, as well. My problem (other than being cheap) is that companies typically like to come to a location, and do $thousands of work. I have a few small projects in various locations.
Seriously considering DIYing.
e.g.
I’ll be watching this, and am curious where you go, and how happy you are.
Thanks, @Nick…I’ll definitely give them a call.
Yeah, one reason I ask around the board like this is that it is so easy to end up with some jerk who did nothing more then rent some equipment, hire some day laborers, do a crappy job, charge enough so that you’d think he had 4 kids going to Harvard and you were paying for them, and then disappear. Far better to deal with somebody that someone has had experience with.
I’d rather pay as much anyway, but get the job done right, the first time, and on time. So I really appreciate the lead. I’ll mention you pointed me in their direction.
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I like these guys “can do” spirit here. I saw this vid a while back last year when I first started exploring options. But I always end up thinking that after all the cost to purchase or rent items I don’t have (pink boards stuff, chains, lumber, hoist, whatever) plus my time plus the risk of injury – or worse – a piss-poor job, I just may as well stick a crowbar in my rusted-shut wallet and fork over some dough to someone who actually knows what they are doing.
Other reasons I somewhat abandoned the DIY approach is that 1) a few of the slabs are far longer wider than this approach would work for; and 2) I’d be doing this alone/on my own and can easily envision some future anthropologist digging up my starved skeleton with teeth marks in the arm where I tried to chew it off to escape and thinking “what a putz!”, and I just can’t abide being called a putz.
But I’ll definitely keep you posted as to outcome.
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I’m personally not a big fan of slab jacking. Can work well for thick slabs (5" or greater) on good solid ground (all buildings will settle to some extent). That having been said, last year I had a solid foundation guy tell me last year that it was a worthless procedure in the NW Dallas area because the ground around Irving/LC/FB/Carrolton is rather unstable to begin with. He also mentioned that many foundation companies around here wouldn’t repeat that because it’s a relatively high-margin procedure.
I have a degree in Construction Science (and dad owned a commercial construction company) and while I’m no expert, everything he said made sense, so I trusted his opinion. FWIW.
Btw, I’m Jeff, the new guy around here.
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So what do you recommend instead, for restoring level to things like patios, sidewalks, etc. specifically?
I cannot recommend boisterously enough to NOT use “slab jacking” (as in, mudjacking, foamjacking, etc.) for house foundations, but that’s based on personal experience, and the reasons are removed when discussing patios/sidewalks, etc. It seems perfectly viable in those cases, to me…
Around here (Irving) piers seem to be the only way to go, although I’ll admit that I haven’t researched alternatives. I also havent had to deal with wide cracked slab-on-grade. Sidewalks should typically be 3"-4" concrete, which if cut properly shouldn’t be a problem for slab jacking. Then again it’s all about the soil. Sidewalks are thin (4ft-ish). Pavement may be too wide.
It all comes down to weight. Throwing another a few 1000lbs of mud under a slab on weak soil just creates more weight, which causes the ground to settle again. As the soil compacts, the movement caused by the additional weight will decline, but for a typical slab job, there’s no real engineering science that goes into determining whether or not that will be a factor. Thus you end up with the same problem after the 1 year warranty.
I did some reading on foam jacking, which I really was not up to speed on. Seems like if you have a good sub that understands how to do it, it’s a solid procedure. The science checks out on my end.
@jast I’m not digging the diy video above. Haven’t watched it but the idea of using foam boards doesn’t sit well with me on an efficiency level.
From what I now understand, a two part foam jack could work because the foam is much lighter than the slab it is lifting. Therefore it would seem that there would be minimal incremental compaction of the soil, as the total weight bearing load upon the ground hasn’t changed much. Mudjacking has never made sense to me, but the idea of using an expanding foam seems damn promising to me as I think about it…
Irving is really bad, State Farm across the street from my office had to completely dig out the crawl space because of the upheaval. The foam seems weird but they use it under the bridge roadways, surely it holds up.
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I’m with ya on that. I posted that mostly for the interesting lifting technique. I found the pink foam thing odd, too, but his reasoning seemed sound enough (for me to move along). I don’t think I would do it that way, either, but found it interesting.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate a measured, thoughtful response, especially from someone educated the field.
Appreciate the thanks. Glad to contribute my two cents.
If you want to see something neat, Google “Schlitterbahn Soth Padre.” That’s the only job I ever managed. Heck of a learning experience…
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Heck of a lot of concrete. Built on sand. Yikes! 
Lost 25lbs walking on sand in boots. Great project. Hated it at the time, but think of it fondly now.
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