5 Advantages of Leveling Your Patio With Polyurethane Foam

Concrete is heavy, and a concrete patio is certainly no exception. Whether it be because of soil that wasn’t properly compacted, subsurface voids giving way, or erosion, there is a good chance that your patio slab will begin to settle at some point during its lifetime.

When that starts to happen, you have three main choices. First, you could ignore the sinking concrete and hope the problems don’t worsen. Second, you could rip out your whole patio slab and have it repoured. Finally, you could use concrete leveling to restore the slab to its original height and grading.

Reasons to Choose Poly Concrete Leveling

1. It Can Eliminate Tripping Hazards

When concrete sinks and settles, it rarely does so evenly. That means there is a good chance that significant elevation changes between adjacent slabs or slab cracks that include elevation changes could develop.

If you rarely use your patio, perhaps this won’t matter as much. However, if you use it for entertaining or have an active family that often runs across it, these cracks can pose a substantial tripping hazard.

2. Concrete Leveling can Prevent Drainage Problems

Ideally, a patio should be sloped to carry water away from your home and its foundation to facilitate drainage and prevent water from damaging your basement or foundation.

However, if the patio settles so that the drainage flow is reversed, you suddenly have water problems. Water flowing back toward your home can lead to anything from erosion to soil swelling to bowing and cracking basement walls if the hydrostatic pressure against them becomes too great. And, of course, there is a chance that some of that water finds its way into your basement.

Returning the concrete to its original grading can help prevent these water problems.

3. Leveling Keeps Your Patio from becoming an Eyesore

Sinking concrete, especially unevenly sinking concrete, will stress the slab. And as that stress increases, cracks are going to form.

If your patio is frequently used for entertaining, you probably take pride in how it looks. However, there is nothing aesthetically pleasing about a patio that is acquiring cracks that are increasing in size and number.

While concrete leveling doesn’t fix the cracks in the concrete, it does minimize their appearance and prevent additional ones from forming. If you opt for concrete crack repair, having the slab level (including the cracks) will facilitate a fix.

4. Lengthens the Lifespan of Your Concrete Patio

One of the goals of concrete lifting is to avoid replacing the slab altogether. If the cracking has become crumbling, the patio might need to be replaced. If you catch it in time, however, you can avoid the far more costly process of replacing the patio slab by removing the cause of the cracking in the first place.

One note: If you do need to replace the concrete, make sure that the cause of the settling is found and fixed before the new concrete is poured. Otherwise, you will soon be in the same boat.

5. Polyurethane Foam Offers the Best Concrete Leveling Solution

Polyurethane foam provides several critical advantages over the more well-known mudjacking.

First, the holes needed to inject the polyurethane are significantly smaller and far more easily patched than those required for mudjacking. The injectors for poly jacking (another name for polyurethane foam lifting) are usually about .3 square inches—those needed for mudjacking range from about 3 to almost 25 times as large.

The equipment used is also smaller and lighter, meaning less disruption to your yard.

Polyjacking is also a longer-lasting solution. While the cement slurry usually used in mudjacking will break down over time, the polyurethane foam used in poly jacking is impervious to water and chemicals.

Once it hardens underground, nothing in the soil will weaken it.

Read more on the benefits of polyjacking over mudjacking.

Contact Rapid Foundation Repair for Your Patio Concrete Leveling Needs

Rapid Foundation Repair delivers expert concrete leveling services throughout our area, including much of South Dakota, eastern Wyoming, and northern Nebraska. If you wish to have your patio or other concrete slab leveled or have any questions about our services, contact us today.