February 22, 2012 at 9:54 AM

How long can I expect a concrete repair like mudjacking to last? I get this question several times a week while traveling around making concrete repairs. At a rate of 10 times a week and 40 weeks of quoting a season, that's 400 times I get asked that question, so I figured I would share my answer with all who might want to know.

Mudjacking or slabjacking is a cost-effective, long-term repair to your sunken or uneven concrete, but how long does it last? The answer: It depends on a few conditions.

How long did it take the concrete to sink or settle?How old is your house? Was there an external source for the settling like downspouts or "critters"?What are the soil types?

I generally ask the homeowner the above questions to get an idea of what the conditions are or the probable causes of the settling concrete. This method of evaluation has about a 98% success rate of finding the cause with customers in the past.

Let's consider the first: "How long did it take for the concrete to settle?" Many times the answer is something like "it's been that way for 10 years."

The second question: "How old is your home?" Let's assume it's 25 years old. Now we have established that the settling has been there and the house is not new construction. After checking for external conditions as well as soils, I can now answer the question: "how long will the repair last?"

Concrete raising or mudjacking should last 8 to 10 years. There's a correlation between how long it takes the concrete to settle and how long it will last. By Injecting new material or grout under a slab of concrete you are replacing the soils that have settled and you are now supporting the concrete with new material. Grout is more dense and stronger than existing soils.

In the case where the answer to my question of time is "we just noticed that the walk settled in the past year", I can assume that there is some external cause like misdirected downspouts, critters, or some erosion grading issues. If the house is under 5 years old, in most cases the cause is soils settling from being disturbed during construction. The last scenario is a combination of the 2, new construction with some external causes.

Concrete raising in this scenario will last 3-5 years if the causes are corrected: removing critters, redirecting downspouts, or maybe adding or repairing gutters. If I just mud jack and the homeowner does not follow recommendations, I have seen the repair only last a year. If we take the average concrete repair based on our 20+ years of mudjacking it's a long-term 5-7 year fix and money well spent.