Can i do this? (floor, pools, drain, room)

[nsa162]

I have a cement walkway at the front of my house. Whenever it rains, the water pools in front on the walkway. We were told that the walkway leans towards the house and thats why it does this. We recently put gutters on the house and it helped alleviate some of the pooling but obviously not all of it. Do i have any other options besides breaking up the cement walkway and redoing that? Can i put rocks on top of the cement and lean that away from the house? Anything inexpensive, relatively speaking?

[chet everett]

Mud jacking is probably worth investigating.

If the walkway is mostly in good condition but has "settled" so that it slopes toward the house the contractors that are experienced in mud jacking can use pressurized concrete mixtures and special drilling techniques to literally force the walkway pack to the proper orientation.

Anything you put on top of the walk way is a waste and potential hazard.

[lucknow]

There is a couple of things you can do. You can get a quote from a concrete jacking contractor. They inject grout under the sidewalk and can very accurately change the grade. It's very reasonable to do and depending on some other factors can be a permanenet fix.

If you have enough room to do it you can pour a new side walk right over the old one. I used to do those professionally and if conditions are right they work great. You need 2 inches minimum to overpour and change the grade to drain away from the house. We would put a lot of screws into the old sticking up an inch and then put down concrete bonding solution and then pour the new. You get a brand new sidewalk at a quarter of the cost. Unless you have worked with concrete don't try it yourself. It's tricky getting the right grade, finnishing it correctly and cutting the relief joints properly.

[nsa162]

Thanks for the advice. I never even knew mud jacking existed How would i find someone in my area that does this?

[lucknow]

Originally Posted by nsa162

Thanks for the advice. I never even knew mud jacking existed How would i find someone in my area that does this?

I'd check the yellow pages and get a couple of quotes. It really should not be very expensive. A good friend got his pool deck all levelled out for $500 and that was 120 ft. of 6ft wide concrete. That's Canada of course but usually things are more expensive here.

[Coldjensens]

Try Service Magic or Angies list for a contractor.

Depending on the size, strength thckness and whether some of the control joints have fully cracked, you might even be able to simply pry up one side of the walk and put sand under it. I did this twice before, but the third time I tried it, I cracked the walkway and had to replace it. In that case, mud jacking would have been much cheaper. If the walkway is long, wide, and/or thick, you will nto be able to do it. However sometimes even a long walkway cracks all the way through at the control joints so you can lift it in sections.

[bustaduke]

A good tile man who knows how to build up a floor can fix it.


busta