Sunken driveways, tripping sidewalks, tilted patios, and settled garage slabs — lifted back to level with high-density polyurethane foam or traditional mudjacking. Cures in 15 minutes. Drive on it the same day.
A licensed local crew — usually out in 24 to 72 hours. Written scope, fixed price, no pressure.
Two months ago I got a call from a homeowner on John St, a few blocks off the Trade St historic core in Matthews. His driveway apron had settled about two and a half inches at the garage slab joint, and every time he pulled his F-150 out he was scraping the front air dam on the ridge. The garage slab was tilted enough that a water bottle would roll to the back corner. He had been quoted mudjacking by one company and full slab replacement by another. What he actually needed was polyurethane foam injection under both the apron and the interior garage slab — three-day job, no demo, drivable within a couple of hours of the last injection.
Matthews generates concrete lifting work at a steady clip because the housing stock is old enough (1970s-80s tract mostly) that the original poured slabs — driveways, garage floors, sidewalks, front stoops, pool decks in the newer subdivisions — are hitting the 40 to 50 year mark where the base has consolidated, the soil under the slab has moved, and the concrete is sitting on air pockets instead of full-contact support. The Piedmont red clay under Matthews yards shrinks and swells with moisture cycling. Every wet-then-dry season leaves the base a little less supportive than it was, and eventually the slab starts hinging on whatever partial support is left.
The specific Matthews problem is that most 1970s-80s split-levels were built with the garage on a slab tied to a stem wall separate from the crawl foundation, and the joint between the garage slab and the driveway apron becomes a differential-settlement candidate right out of construction. Twenty years in, the apron has sunk relative to the garage. Thirty years in, the garage floor itself has cracked and tilted because the interior fill under the slab was never properly compacted at construction. Fix is polyurethane foam injection, not mudjacking — foam is lighter, cures faster, does not add weight to soil that is already stressed, and lifts to precise elevation instead of the flood-and-hope of mudjack slurry.
Free on-site inspection anywhere in Matthews and out to Mint Hill, Stallings, Weddington, and Indian Trail. Written scope, foam vs mudjack recommendation with reasons, no games about which one is right for your slab.
The process on a Matthews concrete lifting job starts with figuring out what is under the slab, not just what the slab looks like from the top, because the visible tilt is downstream of a subgrade condition that has been developing for decades.
Assessment and probing. First step on the inspection is walking the slab with a laser level to map the differential settlement across the full surface, then probing through any expansion joints with a fiberglass rod to feel for voids under the slab. On a Matthews garage slab I typically find one to two inches of void under the interior slab at the front joint (where the slab tilts down toward the driveway), and a similar void under the driveway apron for the first several feet out from the garage. Voids over three inches deep need foam volume that changes the pricing tier. Voids under an inch are borderline for whether lifting will hold — sometimes the honest answer is the slab is not settled enough yet to justify the work and I will tell you that.
Foam injection sequence. HMI TerraThane 24024 or Prime Resin PRO 4400 depending on the specific application. Injection ports are drilled through the slab with a 5/8-inch or 3/4-inch hammer drill at a grid pattern determined by the slab dimensions and settlement pattern — typically 4 to 6 feet apart on interior sections, closer at the perimeter and at any tilt hinge point. Foam is injected in controlled shots working from the low corner outward, monitoring elevation with the laser level after each shot. The foam expands and cures in seconds, lifting the slab precisely to target elevation. Injection ports are patched with concrete-color matched grout after final cure. Whole job on a typical Matthews garage slab and driveway apron is one to two working days depending on square footage.
Why foam over mudjacking on Matthews clay. Mudjacking uses a slurry of sand, cement, and water pumped through larger injection holes to fill voids and lift slabs. It works but it adds significant dead weight to the subgrade — a typical mudjack fill can add 100 pounds per cubic foot to soil that has already proven it cannot support the current load. On Matthews red clay that shrinks and swells seasonally, adding weight to the subgrade often triggers a second round of settlement within a few years. Foam weighs about 4 pounds per cubic foot cured, cures in seconds, and does not add meaningful load to the soil. On Matthews clay I default to foam on essentially every job. Mudjacking is still appropriate on some large commercial slabs where the load-add is trivial relative to slab weight, but not on residential.
Permits and inspections. Concrete lifting is not a permitted trade in Mecklenburg for residential work — no permit required for foam injection or mudjacking on driveways, sidewalks, garage slabs, pool decks, or patios. Structural slab work (repairing a load-bearing slab like a foundation raft) does need a permit but that is not typical residential scope. Union County (Stallings, Weddington side) is the same — non-permitted for residential lifting work.
What lifting will not fix. Cracked slabs stay cracked after lifting — foam holds the pieces at the corrected elevation but does not knit the crack closed. If the crack is small (under 1/4 inch) it usually does not matter cosmetically. Larger cracks or slabs broken into multiple pieces sometimes need to be lifted, then crack-sealed with a flexible urethane sealant. Slabs that have been broken into more than three or four large pieces are usually better replaced than lifted — the fragments will move independently under load even after foam support is placed underneath.
Foam materials I spec on Matthews jobs are HMI TerraThane 24024 for standard slab lifting and TerraThane 24-046 for higher-density applications like tilted garage slabs with vehicle load. Both are two-component polyurethane systems mixed at the injection nozzle from truck-mounted tanks with dedicated hoses. Reaction time is under 15 seconds to full cure. Density is 4 to 5 pounds per cubic foot cured which is why the load-add to subgrade is negligible compared to mudjacking.
Injection port drilling uses a rotary hammer with a 5/8-inch or 3/4-inch masonry bit depending on hose fitting. Port spacing is 4 to 6 feet on interior grid, tighter at the perimeter and at any hinge point where the slab pivots between settled and non-settled sections. On a typical 20-by-20 garage slab I run 12 to 16 injection ports. On a 12-by-30 driveway apron section I run 8 to 12 ports. Total foam consumption depends entirely on the void volume — a typical Matthews garage slab and apron scope uses 200 to 400 board-feet of foam.
Post-injection port sealing uses concrete-color matched non-shrink grout (Sikacryl-EZ or equivalent) troweled flush with the slab surface. Color matches on cured driveway concrete are close but not perfect — the patched ports will be visible on close inspection but do not read as damage from normal viewing distance. On decorative or stamped concrete we can spec a color-matched epoxy patch instead of grout for a closer match.
Laser level for elevation monitoring during injection is a Topcon RL-H5A or Leica Rugby 640 series depending on job size. Both are self-leveling rotary lasers with quarter-inch accuracy at typical residential distances. Elevation targets are measured at each injection port before, during, and after lifting to confirm the slab is coming up to target and not over-lifting.
For pool decks and patios (more common on the 2000s subdivisions off Sardis Rd and out to Weddington Chase than on the older Matthews stock), same foam and same injection pattern but with attention to drainage — you do not want to lift a pool deck to a level that redirects water toward the pool or the house.
Yes — Matthews is a regular concrete lifting route. Free on-site inspection anywhere in Matthews, fixed written quote before we touch anything.
Matthews concrete lifting is heavily weighted toward garage slab and driveway apron work on the 1970s-80s split-level tract stock where the garage was tied to a separate stem wall from the crawl foundation, producing chronic differential settlement at the apron joint that mudjacking cannot resolve without over-loading the already-stressed clay subgrade.
28104, 28105. All Mecklenburg County addresses covered.
Almost certainly can be lifted. Two inches of settlement at the apron-to-garage joint is textbook Matthews split-level differential settlement and it is exactly what polyurethane foam injection is designed to fix. Foam under the low side of the apron lifts it back to elevation with the garage slab, cures in seconds, and you can drive on it the same day. Whole scope is usually a one-day job. Replacement would mean demoing the apron, re-compacting the subgrade, and pouring new concrete — five times the cost, a week of no driveway access, and the same subgrade problem waiting to re-develop if the base is not properly stabilized before pour. Lifting is the right answer on essentially every case like this.
Yes, and it is the second most common Matthews concrete scope after driveway apron work. Interior garage slabs on 1970s-80s split-level construction were poured on fill that was rarely properly compacted before pour, and 40 years of vehicle loading has consolidated the fill unevenly. Foam injection through a grid of ports across the slab lifts it back to target elevation. The whole garage floor stays intact — no demo — and you can drive on it same day. Most Matthews garage slab lifts run one day with a two-person crew.
We do both but on Matthews residential work I recommend foam on essentially every job because the red clay subgrade under most Matthews yards cannot handle the weight add from mudjacking slurry without triggering another round of settlement. Foam weighs a fraction of what mudjacking does and cures in seconds instead of days. Mudjacking is still the right call on some large commercial slabs where the load-add is trivial relative to the slab weight, but not on residential driveways or garage slabs. If a competitor is quoting you mudjacking on a residential Matthews job, ask them specifically about the load-add to the subgrade — a good mudjacker will have an answer, a bad one will not.
Depends on the crack pattern. Sidewalks that have settled but are intact (one crack or none) lift cleanly with foam. Sidewalks that have broken into three or four pieces are borderline — we can lift them but the pieces will move independently under load and the crack pattern will re-open within a couple of years. On the older pre-1970s sections of Matthews near Trade St, some of the original poured sidewalks are 60-plus years old and past the point where lifting is the right economic call — full replacement is usually smarter. On the inspection I will tell you which category yours falls into.
Free on-site Matthews inspection. Fixed written quote. Call (980) 227-1769 or book below.