No shade, no mercy: what Aurora sun does to a patio base
Most Aurora backyards get sun from the moment it clears the horizon until it drops behind the mountains. Little tree cover means nothing shades the ground around your patio, and in a drought year that plains clay bakes hard and shrinks. It doesn't shrink evenly, either. It pulls away from the slab edges first, right where the patio carries the grill, the table, and the foot traffic. When the support goes, the outside edge tips down and the whole slab starts leaning off level.
We've lifted patios across the metro since 1988, and Aurora's are some of the most predictable jobs we see. The slab is usually fine. The ground under it moved. So we move the slab back: pump holes drilled through the concrete, a cement-sand-topsoil slurry pushed into the gap underneath, the surface raised until the level reads flat again. Two to four hours for most patios, and you're eating dinner out there that night.
Summer storms finish what the drought started
Here's the Aurora pattern we've watched play out for decades. A dry spring shrinks the clay and opens a gap under the patio. Then a July storm rolls through hail alley and dumps rain harder than sun-baked ground can take it in. All that runoff has to go somewhere, and plenty of it goes under your patio, carrying soil out with it as it drains away. The gap the drought opened, the storm rinses wider.
Add a downspout emptying at the patio corner and the process runs on fast-forward. During the estimate we always trace where your roof water lands, because lifting a patio without moving that water is a repair with an expiration date. Extend the downspout past the slab and the lift holds for good; we still drive past patios from the late 90s that sit right where we left them.
Which way is your patio leaning? It matters.
A patio settling toward the house sends every storm's runoff against your foundation, and foundation water problems cost more than any patio ever will. A patio settling away from the house opens a gap under the back step and drops the step-down past what code allows. We check the slope during the estimate and lift to restore the original drainage pitch, not just "flat." The slab should shed water away from the house the way it did the day it was poured.
A few things we look at on every Aurora patio visit:
- Where the roof drains land, and whether they need extending before we pump
- How many pieces the slab is in. Two or three sound pieces lift fine; a patio in five or more should be replaced, and we'll say so
- Hollow spots beyond the visible settlement, found with a steel-rod tap test
- The walkway and steps beside the patio, since the water that dropped one usually got the others too
The price of putting it back
Most residential patios run $400 to $1,200 to lift, about a quarter of what demolition and a new pour would cost. Stamped and colored patios lift the same as plain gray; the pump holes get patched with color-matched concrete, and after a season of Aurora sun the patches fade into the surface. A written quote comes out of the free in-person estimate, and the lift itself carries our five-year warranty.
Book it before the next storm season
Fall and winter are quietly the best times to lift a patio here. The stormy months are behind you, the ground is stable, and the repair is in place before spring melt starts probing for weak spots again. The slurry cures fine in cold weather; solidly frozen ground occasionally costs us a day or two of waiting, nothing more. And you don't have to be home for the work itself. After the estimate, most customers just leave us gate access and get their before-and-after photos by text.
Trevor runs every estimate himself, in person, free. He'll measure the settlement, check the drainage, and give you a number before he leaves the backyard. See finished lifts on our work page, then call (303) 526-2222 or request your free patio estimate online.