On an Englewood lot, the patio has nowhere to hide
Backyards in Englewood run small. The houses went up in the 1940s through the 60s on compact lots, and the patio usually sits within a few feet of the back wall. That geometry raises the stakes on a settled slab. When a big suburban patio sinks, water pools out in the yard somewhere. When an Englewood patio tips, the water has one place to go: against your foundation. A half-inch of tilt toward the house on a slab this close is a foundation problem on layaway.
We've been lifting patios across the metro since 1988, and the close-quarters jobs are our favorite kind of fix. No demolition inside a fenced postage-stamp yard, no wheelbarrows of rubble through the gate. The truck stays out front or in the alley, the hose comes over the fence, and the slab goes back to the grade it was poured at.
Seventy winters on a thin original pour
Plenty of Englewood patios are original to the house, poured back when the place was new, which puts them among the oldest slabs we lift anywhere in the metro. Original often means thin. Mid-century backyard pours weren't built to modern spec, and a thinner slab flexes more as the clay under it swells and shrinks. Freeze-thaw here is the standard metro cycle, nothing exotic, but on 70-year-old concrete it bites faster. Cracks open sooner, low corners drop further each spring, and the joint along the house widens a little every year. The roughest stretch is a cold snap right after a wet week, when saturated clay freezes and heaves hardest at the slab edges.
None of that automatically disqualifies the slab. Our test is the same everywhere: how many pieces, and how sound is the surface? A patio in one to three solid pieces lifts clean, no matter its birth year. A patio crumbled into a jigsaw doesn't, and we'll say so at the estimate rather than lift something that won't hold.
What the lift involves
Mudjacking works from below. We drill 1-1/2" holes through the slab, pump a slurry of water and sandy loam soil into the washed-out space underneath, and watch the patio rise a fraction of an inch at a time until the level reads true. Then the holes get patched flush and the furniture goes back where it was.
- Time on site: one visit for most patios.
- When you can use it: Trevor gives you the timeline at the estimate.
- The mix: cement, water, and sandy loam soil. Nothing that off-gasses next to your back door.
- Older finishes: broom-finish, exposed aggregate, painted, we lift them all. The patched holes are the only mark, and they weather in.
The number, next to the alternative
A patio lift runs about a fraction of what tear-out and replacement costs, quoted free and in person. On small Englewood lots, replacement carries an extra tax the estimate sheets don't show: getting demo equipment and a concrete chute into a tight backyard, or hand-carting everything through a 36-inch gate. Lifting skips all of it. The portable pump is the only equipment that enters the yard.
If the slab has tipped so long the surface has scaled apart, replacement can be the smarter spend, and we'll tell you that for free rather than sell you a lift with a short life.
Before we leave: the drainage walk
The soil under Englewood patios is clay cut with decades-old utility trenches, and water finds both. While the crew patches holes, Trevor will walk the drainage with you: where the downspouts dump, where the yard sends the melt in March, and where the old sewer trench runs relative to the corner that sank. A short look usually explains exactly why the patio moved. Redirect the water and the lift we did holds for years.
The estimate costs nothing and happens in your backyard, not over the phone. Trevor measures the slab, checks the drainage, and writes the number before he leaves the yard. Call (303) 526-2222 or request your estimate online, and get the patio back to level before the next storm parks water against the house.