Sunken Concrete

Hello Guys,

I was wondering if anyone knows how to handle this sunken concrete. I am one of the four houses (built by the same developer) with sunken concrete; one of my neighbors completely redo the floor twice, and the concrete is still sunk. Now he has given up; he doesn't know how to fix it in a way so it will not sink again. The first time, he just went with 4" concrete with wire mesh and the second time, he went with paver blocks.

I am new to this house and don't exactly know why the concrete keeps sinking. The rain water from that concrete area doesn't go into the city storm drain. There is some kind of concrete manhole underneath, someone told me about 4x6'. Could it be the manhole is too heavy and it keep sinking or somehow water from the manhole leak out and settle the dirt even more?

Some GC said just remove the existing concrete compact the dirt add some gravel then wire mesh with concrete will do the job. But I think this won't be sufficient.




Any have advice or experience dealing with sunken concrete will be appreciated.
Thank you in advance!

Tom

 

Contact city water/sewer dept and ask if their storm sewer pipe is broken or being eroded. Or maybe its a sanitary sewer and you need a plumber with a camera. Looks like soil is disappearing into a sinkhole and if it is, no repair will last long.

 

Or, that area was filled with who know what before the concrete was poured, it then settled with time and your seeing the end result. Minor improvements can be made to flat work, called mud jacking, but it the soil is not stable it's just going to continue.

 

Hello, the concrete on my driveway is settling due to water seeping through gaps. So I was thinking use liquid membrane with fabric reinforcement to seal all the gap so water will just flow out to the street level instead of down to the soil/dirt. Is that a good idea or non sense? Ok, let me give more background info. My big backyard concrete (30'x30') has no drain pipe so I am thinking to raise the concrete (redoing the concrete) so all the water can travel via driveway path to street level. That is why I want to seal all the gap on the driveway because if I don't then water seeping through to the ground, wet the foundation wall and generate moisture in the basement.

Here is the liquid membrane :
https://www.semcoworks.com/products/liquid-membrane
Here is the fabric reinforcement:
https://www.semcoworks.com/collectio...roducts/fabric

I also thought about using Driveway Channel Drain but that is too much work and I don't know if it will look nice. The biggest problem is channel drain has no way to connect to storm drain pipe. The picture below with red, blue and yellow lines are the area I plan to use liquid membrane and fabric reinforcement.

Any idea and advise is appreciated, thank you in advance!

 

As was noted that large area of sunken concrete is not because water is entering the joints and needs to be explored as to why.

For the second question where you want to seal joints you should look at self leveling sealant like Sikaflex.

 

Areas like your driveway are often poured with a low area in the middle to act as a shallow ditch. There isn't enough room between building for the water to go anywhere else so they run it down the middle of the drive. You didn't say where are located but in the US it is illegal to change the flow of water off your property onto another. That means a driveway like yours couldn't be pitched to direct the water away from the house because that would send it directly onto the neighbors property creating a problem for them.

Plus, large areas of sinking concrete can't be fixed with caulk. You have large underlying issues. Maybe the soil wasn't properly compacted during construction? Maybe there is water movement washing away soil? Maybe there is a sewer or water line leaking underground?