Epp Fills the Void and Lifts Your Garage Slab to Grade.

Garage slabs in Midwest homes built between 1960 and 1990 often sit on fill that was never compacted to current engineered standards. Add a vehicle weighing 4,000 to 6,000 pounds cycling on and off the slab twice a day, a washing-machine drain line buried under the floor, and roughly 50 freeze-thaw cycles each winter, and you get the pattern Epp Foundation Repair sees on garage floor jobs: a corner drop at the driveway interface, a crack radiating from a low point, and an audible hollow when the floor is tapped with a probing rod. Dave Epp built the company's garage floor scope around one principle: the slab doesn't fail. The support under it does. When the cause is soil settlement, lifting is faster, cheaper, and addresses the actual problem.

Epp's inspector finds the same five causes on the majority of NE/IA/KS/MO garage slabs: 1. Original fill compaction inadequate at construction. Pre-1990 residential standards in this region routinely allowed native soil placed in 18- to 24-inch lifts and compacted by truck tracking. First soaking causes 1 to 2 inches of hydroconsolidation in loess fills. 2. Plumbing leak or washing-machine drain failure. A slow leak under the slab washes fines out for years before the floor visibly drops. Epp's inspector probes for moisture and recommends a plumbing check when the void pattern points that direction. 3. Vehicle weight cycling on thin slabs. Residential garage slabs poured at 3.5 to 4 inches with no rebar (common before 2000) crack under repeated 5,000-pound point loads, then settle into the void below. 4. Frost heave at the driveway interface. The exterior edge of the slab cycles through 50-plus freeze-thaw events per winter; the interior stays above 32°F. Differential movement opens a crack along the cold joint. 5. Corner settlement at the apron. Where the garage slab meets the driveway, water from the driveway often runs back under the apron, erodes fines, and pulls the front corner down. ## How Epp Repairs a Garage Floor

Epp's standard garage floor scope follows four steps: 1. Diagnose cause and void profile. Inspector taps the slab grid by grid, documents void locations with a probing rod, checks for plumbing moisture, measures settlement with a laser level, and writes the cause on the estimate. 2. Lift with polyurethane foam where the slab is structurally sound. Two-part foam goes in through 5/8" injection ports, fills the void, and raises the slab in controlled increments. The garage is drivable the same day. Foam reaches full load capacity in 15 minutes. 3. Seal radial cracks and the cold joint. Polyurethane caulk on working cracks, epoxy injection on structural cracks crossing the slab, joint sealant at the garage-to-driveway cold joint to keep water out going forward. 4. Flag what changes the scope. If a plumbing leak is contributing, Epp's inspector names it and the plumbing is repaired first by a licensed plumber. If the slab itself has failed, with multiple structural cracks or broken sections, Epp removes it, corrects the base, and pours a new slab rather than lifting concrete that will not hold. Customized Repair Estimate after on-site inspection reflects your actual scope.

Clear scope matters here because garage floors often need more than one trade. Epp lifts and seals the slab that is still sound and pours a new one where it is finished. Epp does not: - Apply epoxy or polyaspartic floor coatings (specialty coating contractor). - Repair the stem walls or footings of the garage foundation. That's structural foundation work under the foundation-repair silo, not garage floor scope. - Diagnose or repair plumbing leaks (licensed plumber). Some garage floor inspections come back as full replacement recommended. Epp says so on the Customized Repair Estimate. No incentive to lift a slab that should be replaced.

Eastern Nebraska and western Iowa garage slabs sit on loess subgrade. Loess is a wind-deposited silt with low natural density; when water reaches it through a leak, splash zone, or poor grading, it consolidates 8 to 12% in volume on first soaking. That's a 1- to 2-inch slab drop on a 12-inch fill column. Exactly the settlement Epp measures most often on Lincoln concrete repair calls and on Omaha and Council Bluffs garage floors. Kansas City and St. Joseph garages more often deal with expansive clay subgrade. The clay column under a garage slab cycles 1 to 2% of its volume between wet spring and dry late summer. Heaving the slab, then dropping it. Foam stabilizes the void; gutter management, downspout extensions, and apron drainage keep the moisture cycle from re-opening it. Epp Foundation Repair holds a BBB A+ rating and won the BBB Integrity Award in 2011 and again in 2016. The only foundation contractor in Nebraska to win it twice.