DIY Sidewalk Leveling

We had a 3-foot by 4-foot section of walkway to our house gradually pushed up by tree root growth, to the point where one side was about 2 1/2" elevated, a safety and snow blowing hazard. I searched long and hard for help, asking about 10 different cement, landscaping and other vendors for quotes to repair it. Most said they don't do that kind of work, and a few responded that the only approach they would take was to replace that square of walkway for us with new cement, the best quote being $1800 for that approach.

Unlevel walkway

We didn't really want to spend $1800 on one sidewalk square, and we didn't like the idea that the square would then be a different color, so we started to look for instructions on how to try to level it ourselves. There wasn't a lot of information that I could find on the internet, but I did find one suggestion about using a jack to lift up on edge and work underneath it. So, I bought a $33 bottle jack and a $20 hatchet, as well as two large cement blocks to hold up the lifted segment, and one Saturday we got to work.

We dug out one edge of the square, piling up the dirt on a tarp. We had to clear quite a bit of dirt before we were able to place the jack under the edge of the square. The jack only lifts about 8", so we began a slow process of jacking up what is probably a 600 lb section of walkway, wedging various configurations of bricks in the gap, until it was raised enough to prop on the big cement blocks and start attacking the tree root underneath.

For some reason, I thought the tree root would be some 6-8" diameter thing we would hatchet a bit and call it a day. In fact, it was at least 20" in diameter. Our stupid hatchet couldn't do a thing but chip out tiny little sections of no help. We drilled it, we used a hammer and chisel, and other completely ineffective approaches we had with our limited set of tools, then finally had to lower down the sidewalk square in multiple releases of several inches and brick reconfiguring for a fruitless 4 or so hours of frustration.

Using the jack to lift the square

Now what? We knew our options were to double-down and buy the right tools for the job, or pony up the cash for someone else to fix it. We decided to double-down. I spent about an hour researching electric chainsaws, and bought one for $108.

It was tough to get under the square with the chainsaw, but done slowly and carefully, it worked

The next weekend, we again did the gradual dance of jacking up the square in multiple rounds, then plugged in the chainsaw and started going after the root in earnest. The saw made clearing the top section of the root much easier, even if it was a bit tough to navigate in the tight space of the propped sidewalk square. When we were confident we'd shave enough root, we started to lower the square, and it would not settle- it was getting caught up. Sigh. We jacked it back up, and dug out more dirt, then hammered away at a chunk of cement sticking off the side and getting caught on the neighboring square. We lowered it down, and it was still not settling. Not only that, but the opposite corner of the square was now badly sunk into the ground.

We couldn't stomach the thought of trying to move a ton of river rock and digging out the other side of the square, so in desperation I dug a small hole and we stuck a long landscaping timber in it, leveraging it over two bricks. We lifted and lifted, Andy lifted while I jumped on the elevated corner, and all of a sudden with a loud sound of scraping concrete, it settled into place. Perfectly into place. We poured some small scale river pebbles into both holes, then filled in with dirt.

So, we were able to level the sidewalk for $153 in tools and supplies and a total of about 7 hours of work.

Level walkway!