Quick answer: Three completely different jobs get typed into Charleston search bars with the same handful of words — and only one has anything to do with flooding. House raising lifts your entire home to a higher elevation (the flood fix). A home elevator is a passenger lift installed inside a house to carry people between floors (the mobility fix). Mudjacking / slabjacking pumps material under a sunken concrete slab to level it (the cosmetic-concrete fix). If your house floods, you want house raising. If someone can’t manage the stairs, you want an elevator. If your driveway slab sank, you want slabjacking. Here’s how to tell them apart — and where to look if you landed on the wrong one.
Why These Three Get Confused
“Raise my house,” “home lift,” “lift my house up,” “get my house higher” — the phrases collide, and search engines routinely blur structural elevation together with in-home elevators and concrete leveling. Our house lifting page flags the confusion in passing; this page is the full breakdown, because choosing the wrong one wastes a lot of money on a project that doesn’t solve your problem.
What Each One Actually Is
House raising (structural elevation). The whole home — walls, roof, and floor system together — is jacked up on steel beams and set on a new, higher foundation. It changes the elevation of your finished floor, and that number is what FEMA, your flood-insurance rating, and your jurisdiction’s freeboard rules are built around. It’s the only one of the three that gets a flood-prone home above Base Flood Elevation. The certified flood version of this work is a home elevation.
Home (residential) elevator. An in-house lift that carries people and belongings between floors — a mobility and aging-in-place solution. It does nothing for your flood risk and nothing for your elevation certificate. Adding one to an existing Charleston house usually means carving out a shaft and pit and often reframing around them, which is why a retrofit costs more than an elevator built into new construction.
Mudjacking and slabjacking (concrete leveling). A cement slurry (mudjacking) or expanding polyurethane foam (slabjacking, also called polyjacking) is injected under a sunken driveway, patio, walkway, or garage slab to float it back to grade. It corrects cosmetic slab settlement. It does not lift a house or change any flood elevation. When a slab home itself needs to go up, that’s a structural lift plus a foundation conversion — not slabjacking.
What Each One Costs
The price tags are the fastest way to tell these apart — they’re not in the same league:
| Service | Typical cost | What you’re paying for |
|---|---|---|
| House raising | $40,000–$120,000 all-in (a basic lift alone $10,000–$40,000) — see the cost guide | lifting the whole structure onto a new code-compliant foundation |
| Home elevator | ~$20,000–$60,000+ installed (a two-story traditional often $35,000–$40,000, roughly $10,000–$15,000 per added floor); retrofits run higher | a passenger cab, shaft, and pit built into the house |
| Mudjacking | ~$650–$1,900 per slab ($3–$6/sq ft) | leveling a sunken concrete slab with pumped slurry |
| Slabjacking (polyurethane) | ~$1,000–$3,000 per slab ($5–$25/sq ft) | the same, with lighter foam that cures in about an hour |
The orders of magnitude are the answer: raising a house is a tens-of-thousands structural project; leveling a slab is a four-figure afternoon; an elevator sits between them but solves an unrelated problem. If a quote for “raising your house” comes in at slab-leveling prices, you are not being quoted a house lift.
Which One You Actually Need — By Symptom
Skip the terminology and start from what’s wrong:
- “My house floods,” “I want lower flood insurance,” or “I got a substantial-damage letter.” → House raising. Your finished floor needs to clear Base Flood Elevation plus freeboard, and that height is what your elevation certificate documents. Start with home elevation.
- “My parent or spouse can’t manage the stairs,” or “we’re aging in place.” → A residential elevator (or a stair lift for a lighter need). This isn’t our trade — search residential elevator installer or an accessibility contractor in your area. We raise houses; we don’t install in-home lifts.
- “My driveway, patio, or garage slab sank and I trip on the lip.” → Mudjacking or polyurethane slabjacking. Search concrete leveling or mudjacking near me — a concrete-leveling company handles it for a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, no house lift involved.
- “My slab house is low and floods.” → This is the tricky overlap. Slabjacking levels a slab in place; it cannot get your home above the flood. The fix is a structural lift with a slab-to-pier conversion.
If you’re a flood-prone homeowner, request a free assessment and we’ll confirm your zone, target height, and a fixed quote. And if you landed here looking for an elevator or concrete leveling — you now know the right term to search. Pointing you to it is the least we can do.
Cost basis: house-raising ranges per this site’s Charleston cost guide (2025–2026 industry data). Home-elevator ranges per Angi and HomeAdvisor (2025). Mudjacking and polyurethane slabjacking ranges per HomeAdvisor, Angi, and HomeGuide (2025–2026). Every project prices differently — get a real quote for your specific job.