How Do You Level A Pier And Beam House?

Solutions For Crawl Space Foundations

Does your Amarillo home have a crawl space foundation? When signs of trouble start to appear, you need to act fast. Ignoring crawl space issues can allow unsightly cracks to grow, your home to settle or shift, and interior damage to develop.

The best method of leveling your pier and beam home will depend on the construction of your home’s foundation and the extent of the damage. The following information will provide you with all you need to know to make an educated decision on the best solution for your foundation problems.

Pier And Beam Foundation Repair Options

The repair options available are largely dependent upon the source of the damage. Finding the ideal solution to the problem will require knowing exactly what caused it.

Pier And Beam Adjustment

With a pier and beam adjustment, small adjustments are made to all your pier and beam foundation parts, ensuring they are all snug. Because of the expansive clay soil in the Amarillo area, there is the potential for your foundation to heave or settle with the moisture cycle. Having these small alterations completed will set everything straight again.

This process can also be used as a preventative maintenance technique to keep your pier and beam home in tip-top shape. It is recommended that you have your piers and beams adjusted every 2 to 4 years to keep your foundation in excellent form and prevent major problems from developing.

Rebuilding Or Adding Piers

Sometimes interior piers can degrade or disintegrate, and other times there just aren’t enough to begin with. Your pier and beam foundation repair contractor can add additional piers, resulting in even support and distribution of weight. They can also repair or replace any that have been damaged over time.

Replacing Wood

Floor joists are made of wood and, as a result, are prone to rotting, breaking, and warping. When this happens, they need to be replaced with new material. This can either be a small job or a massive project, depending on the amount of wood that needs to be replaced and the access available to get to the problem.

To remove any damaged wood, the adjacent pieces will need to be supported as they are all connected to one another. This is a very delicate process that must be handled with extreme care to ensure that the home does not buckle.

Adding Underpinnings To The Beam

While the interior supports of a pier and beam foundation are the most affected by settlement due to their placement, the perimeter support beam can also be shifted by settlement. Whenever a perimeter beam needs to be brought back to its correct level, underpinnings such as drilled bell-bottom piers, concrete pilings, or helical piers must be used.

Helical Piers are an advanced, long-term solution to repairing sunken pier and beam foundations. They are 7 feet long and have a helix that allows them to be hydraulically screwed into the earth until they reach the solid strata below.

Proprietary brackets are attached to the foundation and are lifted by a special jacking system. Once lifted, the brackets are secured to the foundation, permanently transferring the load to the stable soil strata.

Why Pier And Beam Houses Are Prone To Having
Foundation Problems

With all these options available for leveling, you might be wondering what it is about pier and beam houses that makes them need so much TLC.

Unlike slab-on-grade foundations, pier and beam foundations utilize a wood support system. This makes them susceptible to problems that slab-on-grade foundations don’t face.

Pier and beam foundations have a limited number of support points. These points break up and support the weight of your home.

The piers and beams have a lot of stress placed on them because of how this weight travels. To reach the ground, the load must travel through the decking to the floor joists, then to the beams, finally flowing down through the piers to the ground.

Are You Having Pier And Beam Foundation Problems?
Call The Foundation Repair Experts

Is your pier and beam home showing signs of foundation problems? Call the best helical pier company in Amarillo!

Here at Childers Brothers, we offer the most efficient types of foundation repair that provide the longest-lasting solutions. We’ll have your pier and beam foundation as good as new in no time at all.

Call us at (800) 299-9563 to schedule your free estimate.