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Message
Pier & Beam Foundation Repair
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:00 pm
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:00 pm
Bought an older house on pier and beams. Completely remodeled the whole house. Over the last few months with all of the rain, i guess the house is settling more and I've noticed doors sticking, sheet rock cracking, etc. Looks like i will need someone to come out and see what the issue is before all of my work is for nothing. Anyone here have an experience with Cable Lock, WCK, or any others? TIA
4
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:04 pm to FishinTygah84
Try the outdoor board too. Them baws would know
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:06 pm to upgrayedd
Thank you sir. will do. 
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:06 pm to FishinTygah84
Without looking at your house often times trees (or even shrubs) close to the piers can suck a lot of water out of the soil less evenly than the remainder of the foundation, causing differential settlement. If you have any trees or shrubs close to your foundation, I would get them removed. The roots can also crack the foundation under your house and can also cause problems.
Eta fixed for nomenclature.
Eta fixed for nomenclature.
This post was edited on 6/9/16 at 3:12 pm
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:08 pm to NYNolaguy1
quote:
Pier & Beam Foundation
quote:
often times trees (or even shrubs) close to the slab
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:08 pm to FishinTygah84
I have owned 3 different old pier & beam houses. I had foundation contractors out to the first one, before I knew anything about them, and here's what they said about them - basically, unless it has a couple of inches of floor-slope or some visible hump in the floor, or a pier is settled to the point of being crooked or fallen over, there's nothing they can or should do. If they take it up an inch over here, it will be an inch low over there and they can keep jacking and jacking until it is 8' high and it still won't be perfectly level. You will always experience settling, sticky doors, and cracking in the sheet rock in an old pier & beam house. If you get a major floor slope problem in one room or a real functional issue with one of the piers like a I mentioned, have it fixed. Otherwise, that's life in an old pier & beam; patch and paint over the cracks and move on. It's not like a slab house where cracks in the sheetrock are indicative of a major foundation issue that needs to be adressed. Cracked sheetrock in an old pier and beam house is par for the course.
This post was edited on 6/9/16 at 3:11 pm
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:09 pm to NYNolaguy1
quote:
of the slab
There is no slab. He's talking about pier and beam.
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:10 pm to Cooter Davenport
I figured that would be the case to some degree, but there has been a significant shift over the last few months. This one isn't too bad by itself, but many of these over time wouldn't be good.
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:12 pm to Cooter Davenport
quote:
There is no slab. He's talking about pier and beam.
Edited. The principle is the same though.
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:14 pm to FishinTygah84
Yeah if there's one or two piers in particular over which the house has noticeably settled, and quickly, it couldn't hurt to have a foundation guy crawl under there and look. If it's really gone cockeyed on you or settled majorly like a couple or a few inches they can typically put in shims for you for not very much money. The downside of pier and beam is the settling and the ease of letting rats in through the plumbing and other holes. The upside is that fixing a settling issue by shimming between a pier or two is cheap - waaaaaaaaaaay cheaper than a slab foundation repair and can be done by a shade-tree type guy - and it's also much easier to fix the plumbing or re-do gas lines.
This post was edited on 6/9/16 at 3:20 pm
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:16 pm to NYNolaguy1
quote:
Edited. The principle is the same though.
Only if the piers are below ground
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:16 pm to FishinTygah84
You can try action foundation.
old guy, cheaper than the rest(half price), but he's not exactly calculating.
Just has his guys come jack the home up, sister any cracked joists, drop or raise a pier....in a close enough type manner.
old guy, cheaper than the rest(half price), but he's not exactly calculating.
Just has his guys come jack the home up, sister any cracked joists, drop or raise a pier....in a close enough type manner.
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:16 pm to NYNolaguy1
quote:
The principle is the same though.
Kinda... the much bigger issue for pier and beam is a lot of water collecting or flowing under the house in heavy rains causing them to sink into the ooze.
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:18 pm to Kujo
quote:
old guy, cheaper than the rest(half price), but he's not exactly calculating. Just has his guys come jack the home up, sister any cracked joists, drop or raise a pier....in a close enough type manner.
Really all you need. I've had it done on a house that had a rotten beam break. It's not rocket science.
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:18 pm to Cooter Davenport
quote:
Kinda... the much bigger issue for pier and beam is a lot of water collecting or flowing under the house in heavy rains causing them to sink into the ooze.
honestly, should a pier/beam home be in a flood zone?
Older construction was built on highlands, who built in flood areas back then, or who built a "new" pier and beam home in one?
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:20 pm to Cooter Davenport
quote:
Really all you need. I've had it done on a house that had a rotten beam break. It's not rocket science.
yeah, but then you get a bunch of flack from the floor guy who bitches about slope and wanting to level everything.
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:21 pm to Kujo
quote:
honestly, should a pier/beam home be in a flood zone?
They're actually ideal for it because the floor of the house sits a couple to a few feet above ground level and as such, it's a lot less likely to flood than a house on a slab.
I had a house in Houston last year, in the Heights, and it would have flooded like a mofo in the Memorial Day storm if it was on a slab. Every house in that whole giant neighborhood would have if they weren't all pier & beam. Even the new construction there is pier & beam, for that reason.
Here in Austin where the soil is terrible, pier and beam is an advantage because every slab house over 40 years old here has either had major foundation repairs or needs them.
The downside is always repairing sheetrock, and rats (but you can block their entryways). The upside is cheap foundation repairs and easy, cheap plumbing work.
This post was edited on 6/9/16 at 3:28 pm
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:24 pm to Cooter Davenport
quote:
I have owned 3 different old pier & beam houses. I had foundation contractors out to the first one, before I knew anything about them, and here's what they said about them - basically, unless it has a couple of inches of floor-slope or some visible hump in the floor, or a pier is settled to the point of being crooked or fallen over, there's nothing they can or should do. If they take it up an inch over here, it will be an inch low over there and they can keep jacking and jacking until it is 8' high and it still won't be perfectly level. You will always experience settling, sticky doors, and cracking in the sheet rock in an old pier & beam house. If you get a major floor slope problem in one room or a real functional issue with one of the piers like a I mentioned, have it fixed. Otherwise, that's life in an old pier & beam; patch and paint over the cracks and move on. It's not like a slab house where cracks in the sheetrock are indicative of a major foundation issue that needs to be adressed. Cracked sheetrock in an old pier and beam house is par for the course.
100% all of this, I have a 36 year old plantation style house on pier and beam, no expense was spared in the design and construction of the foundation, but when the ground gets dry enough the doors stick, when it rains everything is back to normal for a while.
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:24 pm to NYNolaguy1
The other thing with pier&beam is they have wood sills that sit on top of the concrete grade beams and your floor joists sit on top of these sills. The sills are usually 2x4s or 2x6s laid flat. These wood sills will shrink and swell with the humidity but usually not enough to notice or cause damage. But they can and do start rotting if any water has found its way to them.....which happens in an old house. When the sills starts rotting the weight of the joist load pushes on the rotted spot and sinks over time. I've worked on several P&B houses I have owned and helped other people with theirs and I have never seen a pier move....not to say it doesnt happen but it is rare in my experience. Its always the sills we find rotted when we get under there.
Posted on 6/9/16 at 3:31 pm to NYNolaguy1
quote:
If you have any trees or shrubs close to your foundation, I would get them removed.
Not so fast. If the trees and shrubs have been there for years, the ground may have stabilized. If you remove them, now the moisture is no longer being removed which may cause similar problems.
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