Pier and Beam Foundation Repair in McKinney
Releveling from $2,500; replacement piers $400 to $700 each
A pier-and-beam house sits on a grid of piers and wood beams with a crawl space under the floor. When some of those piers sink or a beam sags, you feel it before you see it: a dip in the hallway, a bounce by the bathroom door. Releveling starts around $2,500 and is done from under the house, not through the floors.
How a pier-and-beam foundation works
Concrete or masonry piers, sometimes cedar posts on older homes, stand on footings in the crawl space. Wood beams sit across the piers, floor joists run across the beams, and the subfloor sits on the joists. The perimeter is usually a concrete grade beam or a brick wall with vents in it.
Most Collin County homes built since the late 1960s are slab on grade, with post-tension slabs the norm in subdivisions built since the 1990s, while pier-and-beam survives in the pre-1960s blocks near the old downtown squares, McKinney and Plano among them, and on farmhouses outside town. Homes from before the mid 1970s often still have cast iron drain lines under the slab. The crawl space makes these homes much easier to relevel than a slab. It also exposes the wood to whatever moisture is under the house.
What goes wrong
- Interior piers sink. Piers set on shallow footings ride up and down with the clay and end up lower than when they started.
- Beams sag or rot. A beam that spans too far between piers bows over the years. Beams in contact with wet soil rot from the bottom up.
- Sills and rim joists rot where the perimeter wall traps water or the grading sends rain under the house.
- Shims fall out. Older houses were leveled with wood shims that shrink, split and slide.
- Termites find the wet wood first. We flag damage when we see it.
The repair
The inspector runs a level survey on the floors. Then he goes under the house and checks every pier, beam and sill with a probe and a flashlight. The quote lists what gets shimmed, what gets a new pier, and what wood gets replaced.
Releveling means jacking the beams in small steps and setting steel shims on the pier caps until the floor reads level. Sunk piers are reset on new footings or replaced with new concrete piers. Where beams span too far, new piers are added between the old ones. Sagging or rotten beams get a new beam bolted alongside, called a sister beam, or a full replacement. Perimeter walls that have dropped get the same pressed piers used on slab homes.
Moisture control
A dry crawl space is the difference between a repair that lasts thirty years and one that lasts ten. The crew checks vent count and clearance, looks for plumbing leaks and standing water, and checks that the ground slopes away from the house. A vapor barrier on the soil and a drain or sump in a low crawl space are quoted when the ground stays wet.
Cost
Releveling with shims and a few new piers starts around $2,500. Replacement piers are $400 to $700 each. Beam and sill replacement is quoted by the foot after the crew sees it, and new piers carry the same written warranty as the piers under a slab.
Call (972) 645-5576 and clear a path to the crawl space hatch before the visit. The inspector goes under the house on the first trip.