Foundation raising in Glendora, CA - the cause fixed first, then a careful lift

Most people call after a door starts sticking, a floor begins to slope or a crack keeps coming back, and the first questions are what it costs and how long it takes. The price turns on what your house sits on, how far it has to come up, what it takes to fix whatever made it move and how many piers the job calls for, since each one is a post carried down to firm ground. The schedule follows the same things, mostly the foundation type and the pier count, and after I've walked your house I'll give you a written estimate that lists what's included.

Before anyone talks about lifting, I want to know why your house moved, because raising it without fixing the cause only buys time. A house that moves a measurable amount each season has something still working on it, usually drainage, expansive clay that swells and shrinks with moisture, a leaking supply line or soil washing out, so we check where the water runs and look for leaks, and the fix goes into the same plan and budget as the lift. Then I'll tell you honestly whether a lift suits your house and how far it makes sense to go, because bringing a settled house all the way back to dead level can crack drywall, break plumbing lines and rack door frames that have adjusted to where the house sits now. Once the plan is settled, the house is lifted and held on temporary supports, and our crew digs out and packs the ground, then forms and pours the new footings, the wide concrete base a wall bears on, before the house is set down on them.

Foundation work often reaches past the house itself. When a new pier or footing has to go in under a garage floor, a walkway or a patio, we use concrete cutting to take out a clean section rather than break up the whole slab, so the patch afterward stays small and square. And if your driveway has sunk or tips toward the house and sends water against the foundation, replacing it through our concrete driveway building work can be part of fixing the cause, with a packed base and the new slab pitched to carry water away.

A federal guide on raising homes notes that lifting a house can make it more likely to be damaged in an earthquake, so here that added risk belongs in the decision right beside your reasons for raising it. The state maps seismic hazard zones where weak soil or rock is likely under a property, ground that can fail in a quake and damage a house unless the right precautions are taken during grading and construction, and cities may set stricter rules than the state does, so please ask the City of Glendora what applies to your lot. When the job needs a permit, we handle the application and the inspections with the city or county office that covers your address, and I'll tell you at the estimate if I expect one.

We're based in Glendora and work across the San Gabriel Valley and the Pomona area, and we get the same kinds of calls on jobs in Azusa and San Dimas, often a raised-floor house with doors that have started to bind or a slab home with a crack that won't stay patched. The approach doesn't change from one city to the next.