Foundation Question: Are Push Piers Worth It or Are There Other Options?

[Carolyn McBride]

Hi BP Community,

I'm new to real estate and home construction, and I recently bought a house (has a crawl space on flat land) which has about 4 inches of settlement on one corner of the house. The house is liveable and the settlement is more of a cosmetic issue rather than a safety one (for now at least). Windows, doors, etc are all working fine but there is one long crack one the floor and a parallel smaller crack on the ceiling... The humidity in the crawl space is not too bad, readings have been average to a little above average in the wood and air.

I want to replace the flooring to LVP or LVT but need to have level floors in order to do this. I've had a few contractors offer quotes for installing push piers and lifting the house... all for over $40k, which to me seems like a huge cost for leveling, which won't really even be noticeable (although I understand it will mitigate any future settlement and further damage). I'm also aware of self-leveling compound, but I believe that may be just a bandaid solution to the cosmetic issue but will not address the risk of future settlement.

I wanted to reach out to this community to see if anyone has any thoughts about whether push piers and house lifting would be a worthy investment or if it's just a total scam/rip off? For the more experienced rehabbers that have dealth with settlement, what are your thoughts on this and do you know of any alternatives?

[Andrew Postell]

@Carolyn McBride this is HIGHLY dependent on where you are in the country.  And since I can't see where you are in the world, this might be hard to make a recommendation.  I guess I could assume that since someone is pitching this to you that your property/soil is right for it...but that's a pretty big assumption.  We don't use these in North Texas.  Then again, we don't have any bedrock under our soil either.  So, what we do here isn't what they would do in Ohio or California.  My best recommendation here is to get with other investors in your market and ask them what techniques and companies they are using for foundation work.  Lots of groups meet in person so try some local real estate meetup groups. Meetup.com is a good resource for those but some of the groups will also post here on Bigger Pockets Marketplace too. If you can't wait for an in person meeting use facebook and join local groups for you. Some of those facebook groups have thousands of members. Eventbrite too. But post locally for this. That’s the best bet.