Leaning concrete piers

[John Backus]

Hello, I am looking into buying a summer home in northern Arizona. Unfortunately, prices for most homes in the areas I have been looking at are pretty high and the properties out in the woods like I want are rare. I have found a great property that fits my budget, but there is one serious issue with the home, and I am trying to figure out if it would be a deal breaker.

The home is up on concrete piers, which is typical for the area, and it is on a decent slope. All the piers to the home are leaning in the direction of the slope. The home itself is level, and all the doors etc inside work fine, but the piers on both sides and running down the middle all have an obvious lean to them. I have included a photo to give you an idea of what I am talking about, but it is not the best unfortunately. You can see the deck in the photo, and one of the posts is not even on the concrete pier anymore. Not sure if that happened after the photo was taken, or if it just isn't visible in the picture, but obviously a concern.

Typically I would just walk away, but all the homes in my price range have issues so I have got to narrow down my purchase on what items can be fixed, or forget buying a second home altogether. Just curious what people here had to say about the piers as far as how to go about fixing the problem, or if it can even be fixed. Definitely not opposed to getting a professional, but not if it is going to cost a fortune.

Thanks for any help!

[Manolo D.]

I'd run towards it, lol. obviously noone here can give you accurate advice, get an engineer. Anyone can give you advice here, it is simply a question of accuracy, make sure the engineer has at least a million in professional liability to cover the cost of the collapse just in case it happens lol. The engineer will have a hard time analyzing your project without soil sampling how much more with only mere pictures and words.