Foundation raising in La Verne CA - new concrete built to carry your house

Most people who call me have noticed something, a door that won't latch or a crack that wasn't there last spring, and they want to know whether it's serious before anyone talks about jacks. The price turns mostly on the kind of foundation under the house, how much new concrete the engineer's plan calls for and how easy it is to reach under the house. The schedule turns on the engineer's design, any city review and the lifting crew's calendar. Raising, lowering and underpinning a house, which means adding support beneath it, fall under the state's building moving contractor class, so the lift belongs to a crew licensed for it while we build the concrete footings and foundation the house comes down onto.

I start by finding out what kind of foundation is under the house and whether it's still moving, because a house that settled long ago may be fine as it is, and I'd rather tell you that than sell you a lift. If the house does need raising, the engineer designs the new support and the lifting crew sets the house up on temporary supports. Then our crew digs out and packs the subgrade, the soil the new concrete sits on, sets the forms and the rebar, the steel inside that keeps cracks from opening, and pours the new or extended foundation with me on site. The concrete then needs time to cure, a wait while it gains strength, before the house is set down on it. If the budget has to give somewhere, I'd rather it come from finish work around the house than from the digging and packing under the new foundation, because nobody sees that part once the house is down, and it's the part that carries everything.

Some of the connected work is ordinary flatwork. When we need to open an existing slab or garage floor to reach the foundation, we use concrete cutting so the opening is clean and the rest of the slab stays sound. The drive usually takes a beating during a lift, so it often makes sense to follow up with concrete driveway building and let the new driveway meet the house at its new height.

In La Verne, the city's Building and Safety staff check building plans, issue permits for construction work and inspect it, and whether your particular job needs a permit is a question for them. We check with the city on each job, and where a permit is needed, we handle the application and set up the inspections. The state also sends its Seismic Hazard Zone maps to cities and counties to plan and control construction, and local agencies can set stricter rules than the state does. If you aren't sure whether your property sits in one of those zones, your local planning agency can tell you, and the engineer will want that answer before settling on a foundation.

The ground matters just as much. You can find out whether your lot has expansive soil, a clay that swells when it's wet, from your purchase disclosures, from the city's building department or from a soil engineer, and that answer shapes the pier choice. One pier maker's guide recommends push piers when firm soil or bedrock sits close to the surface and helical piers when layers of soil have to be passed first, and your engineer makes that call. The same questions come up on jobs in Claremont and San Dimas, and we work across the other cities around La Verne as well.