Foundation raising in Junction City KS - level floors, starting with the ground below

You might be looking at a crack that keeps getting wider, a door that's started to stick, or a patio that now tips water toward the house. What moves the price is which fix the house needs, how many piers or lift points it takes, how far things have dropped and how easy the spot is to reach, and the schedule turns mostly on weather, the ground and whether a permit is needed. I measure and walk the site with you, then send a written estimate with the plan for your house.

I start by walking the house and slab with you, looking at the cracks, the gaps and which way things have dropped. Lifting a slab doesn't fix the ground under it, so before we talk about piers, grout or foam we look at why it settled, starting with where your water runs and what the soil is doing. Then I lay out the options and their tradeoffs plainly, including that some slabs need a second lift. Once you've picked one, our crew sets the piers or lifts the slab, checks it against level as it comes up, patches the holes and cleans up.

Two other jobs come up alongside a lift. Sometimes a slab binds against a wall or the slab beside it and won't move where we want it, and concrete cutting along that edge can free it. When a driveway is cracked through in too many places, lifting just raises broken pieces, so I'll tell you if concrete driveway building is the better use of your money.

In Junction City, permits come from the city's Building and Code Enforcement Division, and its permit list names jobs like basement remodels and room additions but not foundation raising, so whether your lift needs one isn't settled ahead of time. I check with the city or county office on every job, and when a permit is needed we pull it before work starts, because the city charges a penalty of double the permit fee, up to $500, when it's taken out after a project has begun. The city's building permit page asks owners to call with permit questions, so if you have one, ask early. When a permit applies, city inspectors check the work, so we leave piers and brackets uncovered and reachable until they approve it and call in each inspection as the job reaches it, since the city doesn't pay to dig back in or put things back.

The ground is the other local factor. Clay soils swell as they get wet and shrink as they dry, which can leave big empty pockets under a slab, so we look for those before deciding what goes in. We see the same kind of ground on jobs in Manhattan and Abilene.