Foundation raising in Tacoma WA - a new foundation under the house you already have

Most people who call us about this have a foundation that's cracked, sinking or just past saving, and they're trying to figure out whether starting over under the house even makes sense. The price turns on the size and build of your house, how much of the old foundation has to come out, how easy the site is to get equipment into and what has to be disconnected and hooked back up. The schedule turns less on the day the house goes up than on the engineering, the permit and the new foundation. Your own numbers come in a written estimate, so you can take your time with it.

Raising a house takes a team, so I start by looking at the home, its foundation and the site before anyone picks a lifting method, because the way the house is built and the ground it sits on decide what will work. Then we sort out who handles the lift, the engineering and the new foundation, and each part goes in writing so you know who to call when a question comes up. When the new foundation is ours to pour, our crew digs out, forms it, sets the rebar, which is the steel that keeps the concrete from pulling apart, pours it and lets it cure, the wait while concrete hardens enough to carry weight, before the house is set back down.

A lift usually touches more than the foundation. If an old slab, a step or a section of wall has to come out in clean pieces, we handle the concrete cutting so the concrete you're keeping isn't cracked by a jackhammer. And when the house ends up at a new height or the equipment chews up the approach, the driveway may not meet the garage the way it used to, so we can plan concrete driveway building into the same job.

Before any work starts we check which office covers your address and what it will want to see, and for a Tacoma address that's the city's Planning and Development permit counter, which helps with permit applications and has residential building reviewers for walk-ins Monday to Thursday, 9 AM to 1 PM. Whether your lift needs a permit is the city's call, and the counter is the place to ask. When the job calls for a permit we handle the paperwork, and if it's one you have to get as the owner, we tell you what to bring. The city's Urban Residential zones also set minimum setbacks and maximum building area, so we check the standards for your lot before the new foundation gets drawn.

Pierce County's landslide records show storm and flood slides just west of Tacoma that damaged homes, plus large, deep slides along the Tacoma Narrows and between Brown and Dash Points. That's county history, not a finding about your lot, but it's why I want to know what the ground is doing before a new foundation is designed. We're based in Tacoma and work in the cities around it in Pierce County and south King County, and we ask the same questions about soil and slope on jobs in University Place and Federal Way.