You’ve got house leveling in your future and you’re wondering about any extra costs that come up in the process. Like, what else am I going to have to pay for besides the foundation repair bill? Should I expect other costs?
At Anchor Foundation Repair, we have leveled 1,000+ crawl space homes in Bryan, College Station, and the surrounding Brazos Valley communities like Navasota and Brenham. We can sure fill you in on some extra costs that homeowners tend to experience outside of their foundation repair bill.
This article will review 4 other costs you might come across during or after your house leveling project. These aren’t guaranteed costs, just potential things that you might find yourself paying for, either by choice or because you have to. Let’s check it out.
Should I Expect Additional Costs with House Leveling?
In most cases, you should not have to pay for additional things outside of your house leveling invoice . . . unless you want to. What we’re trying to say here is that many homeowners opt for nothing more than the pier and beam foundation repairs.
BUT, there could be some other things that you choose to do after house leveling because you would like to. There could also be some other repairs that you choose to handle DIY style after the repair process is complete.
Over the years of doing house leveling, we are aware of some situations where homeowners will have additional costs. We will review four scenarios where we have observed people spending money on other things besides their pier and beam repair bill.
What Else Will I Pay For During Pier and Beam Repairs?
Some of these are optional post- house leveling costs and some of these are inevitable in certain situations.
1. Drywall Repair/Painting
Drywall repair and some painting are the most common repair costs a homeowner might experience after house leveling. One of the most typical signs of pier and beam foundation problems is diagonal cracks in your walls coming off of door and window frames. So after your house gets leveled, people like to have the cracks in their walls repaired.
Repairing drywall is not part of the scope of work for a foundation repair company. This is a job for a contractor that does drywall repairs and painting. Homeowners could also opt to tackle something like this in do-it-yourself fashion as well.
If you are keeping your walls the same paint colors, you would just need some touch-up paint in small areas. You may have been waiting to get your home leveled for a while and are excited to get your walls repaired. Some people choose to do full rooms in new paint colors. You have a lot of options here for how much extra cost you might incur (or not).
2. Flooring Repair or Replacement
Depending on the approach that needs to be taken for your house leveling repairs, you may find that floors need to be cut into. Sometimes, the only way to repair your pier and beam home is to access underneath the house by cutting in from above.
Your floors will likely be damaged leading to either flooring repairs or replacement in the rooms that needed to be accessed in this way.
Homes with very low clearance space between the floor and ground might experience this issue. Any time that you have any sub-floor that needs replacing it will have to be done by this approach. Pier and beam homes where there is no other existing access point inside the home might experience this in an isolated area.
A flooring repair or replacement situation does not come up in the vast majority of house leveling situations. It’s probably about 5% of crawl space homes that will need this “top-down” repair approach.
3. Addressing Drainage Issues
Excess moisture and standing water in the crawl space under your home can greatly contribute to pier and beam foundation settling that then requires house leveling. If you get your pier and beam foundation repaired and still have a drainage issue under your home, you really need to consider getting that handled.
Any house leveling repairs will certainly have more “staying power” and longevity under optimized drainage conditions. This can mean repairing or adding a gutter system or other measures to ensure that the underside of your home stays on the drier side after leveling.
We have a great article about addressing poor drainage around your foundation that you might want to check out if this is a concern for your home.
4. Skirting Repairs for Block and Base Homes
A block and base home is a crawl space type of foundation home that is essentially open underneath. This type of home often has cosmetic skirting surrounding the space between the house and the ground to keep out critters and give the home a more refined appearance.
Pier and beam homes have a concrete beam around the perimeter of the home and no skirting is needed.
For block and base homes being leveled, some skirting might need to be removed so that a repair team can access the crawl space for repairs. The skirting might already be damaged beyond repair, or become irreplaceable after removal due to the type of material it’s made from. Some homeowners also decide to change or update the skirting afterward.
What we’re trying to say here is there might be some extra costs to repair or replace skirting if needed or desired.
This is certainly not common or even particularly costly. But every once in a while, a homeowner with a block and base home could need to spend some money on new or partial skirting repairs after house leveling.
Paying for House Leveling and the Extra Costs
We’re kind of assuming that you have already explored the general average cost of house leveling here – but if you haven’t, check out, “Cost of Pier and Beam Foundation Repair: How Much for House Leveling?”
Now that you know about both the typical cost and the potential extra costs of pier and beam foundation repairs, you might want to start thinking about how you can actually pay for repairs too.
Anchor Foundation Repair has been house leveling and repairing pier and beam and slab foundations in the Brazos Valley for 35+ years. We want to make sure you have “all the facts” before moving forward with any foundation repair project on your home.
So if you’re wondering about how to pay for house leveling and pier and beam foundation repairs, here’s your next step: How Can I Pay for Foundation Repair Costs? 7 Best Options.