Older Amarillo houses are more likely to be raised. Walk down an established street and you’ll see vent openings along the base of the brick or siding, the giveaway that there’s a crawl space underneath. These homes behave differently from slab houses, and so does the repair.
On a slab, the concrete moves as one heavy piece. A raised house rests on many separate points, piers carrying beams and beams carrying joists, so trouble tends to be local. One sunken pier makes one corner of the kitchen dip. A rotted sill near a leaky hose bib softens the floor by the back door.
Typical fixes
- Shims between pier and beam get replaced or added to bring floors back up. Steel shims don’t shrink the way dry wood can.
- A pier that has sunk, tilted or cracked gets replaced, sometimes with a wider footing.
- Rotted or cracked beams, joists and sills get sistered, braced or swapped out.
- Blocked vents, standing water and plumbing leaks get dealt with so the new wood lasts.
Questions for the company
Ask how they’ll get into the crawl space and whether any part of it is too tight to reach. Ask whether they’ll replace wood or just add support next to it. Ask if they recommend a vapor barrier or better ventilation, and why. And ask for photos from under the house, since you probably won’t crawl down there yourself.
If the floors slope but nothing is broken, house leveling may be all you need.