When a leveling job made things worse

If your home got worse after someone leveled it, or went back out of level within a season, the job often left a pier that cannot stay put. Common signs are tall stacks of shims, piers set on pads that have already sunk, or a home lifted unevenly so the walls racked. We read the frame at every pier, find the ones that were patched rather than fixed, and rebuild them from the pad up where needed. A relevel typically runs $450 to $800 for a singlewide and $750 to $1,400 for a doublewide, and rebuilt piers typically add $150 to $400 each. You get the number in writing after we have looked.

What a rushed job tends to leave behind

• Shim towers. A pier topped with a thick stack of wood shims, sometimes several layers deep, rather than more block. Wood that thick can crush and shift.
• Shims driven from one side only. They tilt the bearing surface instead of sitting flat on the cap.
• Piers on bad pads. Blocks restacked on a pad that had already tipped or sunk into the sand, so the pier starts the job leaning.
• No cribbing. Jacks set on bare sand, which can sink while lifting and let the frame drop unevenly.
• One corner lifted too far. New cracks above doors and windows, or trim that popped, right after the job.
• Straps left loose. The home was raised but the straps were never re-tensioned, or were cut and not replaced.
• Water ignored. A low spot that ponds under the home was left as it was, so the same piers sit in the same wet sand.

Why it matters on North Port ground

The soils across North Port are poorly and very poorly drained flatwood sands, with a water table that can be within 6 to 18 inches of the surface for part of the year and low spots that pond. Florida Rule 15C-1 assumes a soil bearing of 1,000 pounds per square foot when nobody knows the real number. A pier that is only shimmed up to the beam, on a pad that has already sunk once, sits in the same ground that let it sink. That is why shimming over a bad pier may not hold for long.

What we do about it

1. Read the frame. Every pier, against a single reference, so we know which ones are low and by how much.
2. Open up the suspect piers. Tall shim stacks come out. We look at the cap, the blocks and the pad.
3. Rebuild what needs it. New pad or a pad reset on firmed sand, blocks square and plumb, new cap, then shims kept to a small gap.
4. Relevel the rest. The piers that were sound get reshimmed to match.
5. Straps. We check them and quote re-tensioning or replacement. Rule 15C-1 spaces diagonal frame ties no more than 5 feet 4 inches apart, and coral anchors do not meet Wind Zone II or III. Sarasota and Charlotte counties are Zone III.
6. Water. If the ground under the home ponds, we tell you, and the quote covers what we suggest.

Permits and the licence

In Sarasota County, tie-down work needs a building permit and has to be done by a licensed installer. Inside the City of North Port, ask the City’s Building Division. Whoever you hire next, ask for their FLHSMV mobile home installer licence number and look it up.

See pier and pad repair and mobile home leveling for how we approach each part, the cost calculator for a starting figure, and doors and windows sticking if that is what sent you looking.