Pick the repair method and how bad the problem looks, and get a Bay Area planning range for piering, leveling, crack repair, drainage, or full replacement.
Every result is a planning estimate, not a quote or an engineering determination. Real pricing depends on soil conditions, access, existing structure, engineering requirements, and your jurisdiction’s current fee schedule. For structural questions we coordinate with a licensed engineer — we do not perform engineering ourselves. Get a site-specific estimate before committing to a budget.
Foundation repair pricing is driven almost entirely by cause, not by symptom. Two houses can show the same diagonal crack over a doorway, and one needs a weekend of epoxy injection while the other needs sixteen piers driven to bearing. The difference is whether the foundation is simply cracked or whether the ground under it is moving.
Expansive clay through the East Bay and parts of the South Bay swells in winter and shrinks through the dry season, and that annual cycle is the source of a lot of seasonal cracking. Hillside lots add creep and, on older homes, cripple walls that were never braced. Homes built before the 1940s often have unreinforced concrete with little or no steel, which changes what repairs are even possible.
The most expensive mistake is repairing the symptom while the cause keeps running. Sealing a crack, patching drywall, and painting is cheap and satisfying, and if water is still pooling at the footing or a pier is still settling, you will pay for the same repair again in two years and by then it will be bigger. Get the cause identified first — that is engineering work, and we coordinate with a licensed engineer to have it done properly.
If drainage turns out to be the driver, correcting grade and hardscape is often far cheaper than structural work. Our foundation repair and retrofit page covers the full scope, and flatwork and drainage is frequently part of the fix.
For anything structural, yes. Whether a foundation has a structural problem, and what the correct repair is, is a determination that requires a licensed structural or geotechnical engineer. We are a foundation contractor, so we coordinate with an engineer, then build to their stamped drawings. We do not perform engineering ourselves.
This tool estimates pier count from footprint as a planning figure, but the real number comes from the engineer and depends on where settlement is actually occurring. Many jobs only pier one affected corner or wall line rather than the whole perimeter, which costs far less than a full-perimeter number suggests.
Neither is universally better. Push piers use the structure weight to drive to bearing, so they suit heavier homes. Helical piers reach capacity by torque, so they suit lighter structures, additions, and new construction where there is not enough weight to push against. The engineer specifies which the soil and the structure call for.
No. Thin vertical shrinkage cracks are common and often cosmetic. Cracks that are wider than about a quarter inch, that run diagonally from corners of openings, that show offset between the two sides, or that widen over months deserve professional evaluation. Doors that stick seasonally and sloping floors are also worth a look.
Tell us what you're building — a new home, an ADU, an addition — and we'll get back to you with next steps, usually within one business day.
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