Foundation raising in Lincoln CA - a house that stops settling or comes back near level

Most people call because something changed. A door stopped latching, a crack showed up over a window and kept growing, or a marble now rolls across a floor that used to be flat. The price moves with how much of the house has shifted and how far, whether you want it held where it is or lifted, how easy it is to reach the foundation, and what water problems around the house need fixing first. The schedule turns mostly on the city's permit review and on what we find once the ground is open, and my written estimate gives you the figure for your house.

I start by looking for why the house moved, because lifting a house that's still sitting in wet ground sets you up to do it all again. In a kitchen you don't remake a broken sauce until you know what broke it, so we trace the water around your house first, from gutters and downspouts, sprinklers and any leaks. Once we know the cause, you decide whether you want the settling stopped or the house brought back closer to level. Then we dig down where the foundation needs help, add support beneath it, lift it if that's your choice, backfill the soil around it and clean up.

Some of the work around a lift is regular concrete work. When a patio, walk or garage slab sits over the spot we need to reach, concrete cutting lets us open just that section. If the settling has broken up your driveway as well, concrete driveway building gives you a new slab on a base we dig out and pack, so it isn't riding on loose dirt.

The City of Lincoln issues building permits, and it wants one whenever a structure is altered, repaired, moved or improved, among other changes. A lift repairs and moves part of your house, so expect the city to want a permit, and before we start we check with the office that covers your address and take care of the paperwork and inspections with you. The city also expects the contractor on the job to hold a current city business license, carry workers' comp and be bonded, and every subcontractor needs a city business license and a bond too, so it's fair to ask anyone you're comparing about each one.

Soils that shrink and swell are common in the low-lying western part of Placer County, from Rocklin out to the county line, and that takes in Lincoln. Clay like that swells when rain, lawn and garden watering, leaking pipes or roof runoff soak it, then shrinks as it dries, and that back and forth is what cracks foundations and buried lines. We're based in Lincoln and work across the cities around it, and we see the same kind of ground on jobs in Rocklin and Roseville.