New Braunfels, Texas · Raised houses
Pier and Beam Repair in New Braunfels, TX
For raised houses with a crawl space: firm supports, sound beams, level floors.
Pier and beam repair fixes the supports under a raised house: the piers or blocks the beams rest on, the shims that fill the gaps, and the beams and floor framing above them. The goal is floors that feel firm and doors that close again.
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- Free inspectionIt costs nothing
- No obligationStopping after the inspection is fine
- Town-by-town soil dataFrom the USDA soil survey
- Referral service, disclosedWe pass requests to local pros
- Call (830) 500-5898Or send the short form
If your floors have started to dip or slope, you're probably living in one of the area's older houses. Most of New Braunfels is young, with a median build year of 2005 and only 9.0% of homes built before 1960. Nearby Seguin is a different story: 22.4% of its homes went up before 1960, and 11.2% in the 1950s alone. Houses from that era are more likely to sit on piers and beams than on a slab.
When You Need Pier and Beam Repair
A raised house tells you it's moving in its own ways. These are the signs that usually send people into the crawl space:
- A dip or a soft spot you can feel when you walk across a room
- Floors that slope toward the middle of the house or toward one wall
- Gaps opening between the baseboard and the floor
- Doors and windows that bind, or frames that look out of square
- Cracks in drywall or plaster, often above doors
- Inside the crawl space: leaning blocks, wood shims that have crushed, or beams that no longer touch their supports
The guidelines Texas engineers use list several of these as signs a foundation may be moving, including racked door and window frames, walls separating from floors, and sagging or tilting framing. They also say that seeing some of these doesn't mean the foundation is failing. That's why a careful look comes before any repair.
What Pier and Beam Repair Involves
1. A look underneath. Someone goes into the crawl space to check every support, the shims, the beams and the floor framing. Then the floor heights are measured across the house, so the low spots show up as numbers.
2. Finding the cause. In many older Texas homes, concrete blocks rest on small concrete pads near the surface, stacked to the right height. Those pads move with the ground right under them. Wood shims can also crush over time, which lets a beam drop even when the block below hasn't moved.
3. Resetting the supports. Blocks that have tipped or sunk are reset or replaced. Steel shims are often used in place of wood, because they don't compress the way wood can.
4. Bringing the floor back up. The beams are raised back toward level and shimmed tight on their supports.
5. Fixing the framing. If a beam or the joists have sagged between supports, they may need added support or replacement. The Texas guidelines cite a common limit for floor members: under the weight of people and furniture, they shouldn't bend more than their length divided by 360. Over a 30-foot span, that's 1 inch.
The same guidelines are honest about results. It's unlikely any repair leaves a foundation perfectly level, and repairing one part of a house won't improve the parts that weren't repaired. A good plan covers the whole floor, not just the worst corner.
A pier and beam foundation
- Piers stand on the ground
- Beams rest on the piers
- Floor joists and the floor sit on the beams
- Open crawl space under the floor
Pier and Beam Repair on Clay and on Limestone
A raised house sits on lots of small supports instead of one big slab, so the ground under each support matters.
On the clay side, even the surface moves. Under Branyon clay, the most common soil in New Braunfels and 40% of our sample points in Seguin, the USDA survey reads the top foot at 9.9. That's already in the very high band for shrink and swell. A block on a small pad near the surface sits right in that layer, so it rises in a wet spring and drops in a dry summer. That's why what each support rests on matters so much on clay.
On the limestone side, the rock sits about 13 inches under Comfort soil and about 28 inches under Rumple. A support resting near rock has much less to move it. If the floors in a house like that are still dropping, the shims, the framing or water in the crawl space are more likely suspects than the ground.
Our guide to New Braunfels soil shows how to check which side your lot is on.
What Pier and Beam Repair Costs
We haven't found a published local price for pier and beam work that we'd trust, so we won't guess at one. What we can tell you is what moves the price:
- How many supports need resetting, replacing or adding
- Whether beams or joists need repair or replacement
- How easy the crawl space is to work in
- How far the floors have to come back up
Re-shimming a few supports is a very different job from rebuilding the framing under a whole room. A fair quote comes after someone has been under the house and measured the floors. Our cost guide explains why published prices for foundation work vary so much.
Questions About Pier and Beam Repair
How can I tell if my house is pier and beam?
Look at the base of the outside walls. A raised house usually has a gap underneath, closed off by skirting or a short wall, with vents or an access door. Your floors may also sit a few steps above the ground. An inspection will confirm it.
Do I need a permit for pier and beam repair?
In New Braunfels, the city requires a permit for any repair to a building or structure, and foundation repair needs a registered contractor. Cosmetic work doesn't. If you're not sure whether a small job counts, ask the city before work starts. In Seguin, an owner who lives in the house, has it registered as a homestead and does the work themselves may pull the permit.
Is pier and beam easier to repair than a slab?
Often, yes. The supports can be reached from the crawl space, so there's no concrete to break through. That's a general pattern, though, and a house with badly damaged framing can still be a big job.
Will the floors be perfectly level afterward?
Probably not perfectly. The Texas engineers' guidelines say it's unlikely any repair will make a foundation fully level. A good repair brings the floors back to firm and close to level, with doors that work.
Related Services
- House leveling when the whole floor has gone out of level and needs bringing back up.
- Foundation inspection to measure the floors and check the crawl space before anyone prices a repair.
- Slab foundation repair if your house turns out to be on a concrete slab.
Towns We Serve
Raised houses are most likely where the homes are oldest, like Seguin. We serve New Braunfels and nearby towns, including San Marcos, Universal City, Live Oak, Schertz, Cibolo, Converse, Kyle, Selma, Garden Ridge and Canyon Lake. See all service areas.
Get a Free Pier and Beam Inspection in New Braunfels
Let us know what you're feeling underfoot, and we'll pass it to a foundation repair professional who works in your area. They'll take a look and talk you through what they find. It costs nothing, and there's no obligation.
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