Foundation raising in Springfield IL - a house that sits higher on solid footing

Most calls about raising come from owners whose house sits lower than they'd like and who want to know, before spending anything, whether it can be done at all. The price moves mostly with what the house is built of and what it sits on, the condition of the old foundation, how much new foundation it needs, and the utility work and engineering that come with it. The schedule turns less on the lift itself than on the planning, the design work, the city's review and the weather. When I come out, I'll go over each of those for your house and write the estimate, so you know what you're paying for before anything starts.

Not every house is a good fit for raising, so I start by looking at the foundation, the walls and what the house sits on, and we bring in a design professional when the job calls for one. More than one trade usually works on a raise, and I'll be clear from the start which parts of the work are ours. The job goes in a set order, with the house separated from its foundation, lifted on hydraulic jacks and held on temporary supports while the new or extended foundation is built underneath, so it can be set down higher than it was. On our part, we dig out and pack the ground the footings will sit on, because those wide concrete bases carry the whole house, then we form and pour the walls and give the concrete its curing time to harden and gain strength before any weight comes back down on it.

Some of the connected work is concrete work too. If part of an old wall or slab has to be opened up or removed, our concrete cutting crew takes it out with a saw instead of breaking it, so the concrete that stays isn't left cracked. Once the house sits higher, the ground around it changes, and we can pour a new concrete driveway that meets the garage at its new height.

The City of Springfield issues floodplain development permits for development within a floodplain, and its list names reconstruction and substantial improvements but doesn't name raising a house. That leaves the question open for your job, so the place to ask is the city's Building Division, which reviews permits and inspects work in the city. Before you plan anything, you can look up your lot on the state's Elevation Finder, which shows ground elevation and, where it's been mapped, the floodplain. We check what the office asks for at your address and take care of the permit paperwork for our part of the work, and if it needs something from you as the owner, we'll tell you early.

Around Springfield we see plenty of houses on basements and crawlspaces, and on any of them the new footings are only as good as the ground they're poured on, so we dig down to firm soil, pack it before we pour and check where the water runs off the lot so the new foundation isn't sitting in it. We do the same work on jobs in Chatham and Decatur, and if your city isn't listed on our site, please ask about your address.