Foundation repair cost dataset

Four problems, not one

National wages, 30 feet of affected wall, engineer’s report and permit included throughout.

⚠️ This table does not diagnose and cannot. A crack that means nothing in one house means a great deal in another, and the difference is not visible in a photograph or a description. It exists for the person who has been quoted for the most expensive row and does not know the other three are on the menu.

Length gives the count, depth gives the price

The left table changes the count and the right one changes the unit price. ⚠️ The 7-foot spacing is trade practice for estimating, not a standard: the real spacing comes from whoever calculates the load carried by each section of wall. And the depth is genuinely unknown before the first pier goes down, which is why a quote with a fixed price per pier and no stated depth is a number rather than a price. Ask what depth it assumes and what happens past it.

Pier type, access and bracing

Working from inside roughly doubles the labour and adds breaking out and reinstating the floor slab. Of the three bracing methods, only wall anchors can be tightened over time and may pull the wall back toward straight — the other two stop it moving further where it is.

The two cheap things, and the rule

USDA NRCS, Web Soil Survey is free and covers your address: USDA states that “NRCS has soil maps and data available online for more than 95 percent of the nation’s counties” and that it is “The site is updated and maintained online as the single authoritative source of soil survey information”, while also noting that “Onsite investigation is needed in some cases”. The engineer’s report is $750 in this dataset against a reference job of $13,263. Retrieved 2026-08-23.

And the rule that governs the work itself. 29 CFR 1926 Subpart P, Excavations (govinfo.gov) provides that “Where the stability of adjoining buildings, walls, or other structures is endangered by excavation operations, support systems such as shoring, bracing, or underpinning shall be provided to ensure the stability of such structures for the protection of employees”, and that “Excavation below the level of the base or footing of any foundation or retaining wall that could be reasonably expected to pose a hazard to employees shall not be permitted except when: (i) A support system, such as underpinning, is provided to ensure the safety of employees and the stability of the structure”. Installing a pier is, by definition, excavating below the level of a footing. Retrieved 2026-08-23.

Line items

88% of the reference total comes from estimated rather than official figures — the highest share of any dataset on this site, because the equipment and the proprietary systems dominate the bill and there is no public price series for either.

The reasoning behind each figure

Written out so a foundation contractor or a structural engineer can point at the exact assumption that is wrong.

Structural engineer’s reportestimated, ±47%

• A licensed structural engineer walks the house, takes floor elevations, looks at the cracks and writes down what is happening and what — if anything — should be done about it.
• The reason it is the first line on this page rather than a footnote: an engineer sells you nothing afterwards. Everybody else who will look at your foundation is quoting for the work at the same time. On a job of several thousand dollars this is one of the cheapest lines and the only genuinely independent one.
• The band is a straightforward residential report at the bottom and one with monitoring over several months at the top, which is what is needed when the question is whether the movement is still happening.

Push piers, supplied and installedestimated, ±38%

• Steel tube sections, the bracket that connects to the footing, and the hydraulic work of driving them. Priced per pier because that is how the trade prices it and how a quote should read.
• ⚠️ The band is wide because the depth is not known in advance. A pier is driven until it refuses, and refusal might come at eight feet or at thirty. Any quote that states a fixed price per pier without stating what depth it assumes is quoting a number, not a job — ask what happens past that depth.
• Excludes the excavation, which is the next line.

Helical piers, supplied and installedestimated, ±37%

• Around 15 to 20% more per pier than push piers, and worth it in two situations: a structure too light to press against, and any case where you want the capacity verified as it goes in rather than inferred.
• Installing torque correlates with capacity, so a helical pier can be documented at the moment it is installed. That documentation is what you are paying the premium for, and it is worth asking for it in writing.

Additional pier sections beyond the first ten feetestimated, ±43%

• Priced per foot per pier beyond ten feet. This is the line that turns a predictable job into an unpredictable one, and it is the single most useful thing to have itemised in a quote.
• Two houses on the same street can need eight feet and twenty-eight, because what matters is where the competent stratum is rather than anything visible from the surface.

Excavating and backfilling the pier pits

• Around four and a half hours per pier: dig the pit against the footing, expose the bearing surface, work in it, and put the ground back afterwards.
• ⚠️ This is the part that federal rules speak to directly. Excavating below the level of a footing is regulated work under 29 CFR 1926 Subpart P, and it is not something to have done by whoever is cheapest. The rule is quoted in full on the page.
• Doubled when the work is inside the house, because everything comes in and goes out through a doorway.

Breaking out and reinstating the floor slabestimated, ±44%

• Per pier, when the work is done from inside: cut the floor, break it out, and pour it back afterwards.
• ⚠️ Cutting concrete produces respirable crystalline silica, which is regulated under 29 CFR 1926.1153. Indoors, with your furniture in the next room, the control is wet cutting and containment. A saw running dry inside your house is the clearest signal you will get about the rest of the job.

Lift attempt and monitoring during jacking

• Six hours of coordinated jacking with somebody watching the house rather than the gauges: doors, windows, and the cracks that already exist.
• ⚠️ Worth understanding before signing: piers are guaranteed to stop further settlement, and lifting a house back to level is a separate and less certain thing. Pushing too hard opens new cracks upstairs. A contractor who promises full lift as a certainty is promising something nobody can promise.

Carbon fibre straps, supplied and bondedestimated, ±34%

• Per strap, at roughly four-foot centres along the affected wall. Includes surface preparation, which is most of the skill: the bond to the wall is the whole system.
• Flat enough to paint over and to finish a basement against, which is a real advantage over steel in a room anyone uses.

Steel I-beams, supplied and fixedestimated, ±33%

• Per beam, at roughly four-foot centres, fixed to the floor slab at the bottom and to the joists above. The connection at the top is the part that matters and the part most often done badly.
• They project into the room, which is why they lose to carbon fibre in a finished basement and win on a wall that has already moved a long way.

Wall anchors and tie rodsestimated, ±36%

• Per anchor, including the excavation in the garden for the earth anchor and the rod through the wall.
• The only one of the three that can be tightened afterwards, which means the wall may come back toward straight over a season or two rather than simply stopping where it is. It needs enough garden beyond the pressure zone to anchor into.

Fitting the wall reinforcement

• Around two and a half hours per unit for straps and beams, and more for anchors because of the digging outside.

Epoxy or polyurethane crack injectionestimated, ±42%

• Per crack, in a poured concrete wall. Ports are set along the crack, the surface is sealed and resin is injected until it appears at the next port up.
• Polyurethane for water, epoxy where some structural continuity is wanted. Neither adds strength that the wall did not have: this stops water, it does not stop movement.
• ⚠️ It does not work on a block wall, where the crack follows the mortar joints rather than the material. That is a different repair and it is excluded here.

Polyurethane foam injection to lift the slabestimated, ±52%

• Priced by the square foot of slab lifted. Small holes are drilled, expanding foam is injected to fill the void and the slab comes back up as it expands.
• The band is wide because it depends entirely on how much void there is, and nobody knows that until the foam starts going in. It is a fraction of the price of replacing the same slab.
• ⚠️ It fills the hole. It does not fix whatever washed the soil out from under there, which is usually water, and if that is not addressed the void comes back.

Drilling, injecting and patching

• About one hour per fifty square feet, plus patching the injection holes so they are barely visible afterwards.
• One of the shortest jobs on this site: a garage floor is usually a morning, and the slab can be driven on the same day.

Reinstating landscaping, paving and finishesestimated, ±63%

• Every pier means a pit against the house, and whatever was on that ground — planting, a path, a patio — comes up first.
• A wide band on purpose: turf that regrows is at the bottom, a stone terrace that has to be lifted and relaid is at the top. It is the line most often left out of a quote and the one most likely to be argued about afterwards, so it is worth getting in writing who puts the garden back.

Permit and inspectionestimated, ±55%

• Structural work is permitted almost everywhere, and here the permit does something worth having: it puts an independent inspection on a job whose finished state is buried underground.
• ⚠️ It also leaves a record. Unpermitted foundation work is one of the more awkward things to explain when a house is sold, and a buyer’s surveyor will ask.
• Fees set locally with no national schedule, hence a band rather than a figure.

Not included in this dataset

Fixing the water that caused it

Most residential foundation movement is a water story: soil that swells and shrinks, or soil washed out from under a slab. Guttering, grading and drainage are what stop it recurring, and they are priced on our basement waterproofing and French drain pages. A repair without them is a repair you may buy twice.

Rebuilding a failed wall

Where a wall has moved too far to brace, it comes out and goes back. That is demolition, temporary support of the house above and new construction, and it is a different order of job entirely.

Repairing the damage upstairs

Drywall cracks, doors that no longer close, tiles that have parted. Those are made good after the structure has stopped moving and are priced on our drywall repair page.

Block wall crack repair

Injection is for poured concrete. In a block wall the crack runs through the mortar joints and the repair is different, which is why it is not priced here rather than being approximated.

A soils or geotechnical report

A borehole investigation is a separate professional service. The free federal soil survey linked on this page is a starting point rather than a substitute — USDA itself notes that onsite investigation is needed in some cases.

Any diagnosis

This page prices work. It cannot tell you whether your house needs any of it, and neither can anybody who has not measured your floor elevations. That is what the engineer’s report line is for.