House foundation leveling in Tempe, where a ten-year storm drops 2.22 inches in a day: leveling a house means installing support below the soil that is moving, then raising the structure back toward its original elevation as far as it will safely go.
Driven, bored, or turned — which support suits this house?
All three reach ground that will carry the house, below the soil the slab settled on. What differs is how they get there and what the house has to give up while they do. Pressed piles use the weight of the house itself as the reaction load and reach refusal the same day, which is why they are a common answer under a full-weight slab. Drilled piers are bored to a designed depth and poured, which means cure time before anything bears and a great deal of spoil leaving the site. Helical piers are turned in with a torque motor and suit light structures, additions and porches where there is not enough weight overhead to press anything. The question to ask any firm quoting one of them is why that one for this house. If the answer is about the house — its weight, its access, the depth to competent ground — it is a real answer. If it is about the equipment they own, it is not.
That choice has a page of its own: Pressed Piles vs Drilled Piers in Tempe, AZ.
What decides pier depth under a Tempe house
The largest soil unit mapped under Tempe is Laveen clay loam, 0 to 1 percent slopes, under homes with a median value of $421,900. A soil name is where a pier’s depth starts, not where it ends: the map says what sits near the surface and nothing about how deep load-bearing ground is. That is found during installation. Ask for the quote split into number of piers, which of them are indoors, and the depth assumed. A single figure hides all three.
What each foundation repair covers, and what it costs to get wrong
Pressed Pile Installation
Concrete or steel cylinders driven one on top of another under the foundation using the weight of the house itself, until they reach refusal. It is a common answer under a settled slab on a full-weight house, because it needs no curing time and the house is the reaction load.
What moves the price. Pile count and depth to refusal, which varies street to street. Interior piles cost more than perimeter ones because the floor has to be opened and closed. Access for spoil around a tight side yard moves it too.
When Pressed Pile Installation is the wrong answer. If the slab has heaved rather than settled, adding support under the high side makes it worse. Lifting and supporting are different responses to opposite movements, and the survey is what separates them.
Drilled Pier Installation
Holes bored down to a designed bearing depth and filled with reinforced concrete, sometimes belled at the base for bearing. It is used where the design calls for bearing at a known depth rather than at refusal, and on new or heavily loaded structures.
What moves the price. Depth, diameter and spoil. Boring generates a great deal of material that has to leave the site. Cure time adds days that pressed piles do not, and access for a drill rig rules some sites out entirely.
When Drilled Pier Installation is the wrong answer. On a typical single-story slab with room to work, pressed piles usually reach the same result faster and with less disruption. Ask why the drilled option is being specified for your house.
Helical Pier Installation
Steel shafts with helical plates turned into the ground with a torque motor, with installation torque read as a proxy for capacity. It suits light structures, additions and porches, and sites where there is not enough building weight overhead to press a pile.
What moves the price. Shaft count, torque reached and headroom. Confined access under a porch or along a tight side yard slows everything. Deeper competent ground means more extensions per shaft.
When Helical Pier Installation is the wrong answer. Under a full-weight house, a pressed pile is usually the cheaper route to the same support. Helicals earn their place where the load is light or the reaction is missing.
Get a foundation repair estimate in Tempe
None of this can be priced from a description. Three things decide it. How many support points the house needs. How deep each one has to reach before it finds ground that does not move. How much of the work is indoors. All three are facts about an address, and none of them show up in a photograph. Send the address and what you are seeing. Someone who does this work in Tempe takes it from there. If it turns out to be a smaller job than the one you came here for, that is worth hearing before anyone starts.
Tempe Foundation Repair Co services.
Read what a Tempe foundation repair job costs before calling anyone, and check the Tempe Foundation Repair Co service area to see whether your street is covered.
Back to Tempe Foundation Repair Co.
The ground under Tempe
Pier depth starts from a named soil, not from a guess
The largest soil unit mapped in Tempe is Laveen clay loam, 0 to 1 percent slopes
Soil surveys map ground in named units, and the name carries the expected profile — what the ground is made of at depth and where firmer ground sits. Pressed piles, drilled piers and helical piers are all attempts to reach that ground by different routes. Ask which method is proposed, what depth it is expected to reach, and how that expectation was arrived at. A method chosen before the floor elevations were taken was chosen for the wrong reason.
USDA NRCS Soil Survey Geographic Database (SSURGO), via Soil Data Access
Questions people actually ask
Can a house be lifted all the way back to level?
Rarely, and attempting it can do more harm than the settlement did. Plumbing, brick and drywall have all set in the moved position, so the aim is usually to recover most of the movement and stabilize it.
How many piers does a house need?
It is set by where the movement is and what carries load above it, not by the size of the house. A survey showing the shape of the movement is what a pier count is built from.
How deep do piers go here?
Deep enough to bear on ground that will carry the house, which varies street to street. A pressed pile is driven to refusal and a helical until it reaches its torque, so depth is measured during installation rather than assumed beforehand.
Will the work damage the inside of the house?
Perimeter work happens outside. Interior piers mean opening and closing the floor at each location, which is why they cost more per pier and why a quote should say how many of each it includes.
Does lifting a house break the plumbing?
It can, because the pipes have settled with the slab. A post-lift plumbing test is worth asking about before the work rather than after, and any firm that has done this before will expect the question.
Ground that is saturated has nowhere to put the next storm, and water sitting against a wall keeps working on it.
What happens after you send an address
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The address first, and only then who you are
The first screen asks for the property address and checks that a contractor covers it. Only if one does does it ask for a name, a phone number and an email — there is no point taking your details to tell you nobody serves your street.
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Your details are not for sale
It goes to a foundation repair contractor working in Tempe. The details are never sold, and never passed to a second firm.
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No cost, and nothing attached
There is no fee for sending an address and no obligation that follows from it. Deciding the work is the wrong work is a perfectly good outcome.
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Who does the work
An independent foundation repair contractor, not the publisher of this site. Who runs this site, and where every figure on it comes from, is set out on the about page.