Nobody looks under their mobile home. Why would you? It is dark, it is low, and for years at a stretch nothing under there changes. Then a summer like the wet ones this county gets comes through, and the crawl space quietly becomes the most important part of the property. Water moves under homes here. It finds the low corner of the lot, runs along it, and takes sand with it. A pier pad that was set on firm ground in 1999 can be sitting at the edge of a small washout by now, tipped two degrees, with the block stack above it leaning to match and the shims doing work they were never meant to do.
We find this during releveling visits, because a frame that keeps going out of level on the same corner is telling you the problem is below the shims. And this is the point in the story where a certain kind of outfit smells money. The scare version: "your foundation is failing, this is a $6,000 emergency." The real version, most of the time: some piers need proper pads, a few block stacks need rebuilding, and the rest of the grid is fine. The difference between those two versions is photos, and we take them before you decide anything.
What we actually fix under there
- Sunken or tipped pads. The pad gets re-set on compacted, level footing, sized for the load above it, not just dropped back in the hole that ate the last one.
- Cracked caps and blocks. Concrete that has split carries load unpredictably. Cracked units come out; the stack gets rebuilt plumb.
- Leaning stacks and shim towers. A stack that drifted out of plumb, or a shim pile that grew past what shims are for, gets rebuilt to proper height instead of wedged again.
- Washout paths. Where water is clearly routing under the home, we tell you, because the pier fix lasts longer when the water stops visiting. Sometimes that is a gutter downspout aimed wrong; sometimes it is grading. We point; you decide.
- Wet-ground homes. The low east-county areas hold water in the rainy season. Homes there need pads and spacing chosen for soft ground, which is exactly the judgment the state licenses installers for (s. 320.8249, F.S.).
What it costs, honestly
Pier work prices by the pier, and most homes need a few piers corrected, not a foundation. Rebuilt stacks and re-set pads commonly add a few hundred dollars to a releveling visit. A larger washout repair is quoted from the photos, in writing, with the relevel priced separately so you can see what each part costs. What we do not do: convert a $700 problem into a $7,000 invoice. This county has enough of that already, and the cost guide exists so you can check any number, including ours.
While the crew is under the home, the vapor barrier and tie-down straps get eyeballed at no charge. Findings come with photos. Whether anything happens about them is your call, on your schedule.