Foundation raising in Santa Clara CA - your same house on a new foundation

Most people who call about this have a house that sits too low for the ground around it or a foundation that's past saving, and they want to know what has to happen first. The price turns on the size and weight of the house, whether it sits on a slab or a raised floor, how high it goes, how much room there is to work around it, and whether the old foundation can be extended or has to be replaced. The schedule turns on the engineer's review, the permit and when the house mover can lift, and the estimate I write out shows exactly what our foundation work includes.

The engineer's check comes before anything else, because a house shouldn't be lifted until a design professional has confirmed it's sound. From there a licensed house mover handles the lift, and our part is the new or extended foundation underneath, which we build from the engineer's and the mover's plans and schedule with you around the time your utilities are off. With the house up, our crew digs out, packs the ground the foundation sits on, sets the rebar, the steel that keeps the concrete from pulling apart, and pours. If a budget gets tight, I'd rather trim somewhere else than shrink that dig, because nobody sees it once the house is down and it's the part the whole house rests on.

Some raises need concrete cutting first, to open up an old slab, walk or patio that's in the way of the new foundation. Once the house sits higher, the old drive usually meets the garage at the wrong height, so we can rebuild it in the same plan with our concrete driveway building work.

In Santa Clara, the city's Permit Center issues building permits, and the city requires one before you build, enlarge, alter, move, repair or demolish any building or structure. We look into permits while we put the estimate together and check with the city office for your address, and when we're the ones pulling the permit, we handle the paperwork and the inspections. You can also call the Permit Center yourself at 408-615-2420 with questions about building permits and plan checks. The city also limits a single-family home in a single-family zone to 25 feet in height and no more than two stories.

Parts of Santa Clara County flood every year, and many parcels are still in the FEMA flood zone, so it's worth knowing where your lot stands before you settle on a height. We're based in Santa Clara and work across the cities around it, and we see the same mix of older raised-floor homes and slab homes on jobs in Sunnyvale and Campbell.