Crawl Space & Foundation Repair in Raleigh, NC

Raleigh Homes and What Is Under Them

Most of the houses we work on in Raleigh sit on a crawl space. That was the standard way to build a single-family home here for most of the twentieth century, and it covers two very different groups of houses: the older homes in the neighborhoods in and around downtown, and the much larger number of houses built during North Raleigh's growth from the 1970s through the 1990s. Our two busiest Raleigh ZIP codes, 27613 and 27615, are both in North Raleigh.

The two age groups fail in different ways. In the older homes the framing has had decades of exposure to a damp crawl space, and repairs to rotted sills, band joists and floor joists are common. In the newer subdivisions the framing is usually sound but the crawl space itself is not: vented to the outside, with a thin or torn vapor barrier over bare soil, it runs humid every summer.

Common Problems We See in Raleigh

• Floors that bounce, dip or slope, from rotted or over-spanned joists or a settled support column — see floor joist and sagging floor repair
• High humidity, condensation and mold on the framing in vented crawl spaces, worst in July and August
• Old, torn or missing vapor barriers on bare soil
• Termite damage to sills and joists, often found alongside the moisture that attracted the insects
• Water collecting under the house after heavy rain where gutters, downspouts or grading send it toward the foundation

Piedmont soil here is weathered rock with a clay-rich layer that drains slowly. Water that is not moved away from the house tends to stay near the foundation, which is why so many Raleigh structural repairs come with a drainage or moisture fix attached.