Foundation raising in Ventura CA - your house lifted onto new, solid support

Most folks call because the house sits too low, the old foundation is worn out, or both, and the first thing I want to know is what the house is sitting on now. That's also what moves the price most, along with whether the old foundation can be built onto or has to come out, how big and heavy the house is, and what the permit asks for. The schedule turns mostly on the permit side and on how long the new foundation takes while the house is up, and you'll get your own figure from the estimate once I've seen the place.

I start by looking at the foundation you have now, because not every house suits being raised and slab homes, the ones built right on a concrete pad, are the hardest, so I'll tell you straight whether a raise makes sense before we go any further. If it does, once the paperwork's sorted we cut the house loose from its old foundation, lift it with hydraulic jacks and set it on cribbing, which is stacked timber that holds the house steady while it's up. Then we build the new or extended foundation underneath and lower the house onto it. That new foundation is where I spend the most care, since nobody sees it again once the house is back down, and it's the last place I'd cut corners to save a few dollars.

A raise usually touches the concrete around the house too. Where a patio, walkway or porch slab butts up against the house, we use concrete cutting to separate it cleanly so the lift doesn't crack it into pieces nobody planned on. Once the house sits higher, the old driveway often meets it at the wrong height, so plenty of owners pair a raise with a new concrete driveway shaped to the new entry.

Whether a raise needs a permit in Ventura isn't settled by the city's list alone, because its complex permits, the ones that go through plan review, cover residential alterations, additions and new construction and name things like adding or removing walls, not raising a house. The City of Ventura is the place to ask, and when a job needs a permit we figure out which city or county office covers your address and take care of the paperwork with them. Two local things can add to that file. If your house is in a FEMA flood zone, the permit file has to hold an official record showing that substantial improvements are properly elevated, and the city enforces those flood rules when it needs to. If it's in one of the zones Ventura County maps for liquefaction, where hard shaking turns wet ground soft, or for landslides, you may be asked to study that hazard as part of permitting, since state law has cities and counties use those zones when they issue permits.

On jobs around here we see a lot of older houses on crawlspaces and raised floors, plus homes in the low spots near the river and the beach, and the first visit is about sorting those from slab homes. We're based in Ventura and do this work across the cities around it, from Oxnard up the coast to Carpinteria.