Pier and beam repair in San Angelo, TX

Wooden floor beams carried on concrete block piers in the crawl space under a house

A pier and beam house has a crawl space: the floor is carried on wooden or steel beams, and those beams rest on piers spaced out beneath the house. When the floor starts to slope, sag in the middle of a room, or bounce as you walk across it, the cause is almost always down there — a pier that has settled into the clay, a beam that has sagged between supports, or wood that has taken on moisture and gone soft.

The advantage over a slab is access. Somebody can get underneath, look at every pier and beam, and see the actual problem instead of inferring it from cracks upstairs. That usually makes both the diagnosis more certain and the repair less disruptive.

The trap is treating the symptom. Shimming a sunken pier back to level takes an afternoon and feels like a fix, but if the pier settled because it is bearing on shrink-swell clay or because water is standing under the house, it will settle again — and the shim will have hidden the reason.

Why this comes up so often in San Angelo

Crawl spaces in Tom Green County have a particular problem: the ground beneath them swings between extremes. San Angelo averages 20.94 inches of rain a year, but the record runs from 7.41 inches in 1956 to 35.72 inches in 2016. A pier footing sitting on Lipan clay — 40 to 60 percent clay, per the USDA, with cracks open more than 150 cumulative days a year — is being lifted and dropped on a cycle no timber floor above it can absorb forever.

Ground and climate facts on this page come from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Official Soil Series Descriptions for the Tobosa, Lipan and Angelo series (all three mapped in Tom Green County) and from NOAA climate normals for San Angelo.

How the work actually goes

The crawl space gets inspected

Every pier, beam and joist looked at directly. Settled piers, sagging or split beams, soft or rotted wood, and standing water are all recorded rather than assumed from what is happening upstairs.

Floor elevations are measured above

The shape of the floor is taken room by room, so what is found underneath can be matched against what the floor is actually doing.

Failed piers are replaced or reset

Piers that have settled are re-supported on a proper footing at a depth that holds. Where the wood has gone, it gets replaced rather than shimmed on top of.

Beams are supported and the floor brought back

Sagging spans are re-supported and the floor raised gradually, slowly enough that the finishes above do not crack.

The water problem is dealt with

If moisture put the piers or the wood in that condition, drainage and ventilation get addressed as part of the job. Otherwise the repair has a countdown on it.

What this costs

These are national market figures, published so you can tell whether a quote you receive is in a sane range. They are not San Angelo prices and they are not a quote for your house. Your own price is put in writing after somebody has measured your floors.

Pier and beam repairs average $1,500 to $15,000, with the full national span running $800 to $25,000 depending on how much is involved.
Re-shimming piers averages about $1,600, with most jobs between $1,200 and $2,000.
A single added pier runs $800 to $4,000, typically around $2,000.

Cost figures from Angi's national foundation repair cost survey and HomeGuide's pier and beam repair cost data. See the full cost breakdown →

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What are you seeing?

Cracks in a wall, brick or the slab Doors or windows sticking Floors sloping, sagging or bouncy Slab foundation — piers or leveling Pier and beam — leveling or repair Water pooling against the house An evaluation or second opinion Not sure yet — I'd like it looked at

How soon do you want it looked at?

As soon as possible In the next 1–3 months 3–6 months out Just getting it assessed

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Questions people actually ask

Pier and beam repair — questions people ask

My floors bounce. Is that the foundation or just old floors?

It can be either, and the two are told apart from underneath. Bounce usually means the joists are spanning too far without support, or a beam beneath them has sagged. It becomes a foundation problem when the reason the beam sagged is a pier that settled into the clay. That is why the crawl space is inspected before anything is quoted.

Is pier and beam repair cheaper than slab repair?

Often, but not always, and the reason is access rather than the work being smaller. Somebody can get to the structure directly instead of excavating around the outside of a slab and driving piers. A house with widespread wood decay or standing water underneath can still run well past a straightforward slab job.

Can you just shim it and be done?

Sometimes, honestly — if a pier has settled slightly on ground that is otherwise stable, shimming is the correct repair and anything more is overselling. What shimming cannot do is fix a pier that is settling because of what is underneath it. The evaluation is what separates those two, and it is free.

Should I be worried about moisture under the house?

Yes, and it is worth looking at yourself. Standing water or damp soil in the crawl space softens the ground the piers bear on and gives wood the conditions it needs to decay. It is also one of the cheaper things to correct, which is why it is worth catching before it takes the structure with it.

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