Foundation raising in Camarillo CA - your house lifted and set on a new base

Most people who call about this have a house they want to keep, sitting on a foundation that can't do what they need anymore. The price moves with how big and heavy the house is, whether the walls are wood, stucco or brick, whether it sits on a slab or a raised floor, how much new foundation goes in and what new steps or ramps you'll need to get inside. The schedule mostly waits on the engineering review and the city's paperwork, because both come before we lift anything. Your written estimate spells out what's included and what isn't, so you can see where the money goes before you decide.

Raising a house is a planned, engineered job, so before anything else I want a design professional to review both the lift and the new foundation, since the plan has to hold up once the house is sitting on its new base. On that first visit I also look closely at stucco or brick walls and at how you'll get in and out afterward, because both belong in the budget from the start instead of showing up halfway through. Once the plan and permits are set, our crew separates the house from its old foundation, lifts it and holds it up while we dig out, pack the subgrade, which is the ground the new concrete sits on, and form and pour the new or extended foundation. That digging and packing is the part nobody sees once the house is down, and it's the last place I'd cut, because a foundation on loose dirt settles right along with the dirt.

Raising a house usually changes how you get into it, so if your doors were at ground level you'll need new steps or a ramp, and we plan those with everything else. Where a walk or patio was poured right up against the old foundation, we use concrete cutting to separate it so the house comes up free. And because a higher house rarely lines up with the old drive, concrete driveway building is often the last piece of the job.

The City of Camarillo decides what permits a house raising needs, and it takes permit plans online. If your job includes grading, the dirt work of digging out and filling, the city requires a grading permit before any of it starts, one per site, covering both the digging and the fill. With that application the city wants plans plus a soils engineering report and an engineering geology report, so the ground under your new foundation gets studied before we touch it. What else your lift needs from the city depends on your job, so we ask first, handle the paperwork and plan the schedule around it. If you'd rather pull the permit yourself, I'll walk you through what they'll ask for.

A local hazard map marks areas where liquefaction, ground that loses its strength and acts like liquid when it shakes, and landslides may happen in a strong earthquake. Properties in those zones may be required to study the hazard and reduce it during permitting, and state guidance requires site-specific geology studies for new construction and significant remodels, which is what tells us how to build the new foundation to suit the ground. Stucco houses come up often on our calls, and we plan the base work the same careful way on jobs in Oxnard and Ventura.