How to estimate home foundation and porch repair costs
Severe structural foundation and porch damage requires specialized knowledge that homeowners and prospective buyers typically lack. Without knowing the extent of the rebuild required, people cannot reliably gauge whether the project will be prohibitively expensive before hiring an engineer.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Calling a professional or structural engineer
- 2Putting up temporary shoring
- 3Demolishing or removing the porch entirely
- 4Getting multiple quotes from small local companies
- 5Hiring an independent structural engineer for an assessment
- 6Passing on high vendor quotes
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“We are curious how extensive of a repair would this be.”source ↗
“Im not a stonemason or concrete guy, so I dont really know, but I know rebuilding that is going to be very costly.”source ↗
“This company told me I needed 6 piers to jack up my foundation for $28k, and a structural engineer said they were full of BS.”source ↗
“Got a free estimate from groundwork’s, I know nothing about foundation work. They suggested doing foam on the left side in the picture and foam and pillars on the right side. Good, bad, getting ripped off? should I get a second opinion, go for it?”source ↗