If your floors slope, doors stick, or cracks are spreading, your foundation has likely moved. We diagnose the problem and lift it back into place.
Foundation raising in San Anselmo pushes a sunken or tilted foundation back toward its original position and stabilizes it so it stays there - most jobs take one to three days of active work, plus a permit review period with the Town of San Anselmo.
The Ross Valley's clay soils are the main culprit here. Clay swells in our wet winters and shrinks in dry summers, and that cycle repeats every year. Over time, especially in San Anselmo's older homes, that repeated movement causes the ground beneath a foundation to shift or compress unevenly. The foundation itself is often structurally sound - it is the soil that has changed.
Foundation raising is closely related to foundation installation, but the goal here is different: instead of building a new foundation, we lift and stabilize what already exists. If your home was built before 1970 and you are noticing the classic signs - sticking doors, sloping floors, diagonal cracks - this is the service to start with.
If interior doors have started dragging on the floor or won't latch the way they used to, that is often one of the first signs a foundation has shifted. In San Anselmo's older homes, this can happen gradually over years - so gradually that homeowners assume it is just the house settling. If more than one door or window is giving you trouble, it is worth an inspection.
Diagonal cracks in drywall or plaster - especially ones that start at the corner of a door frame or window and run toward the ceiling - are a classic sign that part of your home has moved relative to another part. In San Anselmo, where clay soils shift seasonally, these cracks sometimes open in summer and close slightly in winter. That pattern is a signal worth taking seriously.
Walk slowly through your home and notice whether the floor feels level underfoot. A floor that slopes toward one wall, or has a noticeable dip in a room, suggests the foundation beneath it has dropped in that area. A marble rolling consistently in one direction across your floor is a useful, simple test you can do yourself.
If you notice a gap opening up where an interior wall meets the ceiling, or where a baseboard has pulled away from the floor, the structure is telling you something has moved. These gaps are especially common in San Anselmo's older wood-frame homes, where the connection between the house and its foundation can loosen over decades of seasonal soil movement.
There are two main methods for raising a foundation, and which one fits your home depends on what is underneath it. For homes with a crawl space - which is common in San Anselmo's older housing stock - pier installation is the most reliable approach. We drive steel columns deep into stable soil or bedrock below your home, then use hydraulic jacks to raise the foundation and transfer the load onto those columns. The result is a permanent, stable support system that does not depend on the clay soil near the surface.
For concrete slab foundations that have settled in a limited area, slab lifting is a faster and less invasive option. We pump a material under the slab to fill voids and push it back up. This works well for minor, localized settling and is often the right call for garage floors and interior slabs. It is closely related to our slab foundation building work, and we can assess which approach makes sense during the initial inspection.
We also discuss seismic considerations during every foundation assessment. Many San Anselmo homeowners in older homes benefit from combining foundation raising with bolt-down upgrades that improve how the house stays connected to its foundation during an earthquake. This is worth exploring while the crew is already on site.
Best for homes with crawl spaces and significant settling - steel piers transfer load past unstable clay to stable soil below.
Best for localized settling on concrete slab floors - faster and less invasive for limited problem areas.
Best for pre-1980 homes in San Anselmo's seismic zone - address settling and earthquake vulnerability in one project.
Best when you are not sure what you have - a thorough inspection before recommending any method.
San Anselmo sits in the Ross Valley, where the underlying soils include significant amounts of clay. That clay expands during our wet winters and contracts during dry summers, and it has been doing that under homes in this town for decades. Many of the homes here were built between the 1920s and the 1960s, before engineers fully understood how to design foundations that account for that kind of soil movement. The result is that foundation settling is one of the most common structural issues we see throughout the older neighborhoods in town.
Hillside properties add another layer of complexity. Many San Anselmo lots are on slopes or near hillsides, and sloped sites can experience slow downhill soil creep that puts lateral pressure on a foundation over time. If your home is on a hillside, a thorough assessment needs to look at both vertical settling and any horizontal movement, because the two can call for different approaches.
We serve homeowners throughout the area, including Fairfax, San Rafael, and Mill Valley, where the same clay soil and hillside conditions are common. Older homes throughout this part of Marin County face similar foundation challenges, and we handle permit work through each city's building department without putting that burden on you.
We will ask a few questions about sticking doors, sloping floors, or cracks, then schedule a free on-site assessment. We reply within one business day.
We walk the perimeter, check the foundation from outside, and inspect the crawl space if your home has one. You get a written estimate with the method, number of support points, timeline, and total cost - before any work begins.
Once you approve the work, we apply for the required building permit through the Town of San Anselmo. Permit approval typically takes one to two weeks, and we keep you updated throughout.
The crew installs the support system, carefully raises the foundation, and cleans up the work area. A town inspector visits to verify the installation meets code - your documentation is ready when they leave.
Free on-site assessment, written estimate, and we handle all permit paperwork. No obligation to move forward.
(415) 604-1678Foundation raising in the Ross Valley is different from flat-lot work elsewhere. We evaluate your specific soil conditions, hillside exposure, and home age before recommending pier installation or slab lifting. That means you get a solution sized for what your property actually needs, not a one-size approach.
From San Anselmo to San Rafael, Fairfax to Novato, we pull permits and handle inspections through each local building department. You do not have to navigate the Town of San Anselmo's Community Development Department on your own - we manage all of it from application to final sign-off.
Foundation work in California requires proper licensing, and our contractor is licensed through the Contractors State License Board. You can verify our license number before you sign anything - that transparency is something we stand behind.
San Anselmo is close to both the San Andreas and Hayward fault systems. When homeowners call us for foundation raising, we discuss seismic bolt-down upgrades in the same conversation. Addressing both during one project is more cost-effective, and many homeowners in this area benefit from combining the two.
Foundation work is one of the highest-stakes projects a homeowner can undertake, and we know that. We give you a thorough inspection, a clear explanation of what we found, and a written estimate before any decision is made. Our goal is for you to feel confident about the work - not pressured into it.
When raising is not enough and a new foundation is the right answer, we handle the full installation from excavation to pour.
Learn moreNew construction or ADU projects need a properly sized slab built for San Anselmo's clay soils and seismic zone from the ground up.
Learn moreFoundation settling gets worse with every wet season in San Anselmo. The sooner we look, the more options you have. Call or send a message and we will be in touch within one business day.
