What’s making my house piers move?

When excess water soaks into soil, the soil becomes saturated and weak. When it comes to house piers, water leaking from cracked, broken or unconnected bathroom and kitchen pipes are a major cause of soil erosion, soil aeration and voids. The water from the leaking pipes travels into the ground, around your piers and pools into the soil, causing movement.

If storm water drains near your home have overflowed with rain, excess rain can find its way towards your home’s foundations and house piers. Rain may stop, but the excess rain water will have nowhere to go except into the ground where your house piers are built. This weakens the soil upon which your house piers sit and begins downward movement.

Reactive clay soils expand and contract under different weather conditions. They expand in cooler, wetter weather but contract when it’s hot and dry. If you’ve experienced a long drought, the reactive clay soil under your home may have contracted, causing sinking.

If your home’s built near a construction site, main road, railway line or airport, the ground under your home would be absorbing a tremendous amount of impact. Heavy vehicles like excavators, concrete mixing trucks, trains and planes can cause the ground to quake. The vibrations weaken the soil to the point your house piers are no longer stable.

It’s less common, but another reason why your house piers are failing is thirsty vegetation. Some trees and sickly vegetation have an excessive amount of roots. Greedy for water, they find their way under and around your piers to suck every last drop of moisture out of the soil. As the soil dries up, your house piers shift.