Footers
What Are Footers?
Footers are the primary source of support for most homes, decks, and structures. They must be dug into the earth to appropriate depths in order to support the weight and the height of the structure that sits on top of it. Many of our clients need new footers, or need footers. Footers can be used to support the structure for many things:
- Crawlspace or Basement Footers– These footers more often than not support the weight of the floor, and help for floors not to sag. In some cases, we’re adding footers to fix sagging floors that were improperly installed in the first place, particularly in older homes.
- Structural Footers– additions to a home like adding a second floor master suite over a garage, or adding footers to the basement of a home to support failing structural supports are also reasonably common.
- Footers are added in a place where the building can be supported. It provides structural support to the foundation and the super structure so that it doesn’t sag, lean or otherwise fail as time goes on.
Deck Footers
Decks for example that fail to have appropriate footers will often sink into the ground in time, making the deck un-level and threatening it in such a way that it might pull away from the house. These are common in the Atlanta area, particularly where metal pole supports were used in deck structures and buildouts.
Often times the builders, in order to cut corners and save money, just set the deck support poles on the ground instead of appropriately creating a footer to set them on, and then supporting the weight of the deck on that footer instead of just on the ground, which erodes over time and will cause deck failure if not attended to.
Footers for Floors
Sagging floors can also commonly be fixed with appropriate footing. At times, in order to repair a sagging floor, we’ll dig down and pour the appropriate footer, and we will jack up the floor over a slow period of time, giving the house enough time to adjust to the changes so that it doesn’t cause damage to the house, and these sagging or leaning floors can be fixed.
Footers and supports are extremely important in keeping floors from sagging. Sometimes in older homes as well, the actual structure of a house is compromised, and we can keep it from failing further by adding footers which support the structure again.
Our Location
Contact us with the info below or submit the contact form.
3009 Mount Paran Church Road
Monroe, GA 30655
404.825.3561