Renton Foundation Repair covers Tukwila houses with settlement and piering, drainage, crack repair, crawlspace supports and bolting.
Tukwila has about 21,500 residents and housing that is old for the area: 48.3 percent predates 1980 and 14.9 percent predates 1950. Only 39.4 percent of units are one-unit homes, detached or attached, while 52.6 percent are in buildings of five or more, so a house job here sits among apartments and other homes.
A hallway floor that sags, and a wish to know how sound the posts under it are
Under the floor
Rows of timber posts on concrete pads, under wood girders and joists
Ground
A plastic sheet in the middle and bare soil in front
Not included
Floor finishes above
Cost
$3,200
In this example, the owners of a house in Tukwila notice the hallway floor sag between two of its supports. Under the floor a long girder rests on rows of timber posts, and the owners want to know whether they are sound.
In an old house, foundation settlement and piering are the question. If the floor has dropped or a corner has cracked, the question is whether the ground or the supports moved. HUD advises bringing in an engineer to find the cause of settlement.
Foundation drainage
Where water gathers at a wall, foundation drainage goes first. An older house may have a footing drain that has silted up or was never laid, and HUD warns that existing drains can be the wrong size or not working.
Foundation crack repair
For foundation crack repair on older concrete and block, shape and history come first: HUD describes shrinkage cracks as rarely serious and tapering cracks as a possible sign of settlement.
Crawlspace post and beam repair
For crawlspace post and beam repair, the posts, pads and sill plate are the places to check in an older crawlspace when a floor sags or the wood is damp. Wood kept damp for any length of time decays, according to the Forest Service.
Seismic retrofit and foundation bolting
The work in seismic retrofit and foundation bolting concerns wood-frame crawlspace houses whose frame rests on the foundation without fasteners. With 14.9 percent of Tukwila’s homes built before 1950 and 28.5 percent from 1960 to 1979, a share of the stock is of the age this work addresses.
Homes and foundations here
Tukwila has 8,522 housing units and a median owner-occupied value of $489,000. The median year built is 1981, with 28.5 percent of homes from 1960 to 1979 and 31.3 percent from 1980 to 1999, and 20.5 percent from 2000 on.
The house-to-apartment ratio matters for this site: we repair houses, and a condo or apartment building has an association or an owner who decides on foundation work. If you own a house, this page applies to you.
Permits and rules to check
The City of Tukwila permit counter can say whether foundation repair at your address needs a permit, and whether the lot sits in a mapped hazard area.
Two statewide points hold wherever the house is. A contractor who repairs buildings must be registered with the state, and engineering is limited to registered engineers. Neither is a building permit, and DNR’s Geologic Information Portal and King County’s landslide map give general hazard views.
Tell us the street, roughly when the house was built and what you are seeing. We'll get back to you soon with an estimate or any questions we have. Estimates are free and there's no obligation.
