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STRUCTURAL · ENGINEERED · INSPECTED

The concrete your house stands on.

New engineered foundations, settlement and crack repair, and the job this city runs on: replacing pre-1906 brick foundations with steel-reinforced concrete. Scoped to your engineer’s drawings, permitted, and inspected at every stage.

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SCOPE OF WORK

Foundation work we self-perform

Foundations are engineer-designed and contractor-built. We build exactly what’s drawn, and we’re honest when what’s drawn needs a second look.

NEW

New foundation pours

Footings, stem walls, and slabs for additions, garage-level build-outs, and full rebuilds — formed, reinforced per plan, and poured around SF lot access.

REPLACE

Brick-to-concrete replacement

The house is cribbed and supported, the century-old brick comes out in sections, and a reinforced concrete foundation goes in. The single biggest structural upgrade most SF Victorians can get.

REPAIR

Settlement & crack repair

Underpinning for settled corners, structural crack repair, and honest diagnosis first — including when the honest answer is monitoring, not construction.

SITE CONDITIONS · WHAT’S UNDER SF

Your foundation sits on one of three cities

Sand, fill, or rock — the same house behaves differently on each, and so does the fix.

⌂ The pre-1906 brick problem

Thousands of SF Victorians still sit on unreinforced brick and lime mortar that has been slowly returning to sand for over a century. It wasn’t designed for seismic loads, and lenders and insurers increasingly know it.

Replacement with reinforced concrete is usually required before major remodels, pairs naturally with seismic bolting and cripple-wall bracing, and is the rare big-ticket job that shows up directly in resale value.

≈ Sand and fill settle. Chert doesn’t.

Sunset and Richmond homes on dune sand settle when drainage fails. Marina-area fill liquefied in 1989. Bernal and other rock-hill homes barely move — but their downslope additions do.

Diagnosis starts with what your block is built on, which is why we walk every site instead of quoting from photos.

§ Engineered means engineered

Foundation work in SF runs through a structural engineer’s stamped drawings and city inspection at each stage — excavation, steel, and pour. Anyone quoting foundation work without drawings is quoting a different, worse product.

If you don’t have an engineer yet, we’ll point you to ones we’ve built for; the drawings stay yours either way.

COMMON QUESTIONS

Foundation questions, answered straight

Should I replace my Victorian’s brick foundation?
If your home predates 1906 and sits on original brick, replacement with reinforced concrete is the most significant structural upgrade available to it. It’s usually required before major remodels, pairs with soft-story and bolting retrofits, and eliminates the question every future buyer’s inspector will raise.
How do I know if foundation cracks are serious?
Hairline shrinkage cracks are normal. Cracks wider than a quarter inch, horizontal cracks, stair-step patterns in the foundation, doors that stopped closing, or floors visibly sloping are worth an inspection. Ours is free, and sometimes the honest answer is a crack monitor and a follow-up, not a contract.
How long does foundation replacement take?
A typical SF brick-to-concrete replacement runs several weeks from cribbing to backfill, depending on the footprint and access. You can usually live in the house during the work. We give a schedule with the quote and update it at each inspection stage.
Does foundation work need permits?
Always — engineered drawings, a building permit, and staged city inspections. It’s built into every quote. Unpermitted foundation work is nearly impossible to hide at sale and expensive to legalize after the fact.

NO-COST · NO-PRESSURE

Get your free estimate

Tell us what’s cracking, settling, or waiting to be built. We’ll walk the site, measure it, and hand you a written price — free, and good whether you hire us or not.

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