Pick a method, then type the lines from a real bid. Without an assumed depth, it will not total a pier line.
Your figuresno national pier averageWe hold no dataset of foundation jobs. The tool multiplies only rates you type from a bid, and only after you enter an assumed depth.
This calculator totals a foundation repair budget from your own bid figures: method, pier count, assumed depth, rate per pier, engineering and drainage.
Example: 8 piers at $1,500, 20 ft depth, $1,500 engineering and $2,000 drainage totals $15,500.
It will not multiply piers without a depth, publish a national average, or act as a quote.
Method, then the lines
Drainage-only is valid. Depth is required before a pier total. Nothing is emailed.
—Total (your figures)
—Pier line
—What this did and did not do
What this assumed—
A budget you typed, never a quote. No national pier average is shipped. Depth is required before a pier total. HyreFoundation does not repair foundations.
The mechanism
You are not buying piers. You are buying depth
Everything odd about foundation pricing — the refusal to quote by phone, the spread between bids, the change orders — follows from one fact about what is actually being sold.
A pier is steel and time, and both scale with depth. Driving to competent soil at eight feet and driving to it at thirty-two feet are not the same purchase.
Four times the material, considerably more than four times the labor once you account for splices, handling and the equipment sitting there. A "price per pier" that does not state an assumed depth is a number without units.
And nobody knows the depth in advance. Not the engineer, not the contractor, not you. It is inferred from soil information and confirmed by driving. It varies across a single lot — the reason the fourteenth pier can cost more than the first is not sharp practice, it is geology.
Which is why this calculator will not multiply without a depth. Enter a count and a rate with depth left at zero and the engine declines. Not a bug and not a nag.
A pier count times a depthless rate produces a confident number that means nothing, and producing it would make this page part of the problem it exists to describe.
The question that follows. Ask every bidder: what depth have you assumed, and what happens if bearing is deeper than that?
The answer is a contract term — a rate per additional foot, a rate per splice, or a stated ceiling — and it is the single largest source of variance between a headline price and a final invoice. A bid with no answer is not cheaper. It is unpriced.
Why there is no national average on this page. We hold no dataset of foundation jobs, bids, pier counts or invoices.
The per-pier and per-square-foot figures that circulate come from lead-generation sites with unpublished methods, and reprinting them would lend them an authority they have not earned.
The same visible crack, on two houses, can be a downspout extension or two dozen piers. An average across those two houses describes neither.
The invoice
The line items, what drives each one, and what its absence means
The last column is the one to read before comparing any two bids. Most of the difference between a low headline and a high final invoice is sitting in a line that was never written down.
Line item
What actually drives its cost
What its absence from a bid means
Engineering
A fixed professional fee: site visit, elevation survey, report, specified scope. Independent of how big the repair turns out to be — which is the entire point of it.
That the diagnosis came from someone paid by the repair. The Texas Board of Professional Engineers holds that "Analyzing the cause of a condition, recommendations for repair, or providing any other expert engineering opinion associated with a foundation … would be considered the practice of engineering." Its absence is the most informative gap on any foundation proposal.
Pier count
The affected length of foundation and the elevation survey — not the number of visible cracks. Set by the engineer, priced by the contractor.
That the count came from whoever is selling the piers. A company that installs one product will tend to find that you need it.
Depth assumption
Soil profile and where competent bearing actually sits. The dominant variable, and the one nobody can confirm before driving.
That the price is provisional and you have not been told so. Ask for the assumed depth and the rate for going deeper, in writing, before signing.
Access and mobilization
Whether equipment can reach the work: side gates, slopes, mature planting, decks, patios, interior work through a finished basement. Interior piers usually cost more than exterior ones for the same depth.
That access has been assumed rather than surveyed. This is a common source of change orders, and it is visible on a walk-round before anyone signs anything.
Drainage and grading
Length of drain, excavation, outfall, sump and pump if required, downspout extensions and regrading. IRC R405 requires drains around below-grade walls enclosing usable space, with the stone envelope specified.
The most consequential absence on the list. It means the mechanism that caused the movement is still running on the day the crew leaves. Ask for it priced separately so you can see it.
Plumbing testing
A static test of supply and waste lines, particularly on a slab-on-grade house with localized movement.
That a leaking line under the slab has not been ruled out. It is cheap, it answers a structural question, and a pier contractor has no commercial reason to raise it.
Reinstatement
Putting back what came out: excavation backfill, concrete, landscaping, patios, interior finishes, decorating.
That the headline is for the structural work only. This is where two apparently similar bids most often diverge by thousands.
Permits and inspection
Local fees and required inspections, which vary widely by jurisdiction.
That someone is assuming no permit is needed. Worth confirming — a permitted job is inspected by someone other than the people who did it, which is a free second opinion.
Our analysis of what drives each line. No prices, because we hold no dataset and will not print figures we have not measured.
The IRC is a model code. It has force only in the edition your jurisdiction adopted, with the local amendments that jurisdiction made. Foundation chapters get amended more than most, because frost depth and soil are local facts. Confirm with your building department before relying on any figure here.
Sequence and money
The cheapest work decides whether the expensive work has to be bought twice
Doing the drainage work first is the strongest argument on the page and it is entirely mechanical. It has nothing to do with anyone’s honesty.
Illustrative weighting, not prices. We publish no foundation cost figures, and this chart is a diagram of an argument.HyreFoundation analysis
Source fact. IRC R405 requires drains around below-grade foundations enclosing usable space and exempts them in exactly one circumstance: "A drainage system is not required where the foundation is installed on well-drained ground or sand-gravel mixture soils according to the Unified Soil Classification System, Group I soils."
The exemption is granted for ground that already drains.
Source fact. The Colorado Geological Survey states expansive soils can "expand up to 20% by volume when exposed to water" and exert "Expansive soils can exert a force of up to 30,000 pounds-per-square-foot", and that "Annual losses are regularly estimated to be greater that those of tornadoes, floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes combined"
Our analysis. Expansive clay does not care how good the concrete is. It is a moisture problem expressed as a structural one, which is why the cheap interventions — gutters, downspout extensions, grade away from the wall, consistent watering rather than drought-then-flood — are not a consolation prize. They are the mechanism.
The arithmetic of doing it in the wrong order. Buy the structural work with the water untouched and you have paid for the largest line on the invoice while leaving the driver in place.
Buy the drainage first and, in a meaningful number of cases, the structural line either shrinks or turns out not to be needed at all.
That is not a discount — it is a different scope, arrived at by spending a small amount before a large one.
The engineer’s fee is the same argument. Which of the two you are supposed to be buying first is the subject of engineer or contractor.
A few hundred dollars buys the one document in this transaction whose author earns the same whether the answer is eighteen piers or none.
We hold no price data and will not quote the fee — ask two or three firms — but relative to what is being proposed downstream it is a rounding error, and it is the only line that reduces the others.
Recommendation. Price the cheap work first and give it a season. Then, if movement continues, buy the engineer’s report, get the scope written, and only then take three bids against it. Three bids against three self-diagnoses are three different jobs and comparing the totals tells you nothing at all.
Comparison
How to make three bids actually comparable
Most homeowners compare foundation bids on the total, which is the one number that cannot be compared until everything else matches.
What has to be identical before totals mean anything
The method, and therefore the movement being corrected. Settlement, heave and lateral pressure are three different jobs — see the repair method selector.
The count and the locations, from one engineer’s scope rather than from each bidder’s own read.
The assumed depth, and the stated rate for going deeper. Without this, you are comparing two different assumptions, not two prices.
The objective: stabilize at current position, or lift toward level. Two different prices, two different risks — lifting can crack plaster, tile and pipework, and an honest proposal says so.
What is included in reinstatement, and what is explicitly excluded.
The four questions that expose an incomplete bid
"What depth have you assumed, and what is the rate beyond it?" The largest single source of final-invoice variance, and a question with a one-sentence answer.
"What is your drainage line, priced separately?" If there is none, ask why the mechanism is out of scope.
"Whose scope is this?" Yours, from your engineer, or theirs. If each bidder wrote their own, you do not have three bids.
"What is excluded?" The most useful question in the set, and the one least often asked. Reinstatement, landscaping, interior finishes, permits, plumbing testing, and anything discovered below ground.
On warranties, before they are used as a tiebreaker
A lifetime warranty is worth two things and no more: the issuing company’s ability to still exist and honor it, and whatever the transfer clause says on the day you sell.
Read the exclusions before the headline. Check the maintenance conditions — some are voided by exactly the drainage neglect that caused the original problem. Check who honors it if the business is sold. Check whether it transfers, at what fee, and within what window after a sale.
And notice what it covers: usually the specific product installed, not "a stable house". A warranty on fourteen piers is not a warranty against the fifteenth part of the building moving.
Using the calculator
How to fill this in so the number means something
Every input should come from a document, not from a guess. Where you do not have the document, that gap is the finding.
1
Choose the method from the engineer’s scope, not from a brochure
If you do not yet have a scope, choose "drainage and moisture only" and see what the cheap path costs. That is a legitimate and common answer, and the pier line stays off.
2
Take the pier count from the engineer, not the contractor
Count follows the affected length and the elevation survey. If the only count you have came with a price attached, note that and treat the result as a proposal rather than a budget.
3
Enter the assumed depth — the engine will not multiply without it
Read it off the bid. If the bid does not state one, you have found the most important missing term in the document, and the right next action is an email rather than a calculation.
4
Type a $/pier from an actual bid that names that depth
Not a figure from a search result. A rate that does not name a depth is not a rate, and pairing it with a depth you supplied yourself just launders a guess into a total.
5
Enter the engineering fee as its own line
Because it is the only line whose author has no stake in the others. Seeing it separately, next to the structural total, is usually persuasive on its own.
6
Enter drainage even if no bid included it
Especially then. If nobody priced it, price it yourself as a placeholder so that the total reflects the job that actually needs doing rather than the job that was offered.
7
Treat the output as a comparison tool, not a budget
Its purpose is to reveal whether a bid has priced the same lines you have. It cannot see soil, access, a water table, or a bearing stratum deeper than the number you typed — and unseen conditions add money far more often than they remove it.
The document
What a bid must contain, and the two lines that should stop you
All of these are checkable by reading, before anyone digs a hole.
A named movement, a stated cause, and whose opinion that is
"Foundation issues" is not a diagnosis. Settlement, heave or lateral, with evidence, and a name against it.
Assumed depth, and the rate if bearing is deeper
In writing. The largest source of variance between headline and invoice, and a term any competent contractor will state without hesitation.
Count, locations and method, matching the engineer’s scope
If the bidder’s count differs from the engineer’s, that is a conversation worth having before it becomes a price difference you cannot interpret.
Drainage and grading, priced as separate lines
So that you can see them, and so that you can decline them knowingly rather than by omission.
Reinstatement scope, and what is excluded
Backfill, concrete, landscaping, patios, interior finishes, decorating. Where two similar-looking bids most often diverge by thousands.
Warranty terms, exclusions and the transfer clause
Read to the end. Maintenance conditions, who honors it after a sale of the business, whether it transfers to a buyer of the house and at what fee.
A total with no depth, no count and no scope
It cannot be compared with anything, including itself six weeks later. A cheap headline that omits the driving variable is not cheaper — it is unpriced, and the difference arrives as a change order.
"Sign today and we will hold this price"
The FTC’s standing home-improvement advice is to get it in writing and get more than one bid. A price with a shelf life of one visit is a fact about the sales process, not about the work.
Vocabulary
Pricing words that hide the variable
Per pier
A rate that is meaningless without a stated depth, because depth drives both the steel and the time. Always ask what depth the rate assumes.
Depth to bearing
How far down competent soil sits. Inferred beforehand, confirmed by driving, and variable across a single lot. The dominant cost variable in the entire job.
Refusal
The point at which a driven element advances no further under the applied force. A driving criterion rather than a guarantee of stratum, and it should be defined in the specification rather than decided on the day.
Mobilization
Getting equipment and crew to the work. Access constraints — gates, slopes, planting, interior routes — can move this line substantially, and they are visible on a walk-round.
Reinstatement
Putting back what came out. Frequently outside the headline price and frequently the largest hidden difference between two bids.
Lift versus stabilize
Recovering elevation versus arresting movement. Different prices, different risks; lifting can damage plaster, tile and pipework, and recovery is normally partial.
Change order
A price increase after work has started, usually triggered by a condition that was assumed rather than surveyed. Depth and access are the two most common triggers, and both can be pinned down beforehand.
Foundation drain
IRC R405: "Drains shall be provided around concrete or masonry foundations that retain earth and enclose habitable or usable spaces located below grade." The stone extends at least 1 foot beyond the footing and 6 inches above it.
Dampproofing vs waterproofing
These are two different code requirements, not two words for the same product. Which one applies is decided by the ground water condition at your site, not by the coating on the truck. A contractor who uses the words interchangeably is telling you something about the estimate.
Frost line
Local depth of ground freezing, published in IRC Table R301.2. Exterior footings are to be placed not less than 12 inches below the undisturbed ground surface, and, where applicable, below the frost line specified for the locality.
Both conditions apply and the deeper one governs. Twelve inches is a floor, not a target: in a locality with a 42-inch frost line, 12 inches is nowhere near legal.
Limits
What this tool cannot do
The tool is arithmetic on figures you typed. Here is precisely how far that goes.
The rules behind that are published. What earns a source line, how an editorial figure is labeled, and how a correction is handled are set out in the editorial policy.
It is not a quote and cannot become one. Nothing here will be honored by anybody. It multiplies and adds numbers you supplied.
It has no price data of any kind. No national average, no per-pier figure, no engineering fee, no regional adjustment. We hold no dataset of foundation jobs, bids or invoices, and the figures circulating on lead-generation sites are marketing rather than measurement.
It cannot see the depth to bearing, which is the variable that dominates the total. It takes your assumption and warns you that it is one.
It cannot see access, a crane path, a mature tree in the way, an interior route through a finished basement, or a patio that has to come up and go back. All of these move the number and none are on the form.
It cannot see your soil or your water table. RETRIEVAL FAILED — the USGS publications warehouse returned HTTP 403 to automated retrieval on 5 September 2026.
The map is named here as the national reference that exists; we did not read it, and we publish no figure from it.
For a site-specific answer the correct lookup is the USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey, and even that is a general soil context rather than a reason a particular crack exists.
It does not know your permit fees, which are local and vary widely, or whether your jurisdiction requires an engineered design for this work — several do.
It cannot tell you whether the scope is right. Feeding it an inflated pier count produces an accurate total for an inflated job. Garbage in, arithmetic out. That is why every route on this site leads back to an independent engineer before anyone multiplies anything.
It will not answer an insurance question. Standard homeowners policies commonly exclude earth movement and settling; sudden damage from a covered plumbing leak may be treated differently. Read the policy. We are not insurers or adjusters.
HyreFoundation does not repair foundations, does not inspect or survey them, holds no dataset of jobs or bids, ranks no contractors and takes no referral fee. That is exactly what allows this page to publish a calculator whose most useful behavior is refusing to produce a number.
How this calculator works
Method is first. Drainage-only does not run the pier product. Depth is required before a pier total. There is no national pier average on this page.
if method is drain:
total = engineering + drainage
pier line = drainage-only path (no pier product)
else if pier count > 0 and depth is 0:
total = refused
message = enter an assumed depth (ft) before a pier total
else:
pier line = piers × your $/pier
total = pier line + engineering + drainage
A bid without method, pier count, assumed depth and target lift cannot be compared with one that has them, at any price. The cost guide explains why.
This engine will not invent the missing depth by multiplying anyway. On the tested path of 8 piers at $1,500, depth 20 ft, $1,500 engineering and $2,000 drainage, the total is $15,500.
Slab lift and wall stabilization are method labels. They do not switch in a secret national average. If the bid has no piers, leave the count at 0 and type engineering and drainage. If someone is mixing piers with a wall job, type the pier line they actually wrote, with the depth they actually assumed.
HyreFoundation does not repair foundations, does not install piers, and does not honor this total as a quote.
What each input means
Inputs on this tool, in the order they appear on the form.
Input
What it is actually asking
Method
Drainage-only, piers, slab lift, or wall stabilization. Drainage-only turns the pier product off. The other three still use the pier line if you type a count.
Pier count
The number an engineer specified, or the number on a bid you are testing. Not the number of cracks in a photo. 0 is honest when the job is not piers.
Depth (ft)
Assumed depth to bearing, in feet. Required before a pier total. If bearing is deeper than this number, the bid should say the overage rate.
Rate ($/pier)
A unit price from a bid that already names a method and a depth. 0 until you have that paper. We will not fill it with a national average.
Engineering ($)
Independent structural or geotechnical work, paid by you, plus the elevation survey. A free inspection from a repair company is not this line.
Drainage ($)
Grade, gutters, downspout discharge, drain tile, sump, vapor work. Water first. A pier under a downspout that still dumps at the wall will be tested again.
Worked examples
Including one where the naive answer misleads, which is the example most calculators leave out.
Eight piers with a stated depth
Method: piers. Count 8, depth 20 ft, rate $1,500, engineering $1,500, drainage $2,000. Pier line $12,000. Total $15,500. That is the default arithmetic this engine is tested against. Replace $1,500 with the unit price on your proposal and keep the same count and depth if you want the comparison to mean anything.
Drainage-only after the water is the job
Method: drainage and moisture only. Engineering $1,500, drainage $4,000, pier count left at 0. Total $5,500. The pier line reports a drainage-only path. That is a valid output.
It is also the cheaper experiment when grade and downspouts have not been corrected. A pier bid under those conditions is a second invoice waiting to happen.
The one where a pier-only company misleads
A company that only sells piers quotes "8 piers, $9,600, lifetime warranty" with no depth, no engineering, and no drainage. Type count 8, depth 0, rate 1200.
The engine refuses to multiply and tells you to enter an assumed depth.
The naive reading of $9,600 as "the job" hides that bearing may be 12 ft on one end and 28 ft on the other, and that the downspout still dumps at the wall.
A national blog average of "$1,200 a pier" is the same trick with a rounder number. Type a rate from a bid that names depth, or do not multiply.
What changes the result
Method is the first fork. Drainage-only ignores the pier product even if you left numbers in those fields. Switching from drainage-only to piers without entering depth will not invent a total. It will refuse.
Count and rate move the pier line linearly. Depth does not multiply the dollars in this engine. Depth is a gate: present, or the product does not run. That is deliberate.
A "deeper means more steel" factor we invented would be a national index we do not have. The overage if bearing is deeper belongs on the bid as a stated rate, not as a guess here.
Engineering and drainage add after the pier product. Leaving them at $0 does not mean they are free. It means they are missing. Ten percent of a subtotal that omitted drainage is not 10% of the project, and this form does not even apply a contingency, because a missing depth is not a percentage problem.
Local considerations
Soil, frost depth, water table and the adopted residential code are local. We do not ship a state dropdown that changes the price.
A labor index without a sourced series would be a fake localiser.
Your engineer’s depth assumption, your building department’s permit fee, and the bids you collect on the same scope are the local data.
NRCS Web Soil Survey will tell you, in general terms, what soil map units sit under an address, including engineering-related ratings. It is not a pier count.
The survey itself says onsite investigation is needed for engineering applications. ICC model code Chapter 4 is not your city’s rule until the city adopts it, with whatever amendments it published.
When not to use this
Do not use this as a quote, a loan figure, or proof the work is affordable. It cannot see soil, access, a water table, or a bearing stratum deeper than the number you typed.
Do not use it to authorize piers because a crack looks bad. The crack identification tool reads patterns, and even that is not a structural opinion. The diagnosis comes from an engineer who does not sell repairs.
Do not use a $/pier you found in a roundup of "average foundation repair cost." If you cannot name who priced it, on what soil, at what depth, leave the rate at 0.
Do not skip drainage because the pier total looks complete. Fix the water first. A repair installed under a wet condition that has not been corrected will be tested again.
HyreFoundation does not perform foundation repair. Matching is still being built. The inquiry form is not a dispatch line.
It depends on method, pier count, depth to bearing, access, soil, plumbing tests and repairs to finishes. We publish no national average, because the same crack can need a downspout extension or two dozen piers. Two bids compare only if they state the same method, count and depth. See the foundation repair cost guide.
Why is there no price per pier on this page?
Because depth drives the price of a pier, and a national rate hides it. Deeper bearing means more steel and more time, and depth varies across one lot. Type a rate from a bid that names its depth. If the bid names no depth, the rate is not ready to multiply.
Why is depth required before a pier total?
Because a bid without a depth assumption is incomplete. Soil sets the depth to bearing, and depth drives the cost of each pier. When depth is zero, this calculator refuses to multiply piers by a rate rather than show a confident number that means nothing.
Can drainage alone be the whole repair?
Yes. Grading, gutters, downspout discharge and drainage are sometimes the whole job, and they protect any repair that follows. Pick “drainage and moisture only” and the pier line stays out of the total. The drainage and grading guide covers what that work involves.
Does slab lifting or wall repair use the pier math?
Only if the bid includes piers. Slab lift and wall repair are method labels here. If the bid is slab injection or wall anchors with no piers, leave the count at 0 and type engineering and drainage. We do not invent a slab-lift or carbon-fiber average.
Who should set the pier count?
An engineer who does not sell repairs. The count comes from the affected length of foundation and the elevation survey, not from how many cracks you can see. A company that only sells piers will tend to find that you need piers.
What should a comparable foundation bid include?
Method, pier count, assumed depth, the rate if bearing is deeper, target lift, plumbing tests, warranty terms and whether finishes are restored. A low headline price that leaves those out is not cheaper. It is incomplete.
Should I get an engineer before a repair quote?
Yes. The engineer’s report is the document every contractor should bid against. A free inspection from a repair company can be honest, but it is still a sales visit. See do I need a structural engineer.
Will homeowners insurance pay for foundation repair?
Usually not. Standard homeowners policies commonly exclude earth movement, settling and soil-related damage. Sudden damage from a covered plumbing leak may be treated differently. Read your policy; our foundation insurance guide explains the usual exclusions.
Is the result a quote?
No. It cannot see soil, access, the water table or a bearing layer deeper than the number you typed. Use it to check whether a bid priced the same lines you have. HyreFoundation does not repair foundations, and matching with companies is still being built.
Sources and methodology
Figures dated 26 August 2026. Last reviewed .
Engineering Advisory Opinion Request 43 (February 2018) (Texas Board of Professional Engineers, retrieved 2026-09-05. Read directly as PDF. Diagnosing a foundation and recommending repair is engineering under Texas Engineering Practice Act §1001.003(c)(1). Texas law, cited as Texas law.)
Foundation drainage (IRC R405) and dampproofing/waterproofing (IRC R406) (International Code Council, read via UpCodes, retrieved 2026-09-05. The drainage requirement, its washed-gravel envelope dimensions, and the single exemption for well-drained Group I soils. Model code only; adoption and amendment are local.)
Expansive Soil and Rock (Colorado Geological Survey, retrieved 2026-09-05. Swelling pressures up to 30,000 psf, 10–20% volume expansion on wetting, and the statement that annual losses exceed those of tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes combined — the basis for pricing the moisture work before the structural work.)
International Residential Code, Chapter 4 Foundations (International Code Council, retrieved 2026-08-26. Cited as the model code for drainage at the foundation (R401.3 in the 2021 IRC) and for foundation construction generally. Adoption, amendments and fees are local. This tool does not price a code item and does not declare your house out of compliance.)
Web Soil Survey (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, retrieved 2026-08-26. Soil maps and properties by area, including engineering-related ratings. Labeled general: onsite investigation is needed for engineering applications. Not a pier rate and not a diagnosis of your lot.)
How to avoid a home improvement scam (Federal Trade Commission, retrieved 2026-08-26. Get itemized estimates in writing. A number without method, count and depth is not an estimate you can compare.)
Building America program (U.S. Department of Energy, retrieved 2026-08-26. Cited for moisture and durability as building-science topics. Not a foundation-repair price list.)