Arkansas mobile home leveling rules, for Hot Springs area owners

Arkansas licenses manufactured home installers through the Arkansas Manufactured Home Commission (AMHC), part of the Department of Labor and Licensing. The Commission’s rules set out how a used home must be supported and anchored. They do not mention releveling by name, so the honest advice is simple: ask for the installer’s AMHC license number and check it. This page quotes the rules we work from.

What the law says installation is

Arkansas Code 20-25-102 defines installation as “work done to stabilize, support, or anchor a manufactured home or to join sections of a multisection manufactured home” when that work is governed by the Commission’s rules. The rules list what installation includes: the pier support columns and footings under the I-beams, the center line and the perimeter; marriage line and crossover connections; and anchoring systems.

The rules say no person, firm or corporation may act as an installer without first securing the Commission’s license. A new installer completes a course and passes an exam, and the license becomes a full license only after agency staff inspect at least three of their installations. State law allows a penalty of up to $1,000 per violation against an unlicensed installer.

New homes and used homes

A new home is installed to its manufacturer’s installation instructions. A used home is installed to the Commission’s own specifications. New homes also get a $10 AMHC installation permit decal at the point where electrical power connects, and the Commission may run inspections without notice.

The Commission’s specifications for used homes

Site and footings

• Grass, leaves, roots and wood removed from under footings.
• Footings and base blocks on undisturbed soil, or soil compacted to at least 90%, of uniform density.
• Soil bearing capacity determined before the foundation is built, by a soil test, local soil records, a pocket penetrometer or the rule’s table; otherwise 1,000 pounds per square foot may be used.
• Concrete footings at least 16 by 16 by 4 inches.
• The installation must not contribute to ponding of water under the home.

Piers

• No more than 8 feet apart on center, with the first pier within 2 feet of each end of each I-beam.
• No pier under 12 inches tall.
• Columns over 52 inches filled with concrete and reinforced with 3/8 inch rebar; over 80 inches, designed by an engineer or architect and approved by the Commission.
• Each course laid level and true, and the home “reasonably level” lengthwise and side to side when the piers are done.

Caps, shims and wedges

• No more than 7 inches of cap blocks combined.
• Shims no thicker than 1 inch.
• Hardwood wedges at least 4 inches wide.

Anchoring

• “Anchoring is a mandatory requirement for any manufactured home installed in the State of Arkansas.”
• Ground anchors at least 11/16 inch thick, buried at least 3 feet.
• Anchors, straps and clips must be new and may not be re-used.
• Straps tensioned to the home or anchor manufacturer’s instructions, and anchors able to take a 4,725 pound pull.

All of Arkansas is in HUD Wind Zone I. How we apply these on the job: pier and footing repair, tie-downs and anchors and leveling done wrong.

City and county

Inside the City of Hot Springs, a manufactured home being placed must have been built after October 25, 1994, be skirted in approved materials such as masonry, vinyl or fiberglass, be installed to the manufacturer’s and state rules, and be inspected with a certificate of occupancy before anyone lives in it. The city’s 2025 zoning code limits new placements to manufactured home overlay areas. The Planning Department is at 133 Convention Blvd.

In unincorporated Garland County there is no planning board and no certificate of occupancy, but the county’s Floodplain Department permits development, and in a floodplain a manufactured home must be elevated and anchored to resist flotation, collapse and lateral movement.

Checking a license and making a complaint

The Commission is at 900 West Capitol, Suite 400, Little Rock, (501) 324-9032, and it runs an online Licensee Portal. Complaints go on the Commission’s form. Defects in a new installation are handled under a dispute procedure that wants them reported in writing within a year of the first installation. The Recovery Fund protects work done by a licensee. See our pricing page for what the work typically costs, or start with mobile home leveling.