Mobile Home Leveling in Hot Springs

Releveling brings a mobile home’s steel frame back into one plane by lifting the low points and resetting the piers under them. Around Hot Springs a singlewide relevel typically runs $450 to $800 and a doublewide $750 to $1,400. We read every pier before we price the job, and the quote is in writing.

The Arkansas Manufactured Home Commission licenses installers, and state law defines installation as work done to stabilize, support or anchor a home. Ask whoever you hire for their AMHC license number and check it. The Arkansas rules page has the detail.

Why homes go out of level here

Rock at one footing, soil at the next. The NRCS maps most hillsides around Hot Springs, Rockwell and Lake Hamilton as Bismarck, Sherless and Clebit soils. Bismarck is 10 to 20 inches over tilted, folded shale. Clebit is 10 to 20 inches over hard sandstone tilted about 40 degrees, and NRCS warns that depth can be “extremely variable within short distances”. A footing set on rock and one set on soil a few feet away can behave differently.

Clay subsoil to the north and west. Toward Piney, Fountain Lake, Jessieville and Royal, Carnasaw soils come in. NRCS rates them well drained but slowly permeable, with a clay subsoil the Garland County survey rates moderate for shrink and swell.

Wet bottoms. Mazarn silt loam, mapped in some bottoms near Piney and Royal, holds a perched water table 1 to 2 feet down from December to May most years. A footing in ground that stays wet half the year can move. See water under the home.

Storms. Wind and falling trees can shove a home on its piers. See storm damage reset.

How we relevel a home

1. Read the frame. We take a level reading at each pier along each I-beam, and on a doublewide along the marriage line too.
2. Look at every pier and footing. Cracked blocks, tipped stacks, loose shims or a footing that has sunk get marked for rebuilding. See pier and footing repair.
3. Slack the straps. The home cannot move with the tie-downs tight. We loosen them before lifting.
4. Lift in small steps. We raise the low side a little at a time, working along the beam, so the walls and the marriage line move together.
5. Reset the piers. Each pier is shimmed tight to the beam, within the state’s limits: no more than 7 inches of cap blocks, shims no thicker than 1 inch, and hardwood wedges driven from both sides.
6. Recheck and re-tension. We read the frame again, re-tension the straps, and close the skirting.

Slopes and tall piers

On a sloped lot the piers at the downhill end stand taller, and NRCS maps much of the ground near Hot Springs on 3 to 30 percent slopes. Arkansas rules want piers no more than 8 feet apart, concrete-filled and rebarred blocks once a support column passes 52 inches, and an engineer’s design once footings, piers and wood pass 80 inches. If your home is near those heights, we measure it and the quote says so.

Signs it is time

Doors that stick or swing on their own, windows that bind, cracks at the corners of interior panels, and a gap at a doublewide’s ceiling seam are the usual ones. The doors and windows sticking page walks through them. If an earlier relevel made things worse, read leveling done wrong.

Our ranges for every related job are on the pricing page, and the cost calculator gives a range for your home.