Helical Piers in Kansas City

What Makes Helicals Different

A helical pier is basically a giant steel screw with one or more circular plates welded to a central shaft. We use a hydraulic torque motor to twist it down into the ground until it hits a soil layer with enough bearing capacity to carry the weight of the structure above. No pile driving, no big hammer, very little vibration and a lot quieter than most people expect.

The main difference from push piers is how they’re installed. Push piers rely on the weight of the structure to drive the steel straight down. Helical piers are literally screwed into the soil by a machine, so they don’t need the building’s weight to advance. That means we can use them in situations where push piers simply won’t work or aren’t efficient.

We install helicals all the time under additions and sunrooms where the original foundation wasn’t designed for the extra load. A homeowner in Shawnee adds a three-season room off the back, the builder pours a shallow footing, and a few years later that room starts drifting away from the house. Helical piers under that addition will arrest the movement and give it proper long-term support.

Where Helicals Really Shine

For a typical settling foundation on a two-story house, we’ll tell you what we’d tell our own families: push piers are usually the better choice. They can go deeper and are generally more cost-effective when the structure is heavy enough to drive them. But helicals absolutely have their place in Kansas City, and it’s a big one:

• Porches and stoops — Not enough weight there for push piers to seat properly. We install helicals under sagging front porches all the time, especially on older homes in Prairie Village and Brookside where concrete steps and stoops have slowly dropped with the clay.
• Room additions — Sunrooms, bump-outs, and attached garages that settled because the original footing was undersized or the fill dirt wasn’t compacted. Helicals give that new space a proper deep foundation it should have had from day one.
• New construction — When the soil report shows poor bearing capacity or a lot sits on fill, helicals can be installed before the footing or slab is poured. Many builders in south Olathe are starting to spec helical piers on challenging lots to avoid future settlement callbacks.
• Tight access — The installation equipment is compact and versatile. We’ve completed projects inside finished basements and crawl spaces with less than 4 feet of headroom where larger machines simply won’t fit.

The Installation Process

During installation we monitor torque on each pier. There’s a direct relationship between the torque required to turn the shaft and the amount of load that pier can safely carry. When we reach our engineered target torque, we know we’re in competent bearing soil and the pier can support the design load. It’s a tested, engineered system, not guesswork or “feel.”

Each helical pier is fitted with a heavy-duty steel bracket that connects it to the foundation. If the goal is stabilization, we lock everything in place at the existing elevation. If lifting is part of the repair, we use hydraulic jacks to carefully raise the settled section, then secure the brackets. Most porch or small addition projects are completed in a single day; larger jobs usually run about two days.

Our helical installations carry the same warranty as our other underpinning work — lifetime, transferable, and it stays with the house for the next owner.