An itemized foundation repair estimate, at your rates
Foundation repair is priced from components: piers, depth, excavation, crack work, anchors, drainage, reports, permits and disposal. This page itemizes those components at rates you enter from real quotes, because pier prices, soil conditions and access vary too much by place for any honest built-in price to exist. The estimate applies any minimum charge openly, adds contingency once and tax once, shows a low to high range and the cost per pier and per foot of affected wall, and produces a downloadable estimate you can lay beside a contractor’s proposal, line by line.
Piers and depth
Excavation, cracks, anchors and drainage
Reports, permits and fixed charges
Minimum, contingency, tax and range
Disclaimer: This calculator gives estimates for general information only. It is not financial, medical or other professional advice. Foundation problems can involve structural safety: an estimate on this page is a budgeting tool, not an engineering assessment, and significant settlement, bowing or cracking should be evaluated by a licensed structural engineer before any repair is chosen.
What this calculator does
It builds a foundation repair estimate from the components the trade actually charges for, at your rates, with quantities and prices kept separate so each can be challenged on its own merits. Pier counts come from the engineer’s or contractor’s spacing plan; depth overruns are priced per foot, as they are in the field; excavation, crack work, anchors, drainage and disposal are measured in their own units; reports and permits enter as the fixed fees they are. The bookkeeping is strict: lines rounded to cents and summed, a minimum charge applied openly when it exceeds the lines, contingency once, tax once, and the range is your uncertainty, both ways, around a total that hides nothing.
How to use it
- The pier count is the estimate’s spine. Piers are typically spaced by the engineer based on the load and the soil, and each pier is a four-figure decision. Two quotes with different pier counts are not two prices for one job; they are two different jobs, and the per-pier figure in the results lets you separate “more piers” from “dearer piers” when quotes disagree.
- Depth is where foundation quotes grow. A pier priced to a standard depth that then meets soft soil, fill or a high water table travels further down and bills per extra foot. If a quote does not state its standard depth and its extra-depth rate, ask before signing: the extra-depth line on this page exists because that single clause decides whether the final bill resembles the estimate.
- Fix the water, not only the wall. Drainage lines (drain tile, grading, downspout routing in spirit) appear in good foundation proposals because water is the usual author of the damage. A repair quote with no water management is cheaper for a reason this page cannot fix: enter the drainage scope you were advised, at its rate, and compare complete jobs against complete jobs.
- Anchors and straps answer a different problem than piers. Piers address settlement (vertical movement); anchors and carbon fibre straps address bowing and leaning (lateral pressure). Entering both is common on a house with both problems; entering one for the other’s problem is money spent without effect, which is why a structural report is a line on this page rather than a footnote.
- The engineer’s report is the cheapest line on the page. It converts a sales conversation into a specification: what is moving, why, and what would stop it. Contractors’ free assessments are worth what they cost when the remedy being sold and the diagnosis come from the same mouth; an independent report lets every bidder price the same defined job.
How it is calculated
- Each line = its quantity x its rate, rounded to cents: piers, extra depth feet, excavation yards, crack feet, anchors, drainage feet, disposal loads. The report, permits and other fixed charges enter as flat amounts.
- Subtotal = the sum of the line amounts. Minimum charge: if a minimum is entered and exceeds the subtotal, the minimum becomes the base and the results state that the minimum charge applied.
- Contingency = the contingency percentage applied once to the base. Tax = the tax percentage applied once to base plus contingency, when entered.
- Total = base + contingency + tax. Range = total less and plus your percentage. Per pier = total / pier count; per foot of affected wall = total / the wall length you entered.
Worked examples
A settlement repair, fully priced. Illustrative rates, entered as a user would from quotes: 8 piers at $450 ($3,600.00); 12 feet of extra depth at $35 ($420.00); 10 cubic yards of excavation at $85 ($850.00); 24 feet of crack injection at $28 ($672.00); 4 wall anchors at $650 ($2,600.00); 60 feet of drainage at $55 ($3,300.00); an engineer’s report at $500; permits at $250; 2 disposal loads at $180 ($360.00). Subtotal $12,552.00. Contingency at 15% adds $1,882.80 for a total of $14,434.80, ranging from $11,547.84 to $17,321.76 at plus or minus 20%. That is $1,804.35 per pier all-in and $120.29 per foot of affected wall (120 feet entered), the two figures that let you compare this scope against a differently built quote.
A small crack job meets the minimum. Ten feet of crack injection at $28 is $280 of lines; against a contractor’s $1,500 minimum the estimate builds on the minimum, adds 10% contingency ($150.00) and totals $1,650.00, saying plainly that the minimum charge applied. Small foundation jobs are priced by floors and call-out economics, not by the foot, and the estimate should show that instead of pretending otherwise.
Reading your results
Compare proposals line by line, not total by total. The lines where quotes diverge are the conversation: a cheaper pier count, a standard depth that swallows the overrun risk, drainage present in one scope and absent in another. The per-pier figure is the cleanest comparison the page offers, provided the scopes match; the per-foot figure suits wall-length work like drainage and crack repair. Treat the high end of your range as the planning number when the soil is unknown: foundation work is the trade where the ground gets a vote, and it votes after the digging starts.
Limitations
- Diagnosis is not included, because it cannot be. Settlement, heave, lateral pressure and simple shrinkage cracking can look similar from a basement and demand opposite remedies. This page prices a scope; it does not choose one, and significant movement belongs in front of a structural engineer first.
- Soil and access rule the real price. Rock, groundwater, tight side yards, finished interiors above the work and landscaping to restore all move the true rates far from any example. The rates here are yours precisely because no page can know your lot.
- Interior finishes and consequential repairs are separate. Drywall, flooring, plumbing or landscaping damaged by the movement or the repair are real costs of the episode but belong to other trades’ estimates; the fixed charges field can carry a known allowance if you have one.
- Warranties differ and are not priced. Transferable lifetime warranties, limited warranties and none at all are part of what a quote buys. Two otherwise equal totals are not equal offers, and this page cannot weigh the paper they come with.
Frequently asked questions
How much does foundation repair cost per pier?
It is the trade’s most quoted and least transferable figure, because a pier price bundles the pier type (steel, helical, concrete), the standard depth included, the soil it must reach and the access around your house. This page takes the cost per pier from your quote and then shows the all-in cost per pier once depth, excavation, drainage and the rest are loaded on top, which is the comparison that actually separates two proposals.
Why do foundation quotes for the same house differ so much?
Usually because the scopes differ, not merely the prices: different pier counts and spacing, different standard depths and overrun terms, drainage included or ignored, anchors proposed by one bidder and not another. Itemizing each quote on the same lines, as this page does, converts an argument about totals into a set of specific questions about scope, which is where the honest differences live.
Is a structural engineer report worth paying for?
On any repair of consequence, almost always. The report is typically one of the smallest figures in the project and it defines the job every contractor then prices, removing the conflict in a free assessment offered by the firm that profits from the remedy. It also creates the document a future buyer, insurer or lender will ask for. This page carries it as its own line because it should never be invisible inside a total.
What contingency belongs on foundation work?
More than on most home projects, because the expensive unknowns are underground: depth to competent soil, hidden damage, water. Fifteen percent is a reasonable planning allowance on a well-diagnosed job with known soil; a job bid without a report, or in known fill or expansive soil, argues for the top of the range or beyond, and the range field on this page lets you see that total before the ground votes.
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Method: itemized quantity times rate lines at user-entered rates, minimum charge applied to the base, contingency once and tax once, exactly as defined on this page. Last reviewed: 13 October 2026.