910 Crawl Space Pros provides crawl space structural repair across Wilmington and the Cape Fear region. Crawl space structural repair is the replacement or reinforcement of framing that has lost capacity — joists, girders, sill plates and piers — usually because sustained moisture allowed decay to take hold.
What we do on the first visit
Probe suspect framing to establish whether the wood is surface-affected or genuinely decayed, take moisture content readings, and identify what is carrying load and what has stopped.
Surface growth versus decay — the probe test
Surface fungal growth sits on wood. Decay fungi digest it. The distinction is not cosmetic and it is easy to establish: a probe pushed into sound framing meets firm resistance, and into decayed framing it sinks.
Where a probe sinks, remediation is no longer the answer on its own — the member has lost section and needs sistering or replacing. This is the finding that changes a $3,000 job into a $9,000 one, and it is why we probe rather than assess visually.
Sistering, replacement and jacks
A joist with localised decay can often be sistered — a new member fastened alongside the old across sound bearing at both ends. That is cheaper and less disruptive than replacement, and structurally sound where the original still carries some load.
Girders and sill plates are more often replaced outright, because they carry more and their failure is less localised. Adjustable steel jacks on proper footings take the load during the work and, where a permanent support point is needed, stay.
The footing is the part that gets skipped
A steel jack set on the crawl space soil, or on a couple of patio pavers, will settle. It has to bear on a poured footing sized for the load it carries. This is the single most common defect we find in prior structural work under Wilmington homes — the jack is fine, what it stands on is not.
When the symptom is a floor that has moved
Decay is one reason a floor bounces or slopes, and it is the reason this page is about — but it is not the only one, and the fixes are not interchangeable. Bounce with no measurable slope is usually a span or joist-capacity problem in a room that was converted or was never framed for the load, and no amount of replacing sound wood will change it. That distinction is the subject of sagging floor repair, which starts from a level survey rather than a probe.
The two overlap where a girder has decayed at its bearing and taken the floor down with it. In that case the probe finding above and the level reading describe the same failure from opposite ends, and the scope covers both. Where the level shows movement but the probe meets firm wood throughout, the problem is support, not rot.
What's included
- Probe survey of suspect framing with moisture content readings
- Clear identification of what is decayed versus surface-affected
- Sistering where the original member retains capacity
- Full replacement of girders and sill plates where required
- Adjustable steel jacks on poured footings sized to the load
- Correction of the moisture source that caused the decay
- Photographs before, during and after
- Written description of what was replaced and why
Where structural damage turns up
Structural work follows how long a crawl space has been wet rather than how wet it is today. Crawl space repair in Wilmington and Southport is where we find the most of it — century-old brick piers in a marine environment, under clearances tight enough that the damage is usually found late. Castle Hayne properties in the floodplain see repeat saturation rather than one event, which is what takes girders and joists and not just subfloor. Leland rarely needs framing work; there the movement is settlement in ground that was never meant to carry a house. Hampstead, Carolina Beach and Wrightsville Beach vary by whether the structure is elevated or enclosed.