Soft or bouncy floor: a lost pier, or a wet subfloor

When a Marion County homeowner calls about a settled home, it is usually because of one of two things: a door that started binding, or a patch of floor that gives when they step on it. The floor version has two very different causes, and from inside the house they feel almost the same.

Sunken pier or rotten decking

The pier sank. The patch of floor above it lost its support. Around Ocala the pattern is predictable: the pad sinks into the sand, the pier loosens under the frame, its share of the weight shifts onto the piers on either side, and the floor in between flexes. It feels springy, and it usually stays about the same size.

The decking got wet. Water from a ripped belly wrap, a leaking supply line or a roof leak soaked into the subfloor and weakened it. This one feels mushy rather than springy, and it tends to spread and get worse in the same place.

Sometimes it is both. A torn belly lets rain reach the subfloor and the sand under the piers at once, so one leak can cause both problems.

Clues you can gather without crawling under

1. Mark out the soft area. Is it one small spot, or a long band down one side of a room?
2. Roll a marble in three rooms. If it heads the same way everywhere, the whole frame is low on that side. If only one room is odd, look for a local pier or a wet patch instead.
3. Push down firmly. If the floor springs back, think support. If it feels spongy and the flooring seems loose from what is under it, think water damage.
4. Hunt for water. Stains, a musty smell, vinyl or laminate that has cupped, a nearby toilet, tub or water heater, or a stain on the ceiling above.
5. Try the doors nearby. Doors that bind near the soft spot point to the frame moving.

The real answer is under the house, so the next step is getting a look from below.

What our crew checks underneath

Signs of a failed pier: a gap between the cap and the frame, a block that leans or has cracked, a pad sunk into the sand, or a pier that wobbles when you push it. A loose pier holds no weight, and the neighbors it handed its load to are the next ones to sink.

Signs of a wet subfloor: belly wrap torn, drooping or gone, insulation dangling, dark stains on the underside of the decking, wood that is damp, and often droppings or nesting, since a ripped belly is an open door for animals.

Why it happens so often on Ocala ground

Most of the uplands here are deep fine sand. The Candler soil series was first mapped in Marion County. That sand packs down under the concentrated weight of a pier, faster after it gets soaked, and from June through September an afternoon thunderstorm soaks it most days.

Underneath the sand sits the limestone that gives the county Silver Springs and Rainbow Springs. Groundwater moving through that rock slowly hollows it out. Nearly every sunken pier we see is plain sand compaction, and a level survey is not a geology report. Still, if the drop came on fast, is concentrated in one spot, or there is a new low depression in the yard, we will say plainly that it looks like more than a pier problem.

Timing confuses people. The ground stays soaked through late summer, the pad sinks, and the floor feels soft the next spring. By then nobody connects it to the rain.

That is why a relevel every three to five years is a realistic schedule for homes here, closer to three on lots that stay wet.

Please do not jack it yourself

A single jack under a soft spot pushes on the frame where it may not be designed to carry a point load, and lifting one place on a home that is already out of level sends that stress into the walls, the plumbing and the steel. Cracked drywall and broken drain lines are the usual results. A jack kicking out from under an occupied home is the rare, serious one.

Florida law (§320.8249 F.S.) requires a state-licensed mobile home installer for leveling and blocking work. Our installer licence page explains how to check anyone’s licence number before they put a jack under your home, and that includes us.

Prices

The full list is on our pricing page, and the cost calculator uses the same numbers for leveling jobs.

When you call us

Tell us where the soft spot is, roughly how big, whether it is growing, any leaks nearby past or present, which way the marble rolled, and whether doors have started to stick. Our level check is free and includes going under the house, which is where this gets settled.

Our crew works Ocala, Belleview, Summerfield, Silver Springs, Marion Oaks, Dunnellon, and Ocklawaha.