Skirting damaged, buckled, or missing: what it does and what it costs

Around Ocala, skirting gets treated like a paint job. It is closer to a warning light. When it bows, cracks or goes missing, there is usually a reason under the house, and sometimes that reason matters a lot more than the panel.

The jobs skirting does under a Marion County home

Critter control. Armadillos dig in the loose sand here, and raccoons, possums, snakes and stray cats all like a dry crawl space. Once something is living under the floor it tends to shred the belly wrap, and a skirting gap turns into a vapor barrier repair.

Rain shield. From June through September, nearly every afternoon brings a thunderstorm, and the wind pushes water in sideways. The skirt keeps most of it off the underbelly.

Draft stopper. It slows the air moving under the floor. Not structural, but you feel it in a January cold snap.

Cover for the guts. Supply ducts, drain lines and water lines hang in and below the belly, and the skirt is their only protection.

Plus the park rules. Most calls we get about skirting start with a letter from management.

Bowed panels usually mean the house moved

Panels are cut to the height between the frame and the ground when they go in. The deep fine sand under most of Ocala, the Candler type first mapped right here in Marion County, packs down under the weight of each pier, and summer rain carries sand out from under pads. As the home drops, the gap closes and the panels have nowhere to go.

You will see a bulge mid-panel, a section popped out of the top rail, or daylight at the bottom where the ground has washed. We often spot this before the owner has noticed a single sticking door, and it is one of the items on our settling self-check.

So if the skirting is bowing, the fix is not new skirting. It is a level check, and then skirting cut to the corrected height.

Other ways skirting gets wrecked here

Picking a material for Florida sun

Standard vinyl. Cheapest, easy to match, and you can swap a single panel. UV is its enemy: after enough Florida summers it turns brittle, and then a trimmer line or a stray ball cracks it.

Insulated vinyl. A bit more money for a stiffer panel with some insulation behind it.

Metal. Shrugs off impacts, animals and sun better than vinyl. Costs more, and the bottom edge needs watching where it touches damp sand.

Faux stone or block panels. The best-looking choice and the priciest. Sellers like it before listing a home.

What decides how long any of these last is the install: a top rail screwed solidly to the home, a ground channel along the bottom, panels lapped so water runs off, and enough vents for the crawl space to breathe. Seal a crawl space airtight over damp Florida ground and moisture sits against the belly, which is how you end up with rot and mould at the same time.

Plan for getting underneath

Every relevel, pier rebuild, strap job and belly patch starts with pulling skirting. That has two practical consequences.

Do the work in one trip. If the home needs leveling and the panels are damaged, having our crew handle both on the same visit costs noticeably less than two separate jobs.

Ask for a real access door. A hinged or removable panel in a sensible spot lets you peek under the house once a year and saves labor on every visit after. Plenty of homes in the parks off SR 200 and US 441 have none, so every service call starts by cutting the skirt.

Prices

The full list is on our pricing page, and the leveling cost calculator handles the leveling side.

When you call us

Send a photo of each damaged spot plus one of the whole wall. Tell us whether panels are bulging or broken, whether the gap is at the top or the bottom, and whether any doors or windows inside have started to bind. That last answer tells us whether we are quoting skirting or quoting a relevel that happens to show up in the skirting.

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