Post and Pier
Foundation Repair
in Maryland

A post-and-pier foundation (sometimes called pier-and-beam) supports a house on a series of isolated piers or footings, concrete, masonry, or historically wood posts, spaced beneath the structure, with beams spanning between them to carry the floor framing above. Instead of a continuous perimeter footing and wall like a basement or crawl space foundation, the house's weight rests on these individual support points. This construction is common in older Maryland homes, farmhouses, and additions, particularly pre-1950s construction and some porches and outbuildings.

You likely have a post-and-pier foundation if your home sits on a raised, ventilated space with visible individual posts or piers rather than a continuous wall, or if an addition or porch was built with its own separate isolated supports rather than tied into the main house foundation. An OBW inspector can confirm during a free inspection.

No, and this is worth being clear about. Push piers, helical piers, concrete piers, and micro piles are underpinning methods, techniques used to add new deep support points beneath a settling foundation, of any type. Post-and-pier is a foundation construction type itself, the original system of posts and beams the house was built on.

The two connect in a specific way: when an existing post-and-pier foundation has failed or settled, one of those underpinning methods might be part of the fix, adding a new deep pier where an old post has rotted or a masonry pier has settled. But post-and-pier repair also includes things underpinning doesn't touch: replacing or sistering deteriorated wood posts, releveling and re-shimming beams, and addressing the beam-to-post connections themselves.

Wood posts rot at ground contact or where moisture wicks up from the soil, especially in older Maryland construction that didn't isolate wood from ground moisture the way modern posts do. Masonry or concrete piers can settle unevenly if they weren't set to a consistent depth or if soil beneath one pier has consolidated more than beneath its neighbors, tilting the beam it supports. Beams themselves can sag between piers that are spaced too far apart for the load, or where a beam has taken on moisture damage.

Because each pier supports its own section largely independently, post-and-pier foundations often show localized problems, one corner sagging while the rest of the house is fine, rather than the more uniform patterns seen in a continuous foundation wall.