Underpinning a Home—How We Strengthened a Lander, Wyoming Foundation
Ever wonder what it means to “underpin” a house? No, it’s not a fancy new yoga pose or the latest dance craze—it’s all about giving a home’s foundation the support it desperately needs. At Park Range Construction, we recently tackled a big project in Lander, Wyoming, and we’re here to pull back the curtain on the process.
Why Underpinning Matters
Sometimes a house settles unevenly, cracks appear in walls, or shifting soil threatens the foundation. Underpinning is the superhero solution: it strengthens and stabilizes the existing foundation so your home stays level, secure, and ready to weather the years ahead.
Our Approach: Resistance Piers to the Rescue
For this Lander home, we installed 44 ECP Galvanized 3-1/2” Resistance Piers—each one hydraulically pushed down to bedrock or verified load-bearing soil. These aren’t your average piers; they’re end-bearing piers, engineered to take the load and keep things solid. Some went down as far as 42 feet and handled up to 50 kips of weight. Talk about heavy lifters!
To make everything flush and stable, we chipped the footings for the underpinning brackets, ensuring they sat perfectly against the foundation. And just to add extra oomph, we installed helical tie-downs attached to 4’ high grade beams. These helicals helped resist movement during pier installation and load testing—think of them as the home’s personal bodyguards.
Filling, Testing, and Leveling
Once the piers were in place, we filled them with high-strength grout and added #6 threaded bars for maximum durability. Every pier was carefully load-tested to ensure it could handle the weight. Then came the exciting part: re-leveling the home using hydraulic rams connected to a manifold. Slowly but surely, the house returned to its proper alignment.
Finishing Touches
Of course, foundation work can leave walls looking a little worse for wear. To restore the home’s beauty (and sanity of the owners), we epoxy-injected the cracks—a reliable fix that keeps everything looking smooth and structurally sound.
Underpinning isn’t just technical mumbo-jumbo; it’s the key to keeping your home safe, level, and long-lasting. At Park Range Construction, we combine engineering know-how with hands-on skill to tackle even the toughest foundation challenges. For this Lander, Wyoming project, our resistance piers, helical tie-downs, and hydraulic leveling got the job done right.
So next time your foundation feels a little wobbly, just remember: there’s a science to holding your house up—and we happen to love that science.
Published on 8-1-2025