Whatever's wrong under your house — standing water, wood rot, sagging floors, fallen insulation, mold — we diagnose it on the spot and hand you a fixed-price plan the same day. No pressure, no scare tactics.
A licensed local crew — usually out in 24 to 72 hours. Written scope, fixed price, no pressure.
Last February I crawled under a 2005 Longview custom on New Town Rd, 6,800 SF on three-quarter acre backing to the Six Mile Creek greenway. Owner had lived there 20 years, kids grown and gone, and had noticed the master bedroom floor developing a specific bounce in the middle of the room when he walked from the closet to the bathroom. Same time, a hairline crack had opened along the sheetrock seam at the top of the wall between the master and the great room. Called me because he had two agents pushing him to list in the spring and wanted to know if this was a five-figure problem or a five-figure-plus problem. I dropped into the crawl through the exterior hatch and immediately saw the story. Two interior CMU piers under the master bedroom girder were leaning about a half-inch off vertical, sitting on shallow footings the builder had poured in 2004 without a proper 12-inch depth. Twenty winters of freeze-thaw cycling had walked them out of level. The 6x8 wood girder above them was showing a visible sag between the two piers — about three-quarters of an inch of deflection over an eight-foot span. Two joists sistered off that girder had started to check along the grain from the induced load. That is a Longview 2005 repair job in one snapshot: builder skipped the footing depth, physics won over 20 years, and the finish floor above is starting to tell you.
Marvin crawlspace repair splits into three specific problem classes and every job I do here falls into one or two of them. First is interior CMU pier settlement from shallow builder footings — this shows up on 2003-through-2010 custom stock across all four flagship HOAs and it presents as a floor bounce, a low spot, or a sheetrock crack years after the house was built. Second is HVAC condensate flooding above air handlers, which rots the subfloor above the mechanical closet and shows up as a soft spot in the kitchen or laundry room ceiling. Third is fiberglass insulation failure under radiant floor tubing, which is Marvin-specific because roughly a third of the custom stock from 2006 forward has hydronic radiant loops the builder insulated wrong. Repair scope on any Marvin house usually touches at least one of those three, sometimes all three at once. The crawls are tall and pleasant to work in, the block perimeters are dead-square, and once you have the diagnostic in hand the repair sequence is predictable — you just have to actually do it in the right order, before the encapsulation goes down.
Every Marvin repair starts with a full crawl walk-through and a moisture map before we quote anything. I go in with a moisture meter, a laser level, a hygrometer, and a thermal camera. First pass is structural. I check every interior CMU pier for lean using the laser level referenced off the girder above, probe every girder with a screwdriver for soft spots, check every joist end at the sill and at every pier bearing for rot, and note any visible sag or deflection across the girder spans. The Longview and Firethorne 2003-through-2010 stock consistently shows two to four interior piers that are out of plumb by a quarter to a half inch, sitting on 6-inch-deep footing pads instead of the 12-inch code minimum. Freeze depth in Union County is 6 to 8 inches. That is why they moved.
Second pass is HVAC. Marvin customs typically have two to three air handlers in the crawl — a four-or-five-ton for the main level, a three-ton for the upstairs, sometimes a small unit for a bonus room over the garage. Every one of those units has a primary condensate line that clogs with algae over time, and every one has a rusted galvanized safety pan under the air handler that leaks. I probe the subfloor above and around each air handler for soft spots. About 40 percent of the time I find active subfloor rot above one of them. That is a coordinated repair — HVAC contractor replaces the pan and adds a float switch on the primary drain, we sister the affected joists and patch the subfloor, then the encapsulation goes on top.
Third pass is radiant. I look for PEX tubing stapled between the joists under specific rooms — usually master bath, sometimes kitchen or mudroom. If I find fiberglass in those bays over the PEX, the whole scope changes: pull all the fiberglass out of every radiant bay, dispose of it as construction debris, coordinate a licensed spray foam sub for a two-inch closed-cell application directly against the subfloor over the PEX and heat-transfer plates, ventilate the crawl for 24 hours, then come back for the rest of the work. That coordination adds a day or two and it is not optional if the goal is to keep the radiant system alive for another 15 years.
Fourth pass is exterior. On Longview and Firethorne lots that back to Six Mile Creek or the greenway, I check the wet-season water table with a pit dug next to the block wall and left overnight. If water fills to within 18 inches of the crawl floor in the wet season, we plan an interior perimeter drain and a sump before any interior work happens. That is a full-day install on its own — Zoeller M53 primary in a sealed basin, Liberty 257 alternate, Wayne WSS30V battery backup mounted above the flood plane, discharge to daylight through the closest exterior wall.
Sequencing on the actual repair matters. Pier shim and reset with a bottle jack and hardwood shims comes first because you need the girder line back where it belongs before you sister anything. New poured footing pad under the shimmed pier if the settlement is significant — Union County structural permit filed through the Monroe office, footing at 12-inch depth on undisturbed soil, inspection sign-off before we cover it. Sistered joists next, glued and screwed with structural GRK screws or Simpson SDS lag screws on 12-inch centers along the full length of the sistered member. Subfloor patch where needed, Advantech or equivalent glued and screwed. Adjustable steel post like a Tiger SmartJack or Grip-Tite in place of any wood post that is showing decay or check. HVAC pan replacement and float switch by the HVAC sub, coordinated to happen after our structural work is done and inspected. Then the fiberglass strip and radiant foam sub if applicable. Then and only then does the encapsulation go on top.
Sistering joists on a Marvin custom uses matched-species 2x lumber to the existing joist size — usually 2x10 or 2x12 southern yellow pine for the 2003-2010 stock. Glue full-length with Loctite PL Premium or equivalent construction adhesive, screw with Simpson SDS 1/4-by-4-inch structural lag screws on 12-inch staggered centers. Never nail a sister — nails split southern yellow pine and back out with seasonal wood movement. Girder replacement or reinforcement on a Marvin 6x8 or 6x10 uses a Tiger SmartJack adjustable steel post or a Grip-Tite equivalent, sized to the load and set on a new poured footing pad at 12-inch depth on undisturbed soil, Union County structural permit and inspection sign-off before we cover.
CMU pier reset uses hardwood shims graded down to the settled elevation — oak or hickory, never cedar or pine — and a new bag of hydraulic cement poured around the base to a 12-inch depth after the shim is set. Bottle jack does the lift, held with a temporary wood post, shim goes in, hold pressure while the cement sets. Interior perimeter drain on a Longview or Firethorne wet-lot job uses 4-inch perforated PVC in a gravel trench inside the footing, wrapped in filter fabric, tied to a sealed sump basin — Zoeller SS-500 or equivalent 24-inch depth basin with a sealed lid — primary pump Zoeller M53 or Liberty 257, battery backup Wayne WSS30V or equivalent, discharge to daylight through the closest exterior wall in schedule 40 PVC.
HVAC condensate safety pans replaced with composite pans — Rectorseal 32 or equivalent — sized to the air handler footprint, with a float switch wired to the primary that kills the compressor if water backs up. Subfloor patch material is Advantech 3/4-inch tongue-and-groove OSB where the span allows, glued and screwed to the joists. Radiant floor rework — after fiberglass strip — uses 2 inches of closed-cell spray foam applied by a licensed sub, then the encapsulation liner installed after 24-hour ventilation.
Yes — Marvin is a regular crawlspace repair route. Free on-site inspection anywhere in Marvin, fixed written quote before we touch anything.
Marvin repair work is dominated by shallow-footing pier settlement on 2003-2010 custom stock and radiant-floor fiberglass failure — problems that do not exist in Cotswold, SouthPark, or Ballantyne because those neighborhoods never had radiant heat and the piers were set on proper footings by 1970s tract builders who followed code more closely than the 2000s Marvin custom shops did.
28173. All Union County addresses covered.
Probably an interior pier settlement problem, and it is fixable without touching the foundation. Firethorne 2003-through-2010 builders often set interior CMU piers on shallow footing pads — 6 inches deep instead of the 12-inch code minimum — because the footings never get inspected once they are covered. Freeze depth in Union County is 6 to 8 inches, so 20 winters of freeze-thaw cycling walks those piers out of level a fraction of an inch at a time. By year 15 to 20 the girder above sags a half to three-quarters of an inch and you feel it as a bounce or a low spot in one specific room. Fix is a shim-and-reset with a hydraulic bottle jack, hardwood shims, and a new poured footing pad at 12-inch depth under the affected pier. Union County structural permit, one-day install for a single pier, two days for multiple. Costs a fraction of a real foundation repair.
Probe the subfloor above and around each air handler with a screwdriver. If the wood is soft or spongy anywhere within a 3-foot radius of the unit, you have had a slow leak long enough to feed decay fungi. Marvin custom crawls typically have two to three air handlers, and about 40 percent of the ones I inspect show active subfloor rot above at least one of them. The primary condensate line clogs with algae, water backs into the rusted galvanized safety pan that is now punched through, and a slow trickle runs down the ductwork all cooling season. Fix is a two-trade coordination — HVAC contractor replaces the pan with a composite Rectorseal or equivalent and adds a float switch on the primary that kills the compressor if water backs up, we sister the affected joists and patch the subfloor above. Both trades finish before the encapsulation goes on top.
Yes, and this is one of the most common Marvin repair calls. About a third of Marvin customs from 2006 forward have hydronic PEX radiant loops stapled between the joists under specific rooms, and the builder insulated the bays with R-19 kraft-faced fiberglass. Fiberglass in a humid crawl absorbs moisture, turns black, sags out of the bays, and the aluminum heat-transfer plates on the PEX start corroding. The musty smell is coming through the subfloor from the fiberglass. Scope: pull all the fiberglass from every radiant bay, dispose of it, coordinate a licensed spray foam sub for two inches of closed-cell foam directly against the subfloor over the PEX and heat-transfer plates, ventilate the crawl for 24 hours after the foam cures, then encapsulate. Master bath stops smelling by the end of the following week.
It depends on the specific lot and how the builder graded it. The Longview lots that back to the creek — the ones with the boardwalk overlooks and the direct greenway access — have a real wet-season water table issue. February and March when the creek runs high, the water table can push up to within 18 inches of the crawl floor on those specific properties. If your lot is one of them, a passive ground liner encapsulation alone will not hold moisture down — you need a perimeter interior drain system in a gravel trench inside the footing, tied to a sealed sump basin with a Zoeller M53 primary pump and a battery backup, before any encapsulation goes on top. That adds a day to the install and adds real cost to the scope but it is what the site conditions require. Marvin lots not adjacent to the creek or the greenway drain fine and do not need the sump.
Free on-site Marvin inspection. Fixed written quote. Call (980) 227-1769 or book below.