If your floors sag, bounce, or slope, the fix isn't a new floor — it's what's holding it up. We install adjustable steel support jacks on concrete footings, sister rotted joists, and replace failing girders where they've given out.
A licensed local crew — usually out in 24 to 72 hours. Written scope, fixed price, no pressure.
Structural support work in Weddington almost always traces back to the same three problems, and I can tell you which one you have based on where the floor is soft upstairs. Soft floor over the middle of the great room means the girder has migrated off a steel post because the wood post cap crushed under sustained humidity. Soft floor along the primary bedroom exterior wall means joist rot on the shaded exposure with sistering required at the sill bearing. Air handler that has visibly tilted or ductwork that has developed leaks at the plenum joints means the wood-framed HVAC platform has rotted at the bottom plates and the whole air handler assembly is settling. Any of those three shows up in Weddington constantly on houses in the ten-to-fifteen-year age range, and all three are downstream consequences of the builder skipping active humidity control at framing.
The New Town Rd house I stabilized in 2021 had all three at once. 2007 build in the Providence Downs section, 5,600 sq ft above grade, roughly 5,000 sq ft crawlspace with the standard Weddington seven-foot clearance. Owner called after his wife walked across the master bedroom and felt the floor deflect three-quarters of an inch. When I got under the house, the interior girder that ran the length of the great room to the primary suite had migrated 3/8 inch downward at the second interior steel post because the wood cap on the post had crushed from years of sustained humidity around the post pocket. Three joists over the primary bedroom on the north wall had punky rot at the sill bearing and one of them had rotated slightly under load. And the air handler platform in the middle of the crawl was tilted 1-1/2 inches to the north because two of the four bottom plate corners were gone — rotted through into a soft fibrous mass that a screwdriver went through without any resistance.
Total structural scope on that house was eight working days. Sistered nine joists including the three visible rot cases plus six more that showed elevated moisture content and preemptive sistering was cheaper than callback later. Replaced sill plate under 22 linear feet of the north wall. Sistered platform bottom plates all four corners with pressure-treated 2x10 through-bolted to fresh epoxy-set anchors in the concrete pad. Reset the migrated girder with a Tiger SmartJack, replaced the crushed post cap with a Grip-Tite adjustable steel post, transferred load slowly. Structural engineer's stamp on the girder and sill work, Union County permits and inspections. Every one of those repair items existed because the builder had never drawn a dehumidifier on the mechanical plans in 2007. The dehumidifier that went in after the structural work would have prevented all of it if it had gone in ten years earlier at the two-year new-home mark.
Weddington structural support scoping starts with a full mapping inspection under the house. I probe every joist along the exterior walls and along the shaded interior exposures with a stubby screwdriver at the sill bearing points, take pin-meter moisture content readings at six to twelve points, check every steel post and post cap for crush or migration, inspect every girder pocket at the block wall for punky wood or bearing failure, and evaluate the HVAC platform bottom plates and any interior wood posts. Then I photograph everything and produce a repair map with each item categorized by urgency and structural criticality.
Every Weddington structural job over a certain scope requires a structural engineer's stamp. Union County wants engineered drawings on any girder replacement, any sill plate replacement over about 8 linear feet, any joist replacement (as distinct from sistering), and any load path modification. The engineer visits the house, measures the affected structure, produces stamped drawings that specify member sizes and connections, and those drawings get submitted with the Union County residential building permit application. That adds 7-10 business days to the overall project timeline.
Sequencing on Weddington structural jobs is critical because the crawl has to be dry before wood repair happens. If the humidity is currently 85% and the joists you're about to sister have moisture content in the low 20s, you cannot install new wood into that environment — the new PT stock will swell and the fasteners will let go. So the sequence is: temporary dehumidification and drying (usually 2-3 weeks with rented commercial dehumidifiers targeting joist MC below 15%), then structural repair, then permanent encapsulation and dehumidification.
Joist sistering technique: full-length pressure-treated 2x10 or 2x12 stock (matching original), positioned tight to the original joist on the appropriate side (usually the shaded side where the rot originated), nailed with hot-dip galvanized 16d commons at 12-inch on-center staggered pattern along the full length, with Simpson strong-tie hangers at both bearing ends where the joist meets sill or girder. The sister has to actually bear on structure at both ends — a sister that stops short of the bearing does nothing structurally. On rotted sill situations we replace the sill under the affected bay before sistering so the new sister has a solid bearing.
Girder work: jacking a migrated girder with a Tiger SmartJack or Grip-Tite hydraulic post, transferring load slowly (usually over 24 hours of incremental jacking to avoid cracking sheet rock upstairs), replacing the crushed post cap or replacing the post itself, then transferring load back. If the girder has rot at the block pocket, we splice with an engineered LVL section using MSTA straps per the engineer's drawing.
Platform sistering follows sill plate protocol. New bottom plates are PT 2x8 or 2x10 minimum, through-bolted to the concrete pad with 3/8 galvanized bolts and Hilti HIT-HY 200 epoxy-set anchors at 16-inch on-center. If the platform has settled and the air handler is off-level, we shim to level before the new plates go in — off-level air handlers pump condensate wrong and can spill into the crawl.
Structural stock: pressure-treated southern yellow pine at .40 ACQ retention for all concrete-contact and masonry-contact members (sill plates, platform bottom plates, sole plates on any new posts), .25 ACQ for above-grade sister joists and rim joist repair members. Grade stamp #2 or better, kiln-dried after treatment (KDAT) where possible for lower shrinkage post-install.
Fasteners: hot-dip galvanized 16d common nails for joist-to-joist sistering, Simpson strong-tie SDS 1/4-inch structural screws for hanger-to-member connections, 3/8-inch and 5/8-inch galvanized bolts for anchor-to-concrete connections. Hilti HIT-HY 200 epoxy adhesive for anchor set in fresh-drilled concrete holes. No electro-galvanized fasteners — they corrode fast in Weddington's humid crawl environment even after dehumidification is installed.
Hardware: Simpson strong-tie LUS28 and LUS210 face-mount hangers for standard 2x8 and 2x10 joist connections, Simpson HUC series for concealed applications, MSTA24 and MSTA36 straps for splices and load-path continuity, ABA and ABE post bases for any new post installations, ACE post caps for post-to-girder connections. All hardware G185 or ZMAX corrosion-rated for exposure to pressure-treated wood.
Steel posts: Tiger SmartJack adjustable steel posts for permanent load-bearing applications, Grip-Tite adjustable jacks for temporary shoring during repair. Both rated for 20,000-24,000 lb allowable capacity in typical residential applications.
Concrete pad repair (when platform sistering requires it): Sika 213 non-shrink structural grout for filling anchor pocket voids, matched compressive strength to original pad. Full pad replacement (rare) uses 4,000 psi concrete mix with rebar reinforcement.
Engineered lumber for girder splices: 1-3/4 x 9-1/2 or 1-3/4 x 11-7/8 LVL per engineer specification, glued and mechanically fastened per engineer detail, minimum bearing length at splice per detail. Engineer provides the detail on his stamped drawing.
Yes — Weddington is a regular structural support route. Free on-site inspection anywhere in Weddington, fixed written quote before we touch anything.
Weddington structural support work is dominated by three signature Weddington failure modes — sub-floor joist rot on shaded exposures, HVAC platform bottom plate rot with air handler settlement, and interior girder migration from crushed steel post caps — a specific pattern driven by big open crawls that have been humid for a decade, different from historic-district structural work in Elizabeth or Dilworth where the failures are foundation-related rather than framing-related.
28104, 28173. All Union County addresses covered.
Feel it walking across the floor and time when it happens. Normal wood movement in a house with a wood-framed floor system gives you maybe 1/8 to 1/4 inch of springiness when you walk across an unsupported joist bay midspan — that's expected and not a structural problem. Structural deflection is different: it's 3/8 inch or more of drop under normal weight, and it usually shows up over a specific area of the floor rather than uniformly. If you can feel a distinct drop under one foot as you walk across the primary bedroom, or if a marble placed on the floor rolls to a specific spot, that's structural. Also check for cracks in the sheet rock upstairs, gaps opening at door frames on interior walls, or interior doors that used to close and now don't — those are secondary indicators of joist or girder movement below.
For simple joist sistering with no girder or sill involvement, no engineer is required and I can spec and permit the work directly. For anything involving girder repair, sill plate replacement over about 8 linear feet, joist replacement (not just sistering), or any load-path modification, Union County requires stamped engineered drawings before they'll issue the permit. That means an engineer's site visit, drawing production, and stamp. I coordinate with a licensed structural engineer for Weddington jobs when the scope requires it. Adds 7-10 business days to the timeline and a separate line item for the engineer's fee, but it's what the code requires.
You can, but if you do, you'll be back in eight to twelve years with the same problem in a slightly different location. The structural failure exists because the crawl has been humid for a decade. If you repair the wood without controlling the humidity, the new wood will start the same rot process the original wood went through. Every structural job I do in Weddington gets bundled with encapsulation and a properly sized dehumidifier as part of the scope. If a homeowner absolutely can't afford the full bundle, I'll do structural-only with a written acknowledgment that the moisture source is unaddressed and future decay is expected — but that's the exception, not the rule.
Almost never. Weddington structural work happens under the house and doesn't require access through the finished living space. Joist sistering, sill plate replacement, and platform sistering all happen from the crawlspace with the crew entering through the crawl hatch. You'll hear some hammering during the day from the room above the work area, but you can be home and functional during the entire project. The one exception is girder resetting when we're transferring load across the house — during the actual load transfer (usually a 24-hour incremental jacking process) we ask that heavy furniture on the affected floor above not be moved and that no one jump or run in the affected area. That's it. No relocation required for standard structural scope.
Free on-site Weddington inspection. Fixed written quote. Call (980) 227-1769 or book below.