Settling Foundation Repair: When Part of a Des Moines House Sinks
When one corner of a house drops, the clues usually appear upstairs first: a door that will not latch, a floor where a marble rolls, a diagonal crack climbing from a window. Settling foundation repair carries the load past soft or wet soil to firmer ground below.
Steel piers typically cost $1,000–$3,000 each (This Old House and Fixr, 2026), and Fixr puts repair of a settling or sinking foundation at $4,500–$25,000 overall. Underpinning a full wall runs $10,000–$40,000. Lifting and leveling a whole house is rarer and costs about $20,000–$30,000 in Fixr's guide.
Is my foundation settling?
- Diagonal cracks in drywall or plaster running up from the corners of doors and windows.
- Doors that drag or swing open by themselves, especially on one side of the house.
- Floors that slope toward one wall, or a gap opening under baseboards.
- Outside, cracks stepping through brick, or a chimney pulling away from the siding.
Seasonal sticking that comes and goes with humid summers is common in older houses. Settlement tends to keep going in one direction, so date your observations and compare them a few months apart.
Why part of a house sinks
Footings settle when the soil under them gives: backfill that was never compacted, ground softened by a leaking downspout or pipe, or soil that shrinks as it dries. Polk County's soil survey lists shrink-swell, flooding and a shallow saturated zone among the reasons its soils are rated limited for basements, and about a fifth of the county's soil acreage formed in river and creek alluvium (USDA NRCS). The glacial till under much of the county is dense, but the soil a footing actually sits on is often fill or a softer layer above it.
Push piers or helical piers?
Push piers are steel pipe sections driven down with hydraulic jacks, using the weight of the house as the counterforce, until they reach soil that holds. They suit heavier homes.
Helical piers are screwed in like large augers, with the installer reading torque to judge bearing. They suit lighter loads such as porches, additions and garages.
Either way, brackets are fixed to the footing and the load moves onto the piers. The depth is set on site, which is why bids give a count and a per-pier price rather than one firm total.
When an engineer earns the fee
For a house you are about to buy, cracks that keep widening, or bids that disagree on the cause, an independent structural engineer is worth considering. Fixr lists a report at $300–$2,000 and This Old House at $500–$1,000. The foundation repair price table for Des Moines shows piers and underpinning beside the other repairs.
Questions homeowners ask
Will piers make my floors level again?
Sometimes partly. Piers stop further settling and can raise the structure some, but how far depends on how long it has been down and how the framing has adjusted. Ask what lift the installer expects and whether doors or drywall will need work afterward.
Tell us what you're seeing at home
A line or two is enough: the crack, the damp spot or the sunken slab, and roughly where it is. One independent foundation specialist who works in Des Moines will call you to talk it through and arrange a visit.