Guides
Guides for Boston homeowners
Background you can read before or after an inspection. Each guide sticks to what was checked on official sources and to what helps you decide.
- Why foundations move in BostonMade land, drumlins and puddingstone ledge a few blocks apart, then four feet of frost and a century of lime mortar.
- Piers, braces and other repairsSteel jacked or screwed down to firm ground, pile heads rebuilt by hand, uprights against a leaning cellar wall.
- What a repair price is made ofPier count, depth to clay or till, alley access, stone versus concrete, an engineer's stamp. Then how to set two bids side by side.
- Getting a foundation inspectedA contractor's visit versus an engineer's report, the readings taken, and the paper to request once it is over.
- Permits in BostonBoston's long form permit, stamped plans, the three-decker rule, and where Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop issue theirs.
- Buying or selling a Boston houseMassachusetts sellers and agents, the 2025 inspection rule, and the file of documents that calms a sale.
- Checking a Massachusetts contractorHIC registration, the Construction Supervisor License, the one-third deposit cap and reading a warranty.
- A yearly foundation routineGutters after leaf fall, snow kept off the wall, a spring walk through the cellar, a dated crack log.
- How the referral worksFrom the first phone call to a proposal on paper, and the limits of what this website does.
- Questions and answersTiming, party walls, three-owner buildings and who picks up the phone.
Foundation repair in Boston
Have a Boston foundation company take a look
Give the street, the kind of building and what has changed. The company settles a day to visit, and afterwards you receive its written account of the cause and what it would charge.
Ready to have it looked at?
Phone and say what you have seen. The firm on the other end is a Boston-area foundation repair company, independent of this website, and it can book a visit to your home.
Call (617) 555-0111You speak with an independent company, not with this website. See the referral disclosure.