Push Piers & Helical Piers in Windsor, CO
If a corner of your house is sinking, piers are how it gets stopped — and often lifted back. Here's how both pier types work and which fits which problem.
What Piers Actually Do
A pier is a steel column installed alongside the foundation and extended downward until it reaches soil strong enough to carry the weight of your home. The structure's load is then transferred from unstable surface soil to that deep, stable layer. Done correctly, the result is permanent support that no longer depends on the expansive clay near the surface.
Piers matter in Windsor because of how the region's soil behaves. Clay near the surface gains and loses moisture through the seasons, so a footing resting on it is supported one month and under-served the next. Deep piers bypass that active zone entirely, which is why they're the standard answer for genuine settlement rather than a patch that addresses symptoms.
Push Piers
Push piers are long steel tubes driven into the ground using the weight of the structure itself as the reaction force. Sections are added one at a time until the pier hits refusal — soil firm enough that further driving stops. The brackets connecting the piers to the footing are then loaded, and in many cases the settling section of the home can be lifted back toward level.
Advantages include high load capacity, no reliance on soil chemistry, and suitability for heavy, full-depth foundations. The trade-off is that installation needs room for equipment and the driving depth can be unpredictable in soils with mixed layers.
Helical Piers
Helical piers look like giant screws: a steel shaft with helical plates that twist into the ground. As the installer turns the pier, a torque reading gives a direct, measurable indication of holding capacity — which engineers like. Helicals excel for lighter structures (porches, additions, garages, retaining walls), for retrofitting where vibration must be minimal, and in soils where pushing would be inefficient.
They install cleanly with smaller equipment, are load-tested as they go, and can bear weight immediately. For many Windsor projects, helicals are chosen where push piers can't reach refusal efficiently or where the structure is too light to drive them.
Which Pier Is Right for Your Home?
| Factor | Push Piers | Helical Piers |
|---|---|---|
| Best suited to | Heavy structures, deep refusal, whole-home settlement | Lighter structures, additions, predictable capacity |
| Installation | Weight-driven, hydraulic ram | Torque-driven, rotary head |
| Capacity feedback | Pressure gauge at refusal | Torque-to-capacity correlation |
| Equipment footprint | Larger excavator | Compact, often mini-excavator |
Many projects use both: push piers along the heavy original foundation, helicals under a lighter sunroom or addition. The right mix depends on soil readings, structure weight, and access — which is exactly what the on-site assessment determines.
What the Installation Looks Like
For a typical home, expect small excavations at each pier location, usually spaced six to eight feet along the settling section. Piers are installed and load-tested one by one, then the lift — if the plan calls for one — happens slowly, in millimeters, to avoid cracking finishes. After the work, soil is backfilled and concrete patches are poured. A multi-pier job often wraps up in a few days, not weeks.
Is Your Home Settling?
Sloping floors, sticking doors, growing cracks — a free quote can help show whether piers are the answer.
Request a Free QuoteRelated repairs: foundation crack repair, basement wall repair, and waterproofing and drainage. See typical prices in the cost guide.