Thirty years of housing stock, 1920s bungalows up near 31st down to 1950s ranches by 51st, and almost all of it on pier and beam.
Brookside runs from 31st Street south to 51st, Lewis Avenue on the east, the river on the west, with the Peoria strip down the middle. The houses get older as you go north. The blocks near 31st and 33rd filled in during the 1920s and 30s. The ranches south of 41st went up after the war. Different decades, same clay, mostly the same foundation.
Pier and beam, almost all of it. The prewar bungalows and Tudors sit on brick or early concrete piers with a crawl space of 18 to 30 inches. The postwar ranches south of 41st are pier and beam too, usually poured concrete piers, with a little more clearance underneath. Slabs didn't take over Tulsa until the 1970s, and by then Brookside was built out.
Here's the Brookside wrinkle. A huge share of these houses have a slab addition. Somebody in 1978 or 2010 wanted a bigger kitchen or a den off the back, and the cheapest way was to pour a slab against the old house. Now you've got a pier and beam front half and a slab back half, and they don't move the same way. That joint is the number one trouble spot we find in this neighborhood.
On the old side, piers tilt and girders sag. Ninety years of clay swelling in spring and shrinking in August works a brick pier loose a little at a time. The hallway floor dips. The bedroom door won't latch. Joists rot at the ends where the crawl space has been damp for decades.
On the slab side, a dry summer like 2011 or 2022 pulls the back corner of the addition down an inch. A wet spring heaves it back up, but not evenly. Tile cracks in a line. The door between the old house and the addition binds at the top.
Crow Creek runs through the middle of the neighborhood, and the lots near it hold water. Those blocks swell harder and dry slower. We see more heave than settlement there, and drainage often matters more than piers.
Elms, sycamores, and oaks planted when the houses went up are 70 to 90 feet tall now, and a tree that size pulls hundreds of gallons out of the soil every week in July. The side of the house facing the tree drops. We can show you on the level.
Original plumbing is cast iron drains and galvanized supply under the old section, and those lines are past their life. A slow leak keeps one corner of the crawl space wet year round, and that corner settles. Under a slab addition a leak is worse, because you can't see it. The first sign is usually a water bill or a warm spot on the floor.
Remodels stacked load on piers never sized for it. A granite island over a 1930s girder, an upstairs bath added in the 80s. We find scab posts and stacked blocks where a previous owner felt the floor go soft.
For the pier and beam section, it's crawl space work. We jack the sagging girders back to level over a few days, add or replace piers under the sections that dropped, and sister new lumber alongside rotted joists. If the crawl space is wet, we fix the water first. New piers on wet clay just move again.
For the addition, it's slab work. Push piers or helical piers go in along the settled edge, usually at the joint and the back corners, and we lift the slab back to meet the old floor.
For the ranches, most of them we can shim and pier from inside the crawl space. A few with low clearance need a dig.
Written quote after a free inspection. No phone numbers.
Because the two halves move at different speeds. The slab rides every swell and shrink of the clay. The pier and beam side flexes on its piers. We pier the slab edge at the joint and shim the old side so they stay together.
Some do. A new slab poured on a lot that just had a 1940s house pulled off it is sitting on disturbed dirt. We see settlement in years two through five on infill builds, same as the new subdivisions in Jenks.
Usually 18 to 30 inches. Tight, but we work in it. If a section is too low to reach we dig a small access pit, not through your floors.
Lots along the creek stay wetter longer, so they swell harder in spring and they're slower to dry in summer. That's less shrink but more heave. Drainage matters more on those blocks than piers do.
Yes. We crawl it, measure the floor, check the addition joint if you have one, and write you a quote. No charge.
Nearby neighborhoods: Maple Ridge | Midtown Tulsa
Related service: Crawl space and pier and beam repair
Related reading: Why settling is worse after drought years | Signs your Tulsa home has foundation issues
We come look, you get a written quote. No pressure.