Mobile Home Leveling in Palm Springs

Palm Springs has about 2,000 mobile homes, and its residents skew older: the median age is about 58. More than a quarter of the city’s homes, about 28%, are held for seasonal use, per the Census. A lot of homes here sit empty for part of the year, which is when a settling pier tends to go unnoticed. Palm Springs is about 11 miles in a straight line from the middle of Palm Desert. We relevel homes, rebuild piers and footings, check tie-downs and repair skirting and underbellies here. Typical relevel ranges are $450 to $800 for a singlewide and $750 to $1,400 for a doublewide.

Part-year owners

If you come back for the season and a door will not latch, the cause may have started months ago. A pier that settled with nobody home can go unnoticed until your first week back. A level, pier and tie-down inspection before you leave, or soon after you return, gives you a written picture of the home so the next visit holds no surprise. It typically runs $150 to $350.

The ground in Palm Springs

The valley floor around Palm Springs is sand. NRCS maps Myoma fine sand, formed in sand blown from recent alluvium, across the middle of the valley, and Carsitas sand and gravelly sand on the alluvial fans of the north side. Both are low in clay and drain fast, with no caliche layer. What we look for here is a footing set on loose or disturbed sand, or water reaching it. NRCS notes that irrigation or seepage can create a seasonal water table 2 to 5 feet down in Carsitas sand, and that summer thunderstorms can briefly flood the sand. A home beside a watered garden or a sprinkler line is the first place we look. See pier and pad repair.

Heat, rain and Hilary

Palm Springs averages a July high near 109F, about 115 days a year at 100F or more, and about 4.6 inches of rain a year. July 2023 was its hottest month on record, with an average high of 113.6F. Then on August 20, 2023, the remnants of Hurricane Hilary dropped about 3.2 inches on Palm Springs, 69% of a normal year in one storm, and the city declared a local emergency. I-10 closed between Bob Hope Drive and Indian Canyon Drive.

Most of a normal year’s rain in one storm, running across sand, is a good reason to look at the footings. If water ran under your home that August, it is worth a look even now. Heat on its own is not something we blame for settling; we look for the water.

Permits in Palm Springs

California treats altering or replacing a home’s supports or tie-downs as a reinstallation that needs a permit (Health and Safety Code 18613). Inside parks, HCD is the enforcement agency unless a city has taken over. Outside parks, the city issues permits. The contractor who pulls the permit must show a valid licence, and the class is the CSLB C-47: ask for the number and check it on CSLB. More on the California rules page.

Earthquake bracing questions

Earthquake bracing is optional in California and needs its own permit; our earthquake bracing page explains the rules, and why tie-downs are not the same thing.

Related

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• Doors and windows sticking
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