Elevated Home Pilings: Protect Your Foundation Before It's Too Late
The same wood-boring organisms destroying dock pilings are attacking the pilings under your elevated coastal home. Deep South Marine Restoration stops the damage in its tracks — without lifting or moving your structure.
Don't Neglect the Foundation of Your Home
Deep South Marine Restoration takes pride in the service and materials that we provide to our clients daily. One should never cheat on dock piling repair and/or protection on your homes, camps, boathouse or any type of elevated building. Protecting your pilings that actually hold up your entire dock or home is so important — before you see the initial signs of decay, protect them.
What you need to do first is make sure the structural stability of the elevated home and/or dock is safe. Especially if you and/or your family are the ones who will be walking, jumping, or running on it. The most horrible events have happened when an owner did not make sure their elevated home was safe — a few family members have fallen through due to the collapse of pilings. The owner failed to protect against the well-known factors that ultimately deteriorate every piling that touches water.
Our piling wraps are applied to homes on stilts, pilings, docks, bulkheads, camps, boathouses, and sea walls. One must maintain and protect your investment on the water or land just as you would tune up your car and give it regular maintenance.
Risks of Unprotected Pilings
- ✓ Gribble crustaceans and Teredo worms attack all wood in contact with water
- ✓ Damage is nearly invisible until the piling is already structurally compromised
- ✓ Known piling damage must be disclosed when selling — affects property value
- ✓ Repair costs are a fraction of structural failure, re-elevation, or re-piling
- ✓ Compromised pilings are more likely to fail under hurricane storm surge and wind loads
What Happens to Your Pilings
What happens is your pilings will get boring worms that burrow into the wooden pilings and literally attack it. These are also called marine pests. Examples of marine pests are the Gribble — a crustacean that eats through any type of wood in the water. It's also known as the wood burrowing worm. These are the primary reasons for any pilings to fall apart or get damaged.
We don't have our pilings on our minds that often, so it seems as though when it is cracked or starts leaning that it just happened. At Deep South Dock and Piling Restoration, we can protect houses on piers or dock pilings with our patented piling protection system that supports and therefore increases its lifespan by years.
We have found that by wrapping the pilings with piling wraps, it protects them tremendously. A piling wrap is a protective layer of a plastic-type material that keeps burrowing animals from penetrating it. We highly recommend that you get this done when you are initially installing them — but we can also do this after an infestation. Taking care of this sooner than later will be much cheaper.
"Next time you are cruising the waterways, pay close attention to the camps along the river and look at all of the pilings under the docks, and even under the camps themselves. Nine out of ten times, pilings will express some damage."
The Hidden Threat to Elevated Coastal Homes
Elevated coastal homes throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Texas are built on wood pilings exposed to the same Teredo shipworms and Limnoria organisms that destroy dock pilings — often in equally aggressive saltwater and brackish water environments.
A damaged dock piling is a serious safety issue. A damaged home foundation piling is a potential catastrophic loss — and unlike a dock, most homeowners never think to inspect the pilings under their home until something goes very wrong.
Our Approach to Home Piling Protection
Deep South Marine treats elevated home pilings with the same patent-pending system we use for commercial docks and marine structures.
Free Inspection
We access each piling and assess structural condition, organism damage, and splash zone severity — at no cost and no obligation.
Prioritization Plan
We identify the most compromised pilings first and develop a phased repair plan if needed — addressing critical pilings immediately.
Neutralize & Wrap
If decay is present, we neutralize it first — our crew will not simply cover up live worms. Marine-grade wrap is then applied to seal the piling from future organism entry.
Concrete Encapsulation
For structurally compromised pilings, we add marine-grade concrete reinforcement — restoring load-bearing capacity without lifting your structure.
Documentation
We provide written documentation of all work completed for your records, insurance purposes, and future property disclosure requirements.
Hurricane Preparedness
Protected pilings are far less likely to fail under hurricane storm surge and wind loading — one of the most cost-effective investments in Gulf Coast preparedness.
A Note for Commercial Property Owners
There is another reason docks and homes on the water get destroyed: natural happenings such as storms, spills, hurricanes, and other natural occurrences can damage boathouses, pilings, bulkheads, and docks. All owners know the risk they take with any investment on or near the water.
We also warn of the need to protect any commercial walls in ports, marinas, or any type of wood that needs to be protected against marine pests and reinforced for natural damage. A commercial operator needs to know all about the dangers — if a visitor gets hurt on a degraded wooden dock or deteriorating structure, a lawsuit might be in the near future.
"Bottom line, always try to educate yourself on the different ways you can protect yourself and all others. Call us today at (985) 200-2225 and let us come and see if you have an infestation in your docks, houseboat, or pilings. We will exceed your expectations with our professionalism, great customer service, and unbeatable prices!"
Why Choose Deep South Marine Restoration?
The Gulf Coast's most experienced marine restoration crew — with the system to prove it.
Expert Divers
Our certified dive crews inspect and protect pilings above and below the waterline — reaching damage that surface inspections miss entirely.
Patent-Pending System
Our proprietary wrap and encapsulation system is the only one of its kind on the Gulf Coast — the result of years of field refinement in the most aggressive marine environments in the country.
Free Inspections
Every job starts with a no-obligation on-site inspection. We tell you exactly what we find — good or bad — and give you an honest recommendation before any work begins.
Ready to Stop the Damage Before It Gets Worse?
Our team is standing by for free on-site inspections across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and Texas.
Frequently Asked Questions
Get answers to common questions about dock piling repair, protection, and restoration.
Yes — and often worse. Elevated coastal homes built on wood pilings are exposed to the same wood-boring organism threats as docks, plus the additional stress of supporting a structure. Homeowners often don't inspect their pilings until they see foundation settlement or movement, by which point significant structural damage may already exist.
In most cases, yes. Our wrap and encapsulation system is installed from outside the piling, working from the ground or water level. We do not need to lift or displace the structure for most piling protection and reinforcement work. We assess each situation during a free inspection and will tell you honestly if a more complex approach is needed.
Signs to watch for include: visible soft spots or discoloration on piling surfaces near the waterline, floor bounce or settlement, cracks in interior walls that worsen over time, or doors and windows that no longer close properly. If your home is more than 10 years old and the pilings have never been inspected, schedule a free inspection now — before you see any symptoms.
The splash zone — the area where pilings alternate between wet and dry — is the most aggressive attack zone for wood-boring organisms and environmental degradation. Our wrap system specifically addresses this zone, sealing the most vulnerable section of each piling.
Absolutely. The cost of wrapping and encapsulating the pilings under an elevated home is a fraction of the cost of structural failure, emergency repairs, or elevation and re-piling. This is also a disclosure issue for homeowners planning to sell — known piling damage must be disclosed, and untreated damage can significantly affect property value.
Have More Questions? We're Here to Help.
Call or text us any time Monday–Saturday, 7AM to 7PM.