Mobile Home Tie-Down & Anchor Calculator

This works out roughly how many anchors and frame ties your home should have, so you know whether what is under it now is obviously short.

It reports a range, never a single number, because the binding figure is the spacing table in your own home’s installation manual. Anything claiming to know the exact count without that manual is guessing.

Why anchoring matters away from the beach

People assume tie-downs are a beach issue. All four counties we cover are HUD Wind Zone II, rated to 100 mph, including St. George and Walterboro well back from the water, for a straightforward reason: Hugo’s hurricane-force winds in 1989 carried far inland through Berkeley County, and being inland is not the same as being out of it.

The homes that deserve the most worry here are the ones set before the 1994 HUD standards, which were anchored to a lighter rulebook. A great many of those are still in the Lowcountry parks with their original anchoring, and a great many have never had it inspected, let alone retrofitted.

What goes wrong with existing anchoring

Corrosion. Straps and anchor heads rust, particularly where they sit in damp sand under a home. A strap that looks fine at the frame can be substantially gone where it enters the ground.

Loss of tension. As a home settles on sandy soil, the geometry changes and straps slacken. A loose strap is doing very little.

Anchors pulled or loosened in saturated ground. Sand that has been wet for weeks holds an anchor differently from dry sand. After a wet season or a tropical system, anchors that were adequate can have moved.

Missing ties at the ends. The standard wants a strap within two feet of each end of the home, and that is a common omission on older installs.

Too few for the home’s size. Especially on homes that were widened, added to, or moved.

What to do with the number

Go and look underneath, or have somebody look. Count what is actually there and compare. If the count is obviously short, or if the straps are slack or rusted, that is worth dealing with regardless of whether anything in the home is sticking.

Anchor and strap work runs $600–$3,500 for a full retrofit or new install on the pricing page, with individual anchor or strap replacements typically quoted per anchor and strap re-tensioning often bundled into a relevel at little or no extra cost.

That last point is worth knowing: if you are having the home releveled anyway, that is the cheapest moment to deal with anchoring, because our crew is already under there.

Licensing, which is not optional in South Carolina

South Carolina licenses manufactured home installers through the LLR Manufactured Housing Board, and installation work, which includes blocking, leveling and tying down a sited home, falls under that license. Ask for the number in writing, verify it is current with the Board, and ask for the insurance certificate separately. The FAQ covers what else to ask for.

The other two free tools

The settling self-check scores twelve visible signs and will tell you honestly if nothing is wrong. The cost calculator prices a relevel from the published table.

We cover anchor work across Charleston, Summerville, Goose Creek, Moncks Corner, North Charleston, St. George, and Walterboro.