Screw Jacks in Crawl Space

[Chris Garrett]

I am currently under contract on a house that I found out has a few spots in the crawl space with just screw jacks sitting on dirt. I've received a few bids to fix this. Two contractors bid around $8K to build new columns to replace the screw jacks (long-term solution). One of the contractors bid $1,500 to just replace all of the screw jacks and poor concrete footings under them. All the contractors have good references. Would the screw jacks with concrete footings be a dependable option? If so, how long would a solution like this be good for?