Mobile Home Skirting Repair in Edinburg, TX

Skirting is the panel wall that closes the space between a manufactured home’s floor and the ground. It keeps animals and blowing rain out, keeps the underbelly and ductwork protected, and in nearly every park in the Valley it is required by the rules. When it buckles, cracks, or goes missing, it is usually telling you something about what the home underneath it is doing. We arrange repairs and full replacements across Edinburg and Hidalgo County, vented to the Texas standard and installed with the access opening the state requires. Repairs run $200 to $800. A full vinyl replacement runs $900 to $2,500 by perimeter and height, and the free level check includes a look at why the skirting failed in the first place.

What skirting does, and what Texas requires of it

Skirting has four jobs and one legal spec.

Keeps animals out. In Hidalgo County that means cats, possums, raccoons, and anything else that finds a gap. An animal under the home tears the underbelly, which is how a skirting problem becomes a vapor barrier problem.

Keeps blowing rain off the underside. September is the wettest month at McAllen, 4.61 inches on the 1991 to 2020 normals, and much of it arrives sideways in thunderstorms. Skirting takes most of it.

Reduces wind under the floor. Not structural, but it matters in a gust, and it keeps the ducts in the belly from working against a hot crawl space in August.

Protects the plumbing and ductwork that run under the floor.

The legal spec is 10 TAC 80.22, the state’s generic standard for moisture and ground vapor control. When the space under a home is enclosed, the enclosure needs:

• An access opening of at least 18 inches in any dimension and 3 square feet, that opens without tools, placed so the water and sewer connections can be seen.
• Ventilation of 1 square foot of net free area per 150 square feet of floor, in at least six openings: one at each end, two on each side, and one within 3 feet of every corner. Screening counts against the free area.
• Dryer exhaust, air conditioner condensate, and combustion air passed through the skirting to the outside, with condensate lines run so nothing ponds within 5 feet of the foundation.
• A ground vapor retarder of 6-mil polyethylene under the home, overlapped about 12 inches.

Under 10 TAC 80.21(f), whoever installs the skirting is responsible for the vapor control and the cross ventilation. A skirting job that ignores the vent count is not a finished job.

Why it fails here

The home settled. Skirting is cut to fit the gap on the day it is installed. On the shrink-swell clays south of Pharr and Alamo and east of Weslaco, the home rises after the September rains and drops through a dry summer, and the panels bow in the middle, pop out of the top rail, or open a gap along the bottom. On the Hidalgo loam under most of Edinburg and McAllen the home just settles, and the panels buckle. Either way the skirting is the symptom and the relevel is the fix.

Sun. Vinyl goes brittle and chalky under Valley UV. August normals a 99.6 degree high at McAllen, and a south-facing panel that has baked through a dozen summers cracks the first time a trimmer or a football finds it.

Floods. Water 18 inches to 4 feet deep, which is what Hanna left east of Edinburg and around Mission in 2020, floats skirting off its track and folds it. The June 2018 flood did the same in Mission, McAllen, and Weslaco. Skirting replaced after those floods was often cut to a gap the home had already changed.

Mowers and trimmers. Always the same corner, always the bottom foot.

Animals. Pushed-in panels near a utility penetration.

A poor original install. No top rail fastened to the home, no bottom track, panels overlapped the wrong way, and far too few vents. A great deal of Valley skirting was put up without anyone reading 80.22.

Materials, honestly

Vinyl is the common choice: least expensive, matching panels easy to find, replaceable one section at a time. Its weakness is UV, and it is the material most of the Winter Texan parks along Business 83 and International Boulevard are skirted in.

Insulated vinyl costs more and helps the ducts in the belly through the summer.

Metal stands up to impact and animals and handles sun better, at more cost and with corrosion to think about on the saline clays around Alamo and Weslaco.

Simulated block or stone panels look better and cost considerably more. Common on homes being prepared for sale.

Whatever the material, the details decide whether it lasts: a fastened top rail, a bottom track, panels overlapped the right direction, vents at the rate the rule requires, and a real access door in a sensible place. Many homes have skirting with no access at all, which means cutting it every time anyone needs to get underneath.

What the crew does

Look at why. Buckled in the middle means settling. Cracked at the bottom means the mower. Folded means water or wind. Missing vents means moisture. The crew reads the skirting before touching it, because a skirting job on a home that needs leveling is money spent twice.

Repair. Broken panels swapped, the top rail refastened, a bottom track added where there was none, vents cut in to reach the rule’s count, an access door installed where the water and sewer connections can be seen.

Replace. Old skirting down, the ground vapor retarder laid if there is none, new panels cut to the gap of a home that has just been leveled, vents and access built in from the start.

Bundle. If the home needs a relevel, the skirting comes off for it anyway. Doing both on one visit is meaningfully cheaper than two trips.

What it costs

Priced by perimeter and height. Everything is on the pricing page.

When to call

Call when panels have bowed or popped off the rail, when there is a gap you can see daylight through, when something has moved in underneath, or when the park office sends a notice. Call first if anything in the home has started sticking, because that decides whether this is a skirting job or a leveling job wearing skirting as a symptom. See skirting damaged or missing for the diagnosis.

We cover Edinburg, McAllen, Mission, Pharr, San Juan, Alamo, Donna, and Weslaco.