A pier that taught an early lesson about pilings
When Hans Kure's son built the town's fishing pier in 1923, it went up on untreated pine-pole pilings — marine borers weren't well understood at the time, and those pilings failed within about a year. The pier has been rebuilt more than once since, including after Hurricane Hazel struck this coast in 1954, but that first failure is a reminder that material choice below the waterline, or the water table, has mattered here for a century.
Why piling material still matters for foundations
The same lesson applies to what sits under a house rather than a boardwalk: untreated or corrosion-prone materials don't hold up long against Kure Beach's salt-laden, moisture-heavy barrier-island ground, which is a major reason pier-and-support systems here lean on treated or corrosion-resistant materials rather than whatever would suffice further inland.
Project paths
Give us these details up front
Note the crack width and whether it's running diagonally through masonry or straight through drywall, whether doors or windows have started sticking, any slope you've noticed in the floors, and the approximate age of the home.
Flood-zone and code considerations on the peninsula
Given Kure Beach's low barrier-island elevation near Fort Fisher, both the North Carolina building code and FEMA's flood-elevation requirements shape what a foundation repair or elevation project is allowed to do here.