Why the downhill side of the house sets the price in Buncombe County
Set a home on a cut-and-fill pad in Candler, Leicester, or up a hollow outside Fairview and the piers on the downhill side can stand three feet taller than the ones against the bank. That is the ordinary condition for mobile home skirting installation in Buncombe County, not a special case, and it is the main reason a quote here should never come from a flat per-foot number. A level lot in the Piedmont might take a uniform 30-inch panel all the way around. The same home on a Buncombe slope needs short panels on the uphill side, full-height panels on the low side, and a run of custom-cut pieces stepping down between them.
Height changes three things at once. Panel quantity climbs, because every extra foot of exposure is another course of material. Framing climbs, because vinyl over about four feet needs a mid-rail or it flexes in wind and buckles under wet snow. And the vent layout gets harder, because the state sizes ventilation to floor area rather than wall height, so a tall downhill wall needs its vents placed on purpose instead of wherever the panels happen to land. Asheville sits a little above 2,000 feet and many county homesites run higher, so whatever goes on also has to survive real freeze-thaw and the long wet winters that the county's disaster record reflects.
What a proper skirting job includes, start to finish
A single-wide on a plain pad is a one-day job. A double-wide on a stepped mountain lot can take two. The work breaks down like this:
- Measure every side separately. The crew runs a line at the bottom of the rim joist and measures to grade at each pier, because on a sloped pad the number changes every few feet.
- Grade and ground prep. Loose soil is raked to shed water away from the home, and a ground vapor retarder goes down if one is not already there. Skipping this on a wet Buncombe site is how floor insulation ends up soaked by February.
- Top rail and bottom track. The top rail fastens to the rim joist; the bottom track sits on treated lumber or is buried an inch or two so wind cannot lift it.
- Panels, vents, and access. Panels are cut to each measured height, vents are spread to meet the floor-area ratio, and an access opening is framed where a plumber can actually reach the water line.
- Mid-rail on tall runs and corner trim. Anything over roughly four feet of exposure gets horizontal backing, and the steps where grade changes get closed so cold air and animals stay out.
When the home is going through setup at the same time, skirting is the last trade on site. It cannot go on until the piers are shimmed, the tie-downs are tensioned, and the utilities are connected, because each of those jobs needs open access under the floor.
What skirting costs here, by material and home size
These are the installed ranges this site uses across the county, with the local factors that move a Buncombe job inside each one:
| Scope | Typical installed range | What pushes it toward the top locally |
|---|---|---|
| Vinyl skirting, single-wide | $1,000 to $2,500 | Downhill exposure over 4 ft, mid-rail framing, rocky grade that fights the bottom track |
| Vinyl skirting, double-wide | $2,000 to $4,000 | Longer perimeter plus the same slope factors; insulated panels land near the top |
| Masonry or faux-stone skirting | $3,000 to $6,000 and up | Stepped footings on a slope, block count on the tall side, matching an existing porch or foundation |
Vinyl is the default for a reason: it moves with frost heave and costs little to patch after a mower or a fallen limb finds it. Insulated vinyl adds R-value that earns its keep in a north-facing hollow where the sun leaves by mid-afternoon, and it pushes a vinyl job toward the top of its range rather than past it. Masonry makes sense when the land is owned, the home is staying, and the owner wants it to read more like site-built construction; on a slope, the stepped footing is where that money goes.
Storm repair is quoted as a share of a full job. Buncombe County carries 19 federal disaster declarations over 1973-2026, including a tropical storm in 2024 and a winter storm in 2026, and skirting is usually the first thing moving water or a sliding snow load takes out. A crew that has rebuilt a lot of blown-out downhill walls will tell you plainly whether the rest of the run is worth keeping.
Vents, vapor barrier, and the state rules behind them
Skirting in North Carolina falls under the state's manufactured home setup regulations, which the NC Office of State Fire Marshal administers through its Manufactured Building Division. The parts a homeowner should know are short. Skirting must be ventilated in proportion to the home's floor area, with the usual figure being one square foot of net free vent area per 150 square feet of floor, and the vents spread so air crosses under the home instead of bunching on one side. The ground should carry a vapor retarder. There must be an access opening a person can actually fit through. On a tall downhill wall in this county, the most common miss is an installer who sizes vents for the short uphill wall and forgets that the floor area did not shrink.
Licensing surprises people. Skirting on its own is not a licensed trade in North Carolina. When it is installed as part of a setup, though, the setup contractor must hold a license from the Manufactured Housing Board under the NC Department of Insurance, and the skirting rides on that contractor's responsibility. If you are hiring skirting as a standalone job on a home that is already set, ask whether the crew also does setups. A crew that passes setup inspections regularly knows the vent math without looking it up.
Where skirting ends and anchoring begins
Owners sometimes ask whether heavier skirting makes a home more wind-resistant. It does not. The HUD wind zone for Buncombe County is Zone I (24 CFR 3280.305), the lowest of the three, and the home's wind resistance comes from the tie-down and anchoring system built for that zone, not from the panels around the crawl space. Skirting's job is to keep the underfloor dry, keep animals out, and hold heat near the water lines when the National Weather Service posts a freeze warning for the mountains, which happens routinely from November into March at Buncombe elevations.
The order of operations matters after a move. A home arriving by transport gets blocked, leveled, anchored, and connected before a single panel goes up. A crew that wants to skirt before the anchoring inspection is planning to leave before the inspector shows up. On an existing home being re-leveled or getting tie-downs added, expect a section of skirting to come off and go back on, and expect that line on the quote.
Four questions that keep a skirting quote honest
“Did you measure every side, or just one?” One measurement on a Buncombe lot means the installer is guessing at the downhill wall, and the guess comes back as a change order. “How many vents, and where?” The answer should reference the home's floor area, not the panel count. “Is there a mid-rail on the tall side?” Panels over four feet with no backing are the first thing a winter wind off the ridge takes. “Who closes it back up after the plumber?” Skirting gets opened for every underfloor repair; a real access door and removable panels cost little now and save a call later.
