What this covers
Water arrives in a small number of ways and leaves in a smaller number still. The pages below are grouped by which of those a job actually addresses, because the wrong category is the usual reason a foundation repair job gets done twice.
Three questions sort almost every inquiry. Is the water on the surface or in the soil? Does it arrive from above the building or from below it? Is there anywhere lower to send it? Answer those and the right page is usually obvious — and so is the wrong one.
There are cracks in the walls or the slab
Foundation and Wall Crack Repair in Houston, TX
Cracks are repaired once movement has stopped. Sealing one that is still opening buys a season and removes the only thing telling you how fast the house is moving.
The floors slope, or the doors have stopped closing
House Leveling and Foundation Piers in Houston, TX
Leveling a house means installing support below the soil that is moving, then raising the structure back toward its original elevation as far as it will safely go.
Pier and Beam Repair in Houston, TX
Pier and beam houses are leveled by adjusting the supports under the floor framing, which is far cheaper than slab work when the piers themselves are sound.
Concrete outside has dropped or lifted
Concrete Leveling and Slab Lifting in Houston, TX
Concrete leveling raises a sunken slab by filling the void underneath it, either with a cement slurry or with expanding foam, and the concrete itself is reused.
Water stands against the house, or the soil has pulled away from it
Foundation Drainage and Moisture Control in Houston, TX
Clay swells when it takes on water and shrinks when it dries, so the damage comes from the swing between the two rather than from water alone.
Nobody has told me what is actually wrong yet
Foundation Inspection and Elevation Survey in Houston, TX
A foundation inspection takes relative floor elevations across the whole structure and writes them down, so the shape and size of the movement is a measurement rather than a description.
It is a business, not a house
Commercial Foundation Repair in Houston, TX
Commercial foundation work is priced from occupancy, phasing and engineered load before it is priced from area, because the building usually has to keep operating.
I have two quotes and do not know which to take
Pressed Piles vs Drilled Piers in Houston, TX
Two ways of reaching support below the active clay. One is driven with the weight of the house, the other bored and poured to a designed depth. It is the decision on nearly every settled slab in clay country, and the two are quoted for the same house at different prices with different timelines.
Mudjacking vs Foam Lifting in Houston, TX
Two ways of raising a sunken concrete slab: a cement slurry pumped underneath, or an expanding polyurethane foam injected through smaller ports. It is the choice on any flatwork that has dropped — a driveway, a patio, a garage floor — and both are offered for the same job at different prices.
When not to buy one
Water on the floor after a heavy rain, near one wall, with a downspout outside it. Fix the downspout first. Water that seeps through a wall in a wet spring and never in summer. Look at the grade first. A drain installed around either of those is money spent on the wrong cause.
Two checks worth making before anyone quotes you.
- Extend the downspouts. A roof outlet should discharge at least 6 feet from the wall, and 10 is better. One downspout can put hundreds of gallons against a footing in a single storm, and an extension costs a small fraction of a drain.
- Fix the slope. The ground in the first 10 feet should fall away from the house, about 6 inches over that distance. Where it falls toward the house instead, water is being delivered to the wall on purpose.
If either is wrong, correct it and watch one more storm before spending anything larger.
Read what a Houston foundation repair job costs before calling anyone, and check the Houston Foundation Repair Co service area to see whether your street is covered.
Back to Houston Foundation Repair Co.
The ground under Houston
Trusted across Houston, Texas and Harris County
What this site is good for
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Residential and commercial
A house with a wet basement and a site with standing water on a hardstanding are different jobs at different scales. Both are covered, and the pages say which is which.
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Free, and nothing attached
Working out which job you actually have costs nothing and commits you to nothing. There is no fee to you at any point, because this site is paid by the contractor and not by you.
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Your details are not for sale
An address sent here goes to a foundation repair contractor working in the area. It is never sold, and never passed to a second firm.
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Permits named, not glossed
The pages name the authority that issues the permit for this work and the inspection that goes with it, so you can ask to see one before the first cut.
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Every figure sourced and dated
Soil, rainfall and housing figures each name where they came from and when they were retrieved. Where a published estimate carries a margin of error, the margin is shown too.
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One town, covered properly
This site is about one place and the towns within a short drive of it. It is not a national directory with a city name dropped into a template.
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An open pier cut past the slab edge. How deep it has to go is decided by the ground, not by the house. -
The lift itself, read off a dial indicator. Deciding where to lift is the part that takes the measuring. -
One line of piers at three stages. The turf going back is what the finished job looks like.
Ground that is saturated has nowhere to put the next storm, and water sitting against a wall keeps working on it.
What happens after you send an address
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The address first, and only then who you are
The first screen asks for the property address and checks that a contractor covers it. Only if one does does it ask for a name, a phone number and an email — there is no point taking your details to tell you nobody serves your street.
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Your details are not for sale
It goes to a foundation repair contractor working in Houston. The details are never sold, and never passed to a second firm.
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No cost, and nothing attached
There is no fee for sending an address and no obligation that follows from it. Deciding the work is the wrong work is a perfectly good outcome.
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Who does the work
An independent foundation repair contractor, not the publisher of this site. Who runs this site, and where every figure on it comes from, is set out on the about page.