Foundation repair for San Angelo homes

How it works

1. Call or send a request

   Call or send the form with your town and what you're seeing in the house.

2. We connect you

   We pass it to an independent foundation repair contractor that serves San Angelo and the county around it.

3. They call you back

   The contractor checks the house, explains what's moving, and prices the repair with you directly.

Who uses this site?

Homeowners in San Angelo, Grape Creek, Wall, Christoval and the rest of Tom Green County who think the foundation under their house is shifting. That includes slab-on-grade ranch houses with a dropped corner, older crawl space houses with soft or sloping floors, buyers whose inspector wrote up the foundation, and sellers who want to know what they're dealing with before they list. We connect you with a contractor; we don't do the repair.

Why do foundations move so much around San Angelo?

The short answer is clay that changes size with moisture, in a climate that swings hard between dry and wet. Several of the soils the USDA has mapped right around the city are clays dominated by smectite, the mineral family that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. The Tobosa series, described from a field about 10 miles northeast of San Angelo, has cracks up to about an inch wide that run 20 to 60 inches down. The Lipan series, described about 7 miles southeast of the courthouse, has deep, wide cracks that stay open for more than 150 days a year. Even the Angelo series, a clay loam on top, has a clay subsoil that USDA rates as high shrink-swell.

San Angelo averages about 21 inches of precipitation a year under 1991 to 2020 normals, and July highs average 96°F. That means long stretches when the ground around a house dries and shrinks, broken up by storms that soak it quickly. A house sitting on that soil gets pushed up, let down, and twisted a little at a time. Texas's own building regulators note that wet expansive soil can lift a building and dry soil can let it settle, which is exactly the cycle you see here.

What signs should send you looking closer?

• Stair-step cracks in brick or stone veneer, usually starting at a corner or a window
• Drywall cracks that angle up from the corners of doors and windows
• Doors that drag, won't latch, or swing shut by themselves
• A floor that slopes toward one side of the house or dips in the middle of a room
• Gaps opening between baseboards and the floor, or between cabinets and the wall
• Cracked floor tile running in a line across a room
• Cracks you patched that reopened after the next dry spell

One thin crack in a garage slab is common and usually not a structural problem. A handful of these signs showing up together, or signs that change from season to season, is the point where it's worth having someone measure the floor. Our crack repair page covers what to watch.

What kinds of repair are there?

• Slab leveling. Supporting and raising the part of a concrete slab that has dropped, most often with piers under the perimeter beam. See slab foundation leveling.
• Pier-and-beam leveling. Re-shimming, adding or resetting interior supports, and fixing rotted sills in crawl space houses. See pier-and-beam leveling.
• Piering. Choosing between pressed concrete, steel push and helical piers, and deciding how many are actually needed. See foundation piering.
• Crack repair. Sealing and finishing cracks once the cause is understood. See foundation crack repair.
• Drainage. Gutters, downspout extensions, grading and drains that keep water from pooling against the beam. See foundation drainage.

Is every moving house a piering job?

No, and that's worth knowing before the first estimate. Clay this active can lift part of a house as easily as it drops another part. A slab whose middle has risen because of a plumbing leak, or a house that rises and falls a little with the seasons, may need a leak repair or better moisture control rather than a long row of piers. Ask the contractor to show you the elevation readings and explain why the low spots are low. If the proposal is large and the explanation is thin, an independent evaluation by a licensed professional engineer is a reasonable step before you sign.

What helps between now and the evaluation?

• Take dated photos of each crack with a tape measure in the frame
• List which doors and windows stick, and whether it's worse in summer or winter
• Walk the house during a rain and see where the downspouts and runoff go
• Check for a water bill that jumped without explanation
• Keep soil moisture around the foundation steady; the City of San Angelo's water conservation rules currently allow foundation watering with a soaker hose on any day, within the weekly limit

Are you a foundation repair company?

No. San Angelo Foundation Repair is a referral service. When you call or send the form, we connect you with an independent contractor that serves your address. That contractor inspects the house, writes the proposal, does the work and stands behind it. Before you hire anyone, look over how the referral works and what to ask, and read the San Angelo foundation guide for the local details.

Areas we cover

• San Angelo
• Grape Creek
• Wall
• Christoval

Planning ahead? Read our San Angelo foundation guide.