Repair My Foundation-A Homeowner's Look at the Options

We are experiencing a pretty long hot dry spell in my part of the world. That means making sure the clay soil around my concrete slab-on-ground foundation doesn’t dry up and pull away. I’ve been running the soaker hoses pretty regularly and they do a nice job keeping the ground around the perimeter of [...]

In my part of the world the spring rains are coming to an end and the soil is getting drier. Since my concrete slab foundation sits on shrink-swell clay soils, I have to make a concerted effort to keep the dirt around the foundation moist. It’s really not that big of a deal because of [...]

Every concrete slab that may need repair presents its own symptoms and problems. Each situation is different. The guy next door to me had piers installed all around the perimeter of his house. But the guy down the street only needed piers under the east and south side of the slab. This is one of [...]

I’ve been doing quite a bit of cosmetic fix-up inside the house over the last 10 months or so since I had root barriers installed. At the same time I had large shrubs removed from the west side of the slab foundation.
In the meantime I’ve been fixing drywall and painting. There were some small wall [...]

We had a bit of a dry spell last week and I decided to run my soaker hoses to make sure the soil around my concrete slab foundation was staying moist.
I hadn’t needed to run the soaker hoses in quite a while. Even though I have gutters that take most of the rainfall away from [...]

As I recall, soaker hoses are those porous rubber conduits one drapes around the perimeter of the foundation to supply an even measure of moisture to the slab. It’s smart to do this if your house sits on shrink-swell clay soils.
I haven’t had to use mine for six months. After two years of drought and [...]

This little blog is written from the Dallas, Texas part of the globe which happens to be in one of the busiest areas for foundation repair companies. Why?
Most of the residential neighborhoods are built on what used to be black prairie farmland.  Where once they grew cotton they now grow housing developments planted in the [...]

A question that comes to mind is “Should I worry about my soaker hoses being damaged by freezing temperatures during the winter?”
Short answer: “Not really.”
Most soaker hoses are made from recycled tires which is pretty tough stuff. Add to that the fact that soaker hoses are porous by design and should not have much water [...]

Another thing Tom the Contractor suggested for reversing the loss of moisture under my slab foundation after the root barriers were installed was to rehydrate the soil. That’s a fancy word for squirting water into the dirt under the house.

One of his crew went all around the foundation with machine similar to a power washer [...]

I’ve been talking about using soaker hoses to keep the soil around my foundation from completely drying up during this blazing hot and dry summer. If you have shrink-swell clay soil it can shrink away from your concrete slab during dry periods and possibly cause damage.
This morning, I ran across the website of a [...]