Foundation Repair in Manor, TX

Foundation Repair in Manor, TX

Manor is building fast on some of the most active clay in the metro, which means a large share of the foundation work here is on houses under fifteen years old. That surprises owners more than anything else about it.

Age is not what decides this. Soil movement decides it, and a new slab on high-plasticity clay goes through the same wet-dry cycle a fifty-year-old one does - it has simply had fewer of them.

What's under Manor

The clay here has a high plasticity index, meaning it changes volume a lot for a small change in moisture. A slab on this ground can rise and fall by an inch or more between a wet spring and a dry August, and it is that cycling, not the absolute wetness, that does the damage.

Manor sits on deep Blackland Prairie clay east of the corridor, where a decade of fast residential building has put a great many new slabs on the most active ground in the metro.

What contractors see most in Manor

• Early movement on young slabs. Symptoms inside the first decade, on houses still under or just out of builder warranty.
• Perimeter drop at corners. The corners dry out first and furthest, so they are usually where a slab lets go first.
• Gaps at door frames and baseboards. Often the first thing noticed, and usually noticed in late summer.
• Irrigation that stops at the flowerbeds. Watering the planting and not the slab perimeter is the most common own goal on this ground.

What to watch for on a home here

• Doors that stick in one season and swing free in another.
• Diagonal cracks running from the upper corners of door and window openings.
• Gaps opening under baseboards, particularly at the corners of the house.
• Wide shrinkage cracks in the yard soil during a dry spell.