Foundation repair in Valley Hi, where the slope decides which end of the house moves.

What it produces is a lopsided house. Runoff leaves the high side of a lot and gathers on the low side, so one end of a slab sits in wetter clay than the other all year long. That is why an inspection here reads the two ends of the house against each other instead of reading the house against a city average.

AREAS WE SERVE IN VALLEY HI: THUNDERBIRD HILLS, LACKLAND TERRACE, HERITAGE, AND MEADOW VILLAGE, THE 78227 STREETS AROUND LACKLAND, STRAIGHT DOWN LOOP 410 FROM OUR VANCE JACKSON SHOP.

The ground under 78227

Valley Hi sits on Branyon clay that the soil survey mapped with a slope on it.

The USDA does not describe Valley Hi as generic San Antonio clay. It names a map unit: Branyon clay, 1 to 3 percent slopes. Branyon makes up 85 percent of it, with Houston Black and Burleson at 5 percent each, so for practical purposes the whole neighborhood sits on one soil. Branyon is a deep terrace clay with a linear extensibility near 12 percent, meaning roughly a twelfth of its volume comes and goes with the moisture in it. That is strongly expansive ground, and it is why 78227 scores 90 in the High band on our foundation risk map, the same tier as the deep clay running through the rest of the west and south sides.

The slope is the part most descriptions skip, and here it is the whole story. One to three percent is a fall you will not see standing in the yard, something like an inch to three and a half inches across a ten foot run. It is still enough to decide where rain goes. Water leaves the high side of a lot and collects on the low side, so the clay under one end of a slab stays wetter through the year than the clay under the other end. Flat Branyon ground swells and shrinks as one piece and carries the slab up and down with it. Sloped Branyon ground swells unevenly, and a slab bridging that difference has to twist. The twist is what cracks brick. Sloped lots have their own failure pattern for exactly this reason, and reading it starts with knowing which end of the lot is low.

Houses from the base years, trees that caught up

The slabs here date from the Lackland housing build and the trees have grown into them.

Valley Hi, Thunderbird Hills, Lackland Terrace, Heritage, and Meadow Village filled in between the 1950s and the 1970s, much of it as housing around Lackland. That puts almost every slab in the area inside one construction window: single story, slab on grade, poured lighter than anything a builder would pour today. Those slabs have now been through fifty to seventy Central Texas wet and dry cycles. Most of them found their level long ago, which is part of why about a third of the inspections we run end with no repair needed. The ones that have not found a level are usually the ones sitting across the lot's fall.

The trees are the second half of it. A lot planted in the sixties now carries a canopy that draws real moisture out of the clay beneath it, and it draws from the side it stands on. Put that tree on the high, already-drier end of a sloped lot and the gap between the two ends of the house widens every dry summer. Put it on the low, wetter end and it quietly does you a favor. Tree position goes on every Valley Hi report for that reason, and the answer is almost never to take the tree down. Roots dry the clay rather than pushing on the slab, so barriers and watering manage them.

What the repair usually is

On a lot with a fall in it, the water comes before the piers.

A house that moved at one end needs that end measured before anyone prices support. The free inspection here is a floor elevation survey run by ICC-certified inspectors, and on a sloped Branyon lot the map almost always reads as a tilt rather than a dish. That tells us how much of the house is actually involved. Piers run $600 to $1,000 each whether they are steel or hybrid, which are the two types we install, so the pier count off the survey is what sets the price. Every pier carries a lifetime transferable warranty, and we come back on a yearly performance follow-up inspection to confirm the readings held.

Before any of that, though, there is usually water to move. If the downhill wall is taking roof water on top of the runoff it already receives, the clay there will keep cycling under a repaired slab. Extending downspouts past the slab edge and regrading the low side cost a fraction of pier work, and on a one to three percent fall they do real work. Correcting the drainage is the first item on most Valley Hi reports, and on a fair number of them it turns out to be the only item. Where the water is coming off a cracked, back-pitched walk or patio, our flatwork crew repours it so it carries water away from the house instead of toward it.

Costs, warranty and inspections

The straight numbers on foundation repair in Valley Hi.

Nearby

Also serving the communities around Valley Hi.