Foundation repair in McKinney
Cracked walls, sloping floors, sticking doors. McKinney sits on expansive clay that's a known challenge across North Texas, and it affects century-old homes downtown as well as houses built five years ago. Tell us what you're seeing and we'll come out and measure the house, free, with no obligation.
- Free inspection with proper elevation readings
- Fixed written price before any work starts
- Strong warranty on every repair we do
Book your free inspection
McKinney and surrounding areas.
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One of our foundation specialists will call to arrange a time to come out and take a look. That's usually the same day, and always within one business day. In a hurry? Call (888) 622-7133.
Foundation work in McKinney
Your foundation is everything holding the house up: the slab or the piers and beams beneath the floor, the soil they sit on, and the drainage keeping that soil stable. When any part of it moves, the damage shows up somewhere else. We work on all of it.
Why houses move here
McKinney sits on the Blackland Prairie, ground the USDA describes as having high shrink-swell potential and low strength for building on. Locally it's often called black gumbo: it swells when wet and pulls away from a foundation during a North Texas drought.
McKinney's history splits its housing stock in two. The historic downtown core has homes going back generations, long since past their major settling. The newer side of the city, in communities like Stonebridge Ranch, Craig Ranch and Eldorado, is mostly graded and filled land from the last two decades, and that fill soil can still be settling under some of these houses.
That's the twist that surprises a lot of McKinney homeowners: a home in the five-to-fifteen-year range showing foundation cracks isn't necessarily a sign anything was done wrong. It's sometimes the fill still working through its settling process, on top of the ordinary clay cycle everyone in this soil deals with, though every lot is different.
We measure every house before quoting, whether it's a century-old downtown home or one that's barely a decade old, because both are dealing with the same clay, just potentially at different points in that particular lot's history.
McKinney at a glance
- Dominant problem
- Blackland Prairie black gumbo clay, a well-documented expansive soil across North Texas.
- Typical foundation
- Pier and beam in the historic downtown core. Slab-on-grade in the newer master-planned communities.
- What we usually reach
- Depth to stable soil is generally more consistent across McKinney than in fault-line cities like Austin, though fill quality varies lot to lot in newer construction.
- Worst season
- Late summer, when the clay has been shrinking for months and cracks tend to open fastest.
- Newer construction
- Homes in the five-to-fifteen-year range on filled lots sometimes show earlier movement as that fill continues to settle. This varies by lot.
- Typical job
- Usually one to three days on site for most homes.
What we see in different neighborhoods
Historic Downtown McKinney
Homes going back generations, long past their major settling. Movement here tends to follow the ordinary seasonal clay cycle rather than anything tied to construction age.
Stonebridge Ranch
One of McKinney's older master-planned communities. Established enough that most of the original fill settling has generally worked through.
Craig Ranch, Eldorado
Newer development on graded and filled lots. A common source of cracking in homes in the five-to-fifteen-year range, as the fill soil continues settling.
Tucker Hill and surrounding newer growth
Recently built neighborhoods where a baseline inspection is worth considering even if the house seems too new to have a foundation problem.
Not sure it's serious? Check first.
Pick where the problem is and what it looks like. We'll give you an honest read, including the times the answer is that it's nothing and you don't need us.
Pricing in McKinney
Price depends on several things together, and in McKinney, whether a lot is settled downtown ground or newer fill is one of the more significant factors. These are the ranges most jobs fall into.