Primary method

Steel pier foundation repair.

Galvanized steel piers, driven through the active clay to load-bearing strata, so your slab finally rests on something that doesn't move with the weather.

Book free inspection What it costs

A settled slab is really a soil problem wearing a concrete disguise. Somewhere under your home, the ground gave way, and any fix that stops short of below that moving ground is borrowing time, not buying a solution. That single fact is why GroundLock builds every repair around how deep the support reaches, not how quickly the crack disappears.

Steel piers solve it by changing the load path entirely. Instead of resting on near-surface clay that swells in spring and shrinks through a Hill Country August, your foundation's weight is carried down to dense, stable strata and held there. The clay can do whatever the season tells it to do; your house no longer has to follow.

Why depth is the whole ballgame here

East of the Balcones Escarpment, the Blackland Prairie sits on Houston Black clay, a vertisol with plasticity indices that commonly run 40 to 60. Its active zone, where moisture and movement actually happen, reaches roughly 8 to 12 feet below grade.

Any pier that stops inside that zone is anchored to the very material that's moving. Steel piers are driven past it to refusal on competent rock or dense subsoil, so the support sits in ground that simply doesn't participate in the shrink-swell cycle.

What a steel pier actually does under your slab

A steel pier is a stack of galvanized steel sections, hydraulically driven straight down beneath the perimeter beam or an interior load point, one section at a time. Unlike a pressed-concrete pier that's set to a preset depth, steel keeps advancing until it meets ground dense enough to resist further driving, the point engineers call refusal. West of I-35 that's often the Edwards or Austin Chalk; to the east it's denser, less plastic subsoil at depth. Either way, the soil itself decides where stable support lives, pier by pier.

That driving process doubles as a live field test. The installer watches hydraulic pressure on every section, and advancement only stops once the gauge confirms the pier tip has engaged something that can carry the transferred load. Hot-dip galvanizing matters at that depth because the alkaline-to-neutral clays around San Antonio and Austin are mildly corrosive to bare steel over decades, the coating is what keeps the pier carrying load for the life of the structure.

Once the piers are seated, lifting is done in coordinated, conservative increments, usually fractions of an inch per pass across multiple piers at once. Rushing one corner ahead of its neighbors is how a slab that survived years of slow settlement gets cracked during the repair itself. When the structure reaches target elevation, the brackets lock and the load transfers permanently to deep bearing strata.

What is moving on Signs the slab

Cosmetic symptoms usually show up well before anyone thinks "foundation." A few together is reason enough to get measured:

Doors and windows that suddenly drag, stick, or won't latch the way they used to
Stair-step cracks marching through exterior brick or block veneer
Diagonal drywall cracks radiating out from the corners of doors and windows
Floors that slope, dip, or feel bouncy in one part of the house
A widening gap between the brick veneer and the soffit, or between trim and ceiling
Visible separation at the slab edge or where the garage floor meets the wall

Questions Central Texas homeowners ask us

How far down do the piers actually go around here?

There's no fixed number. Depth is set by drive resistance, not a spec sheet. Each pier is pushed hydraulically until it reaches refusal on load-bearing strata, which across this corridor often lands anywhere from 12 to 30-plus feet, comfortably below the 8-to-12-foot active clay zone.

We're west of I-35 on rockier ground, does steel piering still make sense?

Yes, and depth usually behaves differently there. West of the escarpment the piers tend to reach the Edwards or Austin Chalk sooner, so they often seat shallower than they would on the deep Blackland clay to the east. The driving process finds competent bearing wherever it is under your specific lot.

Once you lift it, will the cracks stay closed for good?

Steel piers stop the structural movement that opens cracks in the first place. After we stabilize and re-level, cosmetic cracks can be patched and typically stay closed, and that result is what the lifetime transferable warranty stands behind.

If I sell the house, does the next owner keep the warranty?

They do. The steel-pier stabilization carries a lifetime warranty that transfers to the next owner, along with the documented before-and-after elevation survey. In the San Antonio and Austin resale markets, where foundation history is standard due diligence, that paper trail is a real asset rather than a red flag.

Do we have to move out while you work?

Almost never. The work happens at the perimeter and a few interior points, and most homes and buildings stay occupied throughout. Typical residential projects run one to three days on site depending on pier count and access, and we re-survey elevation before we leave.

Roughly what does a steel pier project cost?

Most projects fall between $4,500 and $14,000, with the count and spacing of piers, set by your elevation survey, driving the number far more than any flat per-pier rate. Financing is available, which matters because most homeowners policies exclude soil-movement settlement, so this is usually an out-of-pocket repair.

After you fix it, is there anything I should keep doing to protect it?

Two habits do most of the work. Keep positive drainage, aim for at least a 6-inch drop over the first 10 feet away from the foundation, and hold irrigation and watering setbacks at least 18 inches off the beam. In a hard drought, a soaker hose run evenly around the slab keeps the clay from pulling away. Piers stop recorded movement; managing the water keeps new movement from starting.

Schedule

Book your free
foundation inspection.

Tell us where you are and what you’re seeing. A GroundLock structural advisor confirms within one business hour.

Lifetime warranty 1-hour callback Engineer-backed

Foundation guides