Sinking Foundation Repair Somerset, TX.
On Somerset's flat Blackland Prairie, a slab doesn't drop one corner, it rides the whole perimeter down as the clay swells and shrinks. Here's how we stop it for good.
How we stop a sinking slab out here
Map the whole floor first
We run a free elevation survey that reads grade to ±0.01 in. (1/64 in.) across the full perimeter and interior, turning a vague "it feels off" into a contour map of exactly where and how far the slab has dropped.
Build an engineer-backed scope
The survey feeds a written plan, pier locations, target depths, expected lift, and drainage fixes, built to a third-party engineer's spec rather than a guess about where to put jacks.
Drive galvanized steel piers past the active clay
We press each pier hydraulically, watching the resistance climb, until it seats on load-bearing strata well below the 8-to-15-foot zone that moves with the seasons.
Lift, lock, and address the water
The settled sections are raised back toward level, the piers are locked off, and we correct the grading or drainage that let rain pond against the footings in the first place.
Why Somerset slabs sink across the whole footprint
Somerset sits on the open, low-relief Blackland Prairie south of San Antonio, where heavy clay runs from one property line to the next without much natural drainage relief. That flatness is the catch. A hillside lot has an obvious uphill and downhill side, so settlement shows up in one predictable spot. Here the same expansive clay underlies the entire slab, so it swells after a storm and desiccates through a Central Texas summer as one coordinated mass, and when it finally consolidates and loses the ability to recover, the sinking is measurable and progressive rather than isolated to a single corner.
The soil doing this is the Houston Black series, a high-plasticity Vertisol with a plasticity index that commonly runs from 40 to over 60. That number matters: a wide gap between the clay's liquid and plastic limits means dramatic volume change between wet and dry states. Below the seasonally active zone, roughly 8 to 15 feet down in this part of Texas, the clay finally reaches a stable moisture equilibrium and stops participating in seasonal movement. That depth boundary is the whole ballgame. Support that terminates above it stays at the mercy of the weather; support that reaches below it does not.
It's also why pressed-concrete piers so often keep moving after they're installed. They frequently bear in the same active clay that caused the trouble. Driving galvanized steel piers below that layer is what makes the repair mechanically independent of how wet or dry the yard gets.
The marble test tells on a flat-prairie slab
Roll a marble across a hard floor and even a half-inch of differential settlement will show itself. Pair that with stair-step cracks in the brick veneer, diagonal cracks off door and window corners, and doors that suddenly bind at the top, and you're likely looking at a slab that's dropped, not a house that warped.
The free elevation survey settles the question with numbers, not a hunch, before anyone quotes a repair.
Signs a Somerset foundation is settling
A sinking slab out here usually announces itself through a familiar sequence of clues:
- Stair-step cracks in brick or stucco mortar joints, often along one wall run
- Diagonal drywall cracks climbing from the corners of windows and interior doors
- Cracked or popping grout lines in floor tile
- Exterior and interior doors binding or gapping at the top corners
- A room that used to feel level now carrying a subtle, persistent slope
- Rain ponding at the slab edge because finished grade falls less than 6 inches over the first 10 feet
Somerset sinking-foundation questions
What does it cost to fix a sinking foundation in Somerset?
Do you work in my part of Somerset and Bexar County?
Why steel piers instead of pressed concrete on Blackland clay?
Once you've piered it, can it sink again?
Will the cracks in my walls close back up after the lift?
How do I keep the clay from dropping a corner again?
Should I get an independent engineer's report first?
Book your free
foundation inspection.
Tell us where you are and what you’re seeing. A GroundLock structural advisor confirms within one business hour.
All foundation services in Somerset
Every GroundLock service, available throughout Somerset and the surrounding area:
Get your free foundation inspection.
A licensed inspector measures your slab elevation to ±0.01 in. (1/64 in.) and gives you a written, engineer-backed plan with zero pressure.