Like many areas in the United States, much of Texas including Dallas is home to expansive soil that is heavy in clay. While this soil appears sturdy enough, it comes with a unique issue when a home foundation is built on it. When the clay is wet, it swells and when the clay is dry, it shrinks. This shrink-swell cycle is why, on some hot Texas summer days, you can actually see the soil pulling away from your foundation. Dallas Foundation Repair outlines what this means for your foundation below.
Soil Shrinkage
Constant swelling and shrinking of expansive soil means shifting is a regular occurrence too. And any shifting is undesirable for a foundation. In the wet seasons, drainage solutions are employed to keep the soil nearest slab foundations from becoming too swollen with water and causing problems such as heaving in foundations during heavy rain periods. Unfortunately, too few homeowners consider shrinking during summer a problem. When soil pulls away from your foundation during the hot, dry season, it is no need for panic but it is something you should address by adding moisture when the soil is too dry. You can achieve this with something as simple as watering the soil around the foundation with a hose to help limit the extreme shifting that can happen as the soil switches from dry to wet. If watering by hand is inconvenient or too time consuming, you can place a soaker hose about a foot to a foot and a half away from your foundation and let it run for about 20 minutes when it is really hot or install a sprinkler system that waters the area around your foundation. Obviously, don’t water too much and allow the soil to get too wet or soggy as this will cause the opposite problem and the soil will expand. If left unchecked, warm temperatures can cause foundations to break and become uneven leading to costly foundation damage such as sinking, settling or cracking.
How to Tell if Soil is Shrinking & Needs Watering
As mentioned above, house foundations that experience blistering hot summers may experience the soil contracting due to insufficient moisture content. This pulls the soil away from your foundation. The only way to know whether the soil is pulling away from your foundation is to look for gaps between your foundation and the surrounding dirt. If it has caused visible damage, ask a licensed foundation repair contractor like Dallas Foundation Repair to professionally evaluate your foundation.
The goal is to stop the gap between your foundation and the soil from getting bigger as soon as possible. Not only do you avoid problems that escalate in severity the more time they are left unaddressed, but your repair cost will also be a lot lower if you catch and fix issues quickly.
Slab Foundation Repair in Lewisville, Flower Mound, Carrollton, Plano, Richardson, Grapevine, Garland, Mesquite, Grand Prairie, Arlington & Greater Dallas, Texas
Do you have a home built on expansive soil? It may not mean you have foundation problems yet, but it does require that you monitor your foundation more closely. When temperatures soar above 100 degrees in Dallas, Texas check the soil surrounding your foundation for lack of moisture and address it. Contact Dallas Foundation Repair today to keep your home on a steady slab foundation!
