Questions Edmond homeowners ask us

Insured, yes — general liability and workers' compensation, with certificates available before anyone starts. Licensed needs a longer answer: Oklahoma issues no state trade license for foundation repair. The Construction Industries Board covers plumbers, electricians, mechanical contractors, roofing contractors and inspectors, and the state does not license general contractors at all. So no company in Edmond holds a state foundation license, and any that claims to is describing something that does not exist. What does apply is insurance, local registration where a jurisdiction requires it, and the building permit.

On most residential properties in our service area, yes, including the elevation survey and the written report. We charge where the visit is substantially longer than standard — large or unusual properties, pre-purchase inspections needing a formal report at short notice, and commercial buildings. If a fee applies, you are told the amount when you book.

Published guides put most Oklahoma jobs between $3,000 and $9,000, with the wider national band running $2,000 to $15,000 and beyond. Crack injection is roughly $250 to $1,200 per crack. Piers run about $1,200 to $2,800 each for push and $1,500 to $3,200 for helical, and a typical 2,000 square foot house with confirmed settlement needs six to twelve, which puts that work around $8,000 to $18,000. Your number depends on the pier count, and the pier count comes from the survey.

Because the price is set by the number of piers and their locations, and those come from the floor contour and the load path, not from how long a crack is. Any figure given before a survey is a guess, and guesses in this trade are reliably high. The survey takes an hour or two, it is usually free, and it is the only way the number means anything.

Expansive clay. Central Oklahoma sits on Permian red beds — reddish clay and shale, rich in montmorillonite and bentonite, with a plasticity index in the range where soils are classed as highly expansive. The clay swells when wet and shrinks when dry, and Edmond's weather cycles it hard: roughly 31 inches of rain a year arriving very unevenly, with May around 4.6 inches against January's 0.8, plus long summer droughts. The movement that damages houses is the uneven part — one area drying faster than another.

Usually not. Standard homeowner policies cover foundation damage from a covered peril — fire, windstorm, a fallen tree, vehicle impact, explosion, or sudden plumbing or HVAC water escape. They exclude settling, shrinking, expansion and cracking, plus wear, earthquakes, flooding, sinkholes and tree root pressure. Soil movement causes most foundation damage here and soil movement is excluded. Two things worth checking: earthquake damage needs separate coverage in this state, and a sudden under-slab plumbing failure may qualify where a slow leak will not.

For structural repair in Edmond, generally yes. The City requires a permit for any project that constructs, enlarges, alters, repairs, moves or demolishes a building or structure. Applications go through permits.edmond.gov, with Building and Fire Code Services on 405-359-4790 and code questions on 405-359-4780. Budget roughly $100 to $500. Other jurisdictions in our area run their own processes. We confirm and pull the permit for your address.

Not always. For a straightforward job of a few piers on an obvious pattern, our survey and scope generally suffice. Get an independent engineer — roughly $350 to $900 — when you are buying or selling, when a lender or insurer asks, when two contractors have given you very different scopes, or when the recommended work runs into five figures. We work to engineers' specifications routinely and we are comfortable being checked.

No, and a good share are not. Concrete shrinks as it cures, new houses settle for the first couple of years, and plaster and drywall move. What matters is pattern: stair-step cracking in brick mortar, diagonal cracks from door and window corners, cracks with one side displaced from the other, doors binding on one edge, floors sloping consistently, and gaps opening at trim. Those travel together and point to movement. A hairline crack following a drywall joint usually does not.

Probably the opposite, and it is an important distinction. A domed floor usually indicates center lift — the soil under the covered middle of the slab staying damp while the exposed perimeter dries hard and contracts through the summer. The remedy is removing the moisture differential and letting things equalize, not jacking the perimeter. Piering a heaving slab can make the damage worse, so if you have been quoted piers for a domed floor, please get a second opinion.

Often, yes, and we will say so even though it is the smaller invoice. Where the survey shows modest movement and the exterior walk finds downspouts discharging at the wall, ground falling back toward the house or irrigation soaking the perimeter, correcting the water and monitoring through a seasonal cycle is the proportionate first step. It costs a fraction of piering and a good number of houses here stabilize. Where real bearing support has been lost, drainage will not lift anything.

Almost certainly not. Basements are uncommon across the Oklahoma City metro: expansive clay pushes hard against below-grade walls, the water table sits high in places, and southern codes never required footings below a deep frost line, so there was no structural reason to dig one. Nearly all Edmond housing is slab-on-grade. Many homes do have a storm shelter or cellar, which has similar water-management issues on a smaller scale.

It will narrow many of them and close some. It will not make them disappear, and anyone promising that is overselling. Lifting recovers part of the movement, but materials take a set over years and brick and mortar do not return to original geometry. Cosmetic repair is separate work afterwards, and we usually suggest waiting through a seasonal swing before doing it so you are not paying a decorator twice.

Pier warranties normally are, which matters at resale — buyers' agents ask for the paperwork. Read what it covers: the piers installed and the elevation achieved at those points. It does not cover movement elsewhere under the house where no pier went in, because that soil is untouched and still behaves like Oklahoma clay. We give you the full terms with the scope, before you sign.