Oak Meyer Gardens's Homes Deserve Solid Foundations

What Foundation and Waterproofing Challenges Affect Oak Meyer Gardens?

The mature trees that make Oak Meyer Gardens so pleasant are also, quietly, hard on its foundations. Just south of Brookside, this well-kept mid-century neighborhood is shaded by large, thirsty root systems that reach right into the soil around the house.

During a dry spell those roots pull moisture out of the expansive clay faster than anything else, and as the clay loses water it shrinks and drops — removing support unevenly from under the foundation and opening settlement cracks. Then the rains return, the clay swells back, and the block basements common here take seepage through the joints the movement has worked loose. It's a wet-dry cycle amplified by the landscaping itself.

JLB stabilizes against both swings. Where root-driven shrinkage has settled the foundation, we pier the affected areas to soil deep enough to stay moist and stable year-round; where the block joints have opened, we seal them and add interior drainage so the seasonal seepage is captured and pumped away.

You shouldn't have to lose the trees to save the foundation. In Oak Meyer Gardens we anchor the house below the reach of the moisture swings and seal the joints the movement created — so the canopy stays and the basement stays dry.

In Oak Meyer Gardens the drought is when the damage announces itself — a crack that opens as the summer dries the clay and the tree roots pull the last moisture out. We look at the landscaping and the settlement together, because piering below the roots' reach is what keeps the next dry August from reopening the same crack the last one made.