Foundation Inspections in McKinney and Collin County
Homeowner inspection free; engineer's report $450 to $800
A homeowner inspection in McKinney is free. For that, a trained inspector measures the house with a level and finds out whether it has moved, how much, and why. You get a plan or a reason to leave it alone.
Most people call after one specific thing. A door that will not close. A crack that opened over a weekend. A buyer's inspector who wrote "recommend further evaluation by a foundation specialist" and walked away. The inspection answers the question that sentence leaves hanging.
What the inspector does
- Floor level survey. A digital level or a manometer measures elevations across every room on a grid. The result is a map showing how far each part of the house sits above or below the highest point. Cracks tell you something happened. The survey tells you where and how much.
- Exterior walk. Brick and mortar cracks, separation at corners, gaps at the frieze board, bowed or rotated walls, and the condition of the grade beam.
- Interior walk. Door and window operation, drywall cracks, floor gaps at baseboards, and tile cracks.
- Drainage and trees. Gutter discharge, grading, flower bed borders that trap water, and any tree big enough to pull water from under the slab.
- Plumbing history. Prior leaks, prior repairs, and whether a hydrostatic test has been done. Movement in the middle of a slab points to plumbing far more often than to soil.
- Crawl space on pier-and-beam homes: every pier, beam, sill and vent.
What you get
A written report with the elevation map, photos and the inspector's conclusion. If repair is recommended, it includes a drawing with pier locations and a per-pier price. If the house reads within normal tolerance, the report says so and lists what to watch.
Engineer's reports
McKinney, Plano and most Collin County cities will not issue a foundation repair permit without a pier plan sealed by a Texas licensed professional engineer, and McKinney also wants the engineer's final report before the permit is closed, so we bring an independent engineer in on every permitted job. An engineer's report costs $450 to $800 and carries weight a repair company's report does not. Lenders, buyers and insurers ask for it. The engineer inspects independently and writes the repair specification. In many cases the engineer also checks the piers before the holes are backfilled and signs off on the finished work.
Buyers and sellers
Buyers should get the inspection during the option period. A house with a prior repair should come with the warranty paperwork and the engineer's letter, and we check both. Sellers who inspect before listing learn what the buyer is going to learn anyway, on their own schedule. Texas sellers must complete the TREC Seller's Disclosure Notice, which asks directly about foundation and slab defects, previous structural repair, improper drainage and soil movement, so a documented repair with a transferable warranty is far easier to explain to a buyer than a known problem left alone.
When to call
Any of these is reason enough. A crack wider than a quarter inch. A door or window that binds in the same season every year. A floor you can feel slope, a gap at a window frame you can see light through, or a prior repair you know nothing about.
Send the line from the buyer's report, or a photo of the crack, to (972) 645-5576 and we will set a date inside your option period.