An estimate and an evaluation are different documents
Start by naming what you are holding.
An estimate prices a scope of work. An evaluation determines whether that scope is warranted, and what it should be. They are produced by different processes and they answer different questions, and the reason people get hurt in this market is that the two arrive in the same envelope.
A document that was produced free of charge, by the company that will perform the work, after a visit of under an hour, with no measurements attached, is a sales proposal. That is not an accusation of dishonesty. It is a description of what the document is for and who paid for it. A free estimate is a marketing expense, recovered inside the job. Nobody produces engineering analysis at no cost, and nobody should be expected to.
The problem is that the proposal looks like a diagnosis. It names a condition, prescribes a remedy, quantifies it, and offers a warranty. All of the furniture of a professional opinion is present. What is usually missing is the measurement that would let anyone — including you, including a second contractor — check the conclusion.
So the first question about any foundation quote is not "is this a good price." It is "what evidence is this number derived from, and can I see it?"
What has to be in it before it is an evaluation
Five things. If they are absent, you are looking at a proposal, and it should be priced and treated as one.
A floor elevation survey, dated
A measured map of relative floor heights across the house is the only thing in this process that produces numbers rather than impressions. It needs a date, and it needs the season noted, because North Texas slabs commonly cycle between edge lift in the wet season and centre lift in the dry season. Two surveys of the same house months apart can legitimately disagree and both be accurate. A survey with no date on it is not a measurement of the house; it is a measurement of one afternoon, unlabelled.
A plumbing test
Under-slab plumbing and slab movement are coupled in both directions. Slab movement shears drain lines. A leaking line causes localised heave or washout. In a house that is moving, someone has to establish whether water under the slab is a cause, a consequence, or absent. A static or hydrostatic test, and on older housing a camera scope of the drain lines, answers that. A structural remedy specified without it is specified on an assumption.
A statement of cause, from someone licensed to make one
Under the Texas Standards of Practice, an inspector reports performance and is not licensed to determine cause and effect. A repair contractor is not licensed to make an engineering determination either. If the document asserts a cause, ask who made that determination and under what licence.
Drainage and irrigation findings
Water at the perimeter is the mechanism. A proposal that does not mention where the downspouts discharge, whether grade falls away, whether the beds pond, or where the irrigation heads point has skipped past the thing that is actually driving the movement — and, not incidentally, past the cheapest available remedy.
A scope specific enough to compare
Where the support goes, how many, of what type, installed to what depth or to what termination criterion, and what outcome is being targeted — stabilisation, or lift, and if lift, how much and measured how. A scope that says only a quantity and a total is not comparable to anything.
Why two quotes for the same house differ wildly
Homeowners routinely collect quotes that differ by a factor of two or three and conclude that someone is cheating. Usually nobody is. The quotes are for different work, described in language similar enough to hide it.
The variables that move the number:
- Stabilise versus lift. Arresting further movement and attempting to raise a settled section back toward level are different jobs with different amounts of work and different risk.
- How much of the perimeter is included. One quote treats an elevation; another treats the whole house.
- Interior work. Support under the middle of a slab means either working through the floor or tunnelling. Whether that is contemplated changes everything.
- Support type and depth. Different systems terminate on different criteria. A quantity of supports means nothing unless you also know how deep each goes and what determines when it stops.
- Whether an engineer's plan governs the scope. A scope drawn from a sealed plan and a scope drawn from a salesperson's walkthrough are different products even when the totals look similar.
- Whether diagnostics are included or assumed. Elevation survey and plumbing testing are real costs. A quote that includes them will look higher than one that skipped them.
- Whether plumbing repair and cosmetic restoration are in or out. Very often, out. Ask.
Which leads to the rule that saves the most money and confusion: a quote with more supports is not more thorough, and a quote with fewer is not more honest. Without a stated basis, neither number means anything. There is no published standard that converts a set of symptoms into a quantity of piers — PTI DC10.5, the standard governing residential post-tensioned foundations on expansive soils, is a design standard for new construction, not a repair prescription.
The way to make quotes comparable is to stop letting each company write its own question. Get one scope defined — ideally from the engineer — and ask every company to price that same written scope. Any company that will not price someone else's scope has told you something useful.
The questions that separate a proposal from an evaluation
Ask these in writing and keep the answers. They are not adversarial; a good contractor answers them easily.
- Who determined where the supports go and how many, and what measurements were they working from?
- Was a floor elevation survey taken? By whom, on what date, and may I have a copy?
- Will the under-slab plumbing be tested before the work, and again after it?
- What is the termination criterion for each support — how do you know when one is finished?
- Is the objective stabilisation or lift? If lift, how much, and how will it be measured?
- What happens if the work breaks a drain line? Who pays for the repair, and is that stated in the contract?
- What exactly does the warranty measure, at what locations, over what period, and what voids it?
- Does the warranty cover areas that were not supported under this scope?
- Is the warranty backed by anything other than the continued existence of this company?
- Is any cosmetic restoration included — drywall, tile, brick, trim, paint — or is that separate?
- Would you price a scope written by an engineer I retain?
Two of those questions are the ones that most often change the conversation entirely: the elevation survey, and who pays if a line breaks during the lift.
The order to spend in
There is a natural sequence here, and it runs from cheap and reversible to expensive and permanent. Most people are shown it backwards.
Diagnostic spend before repair spend. An elevation survey, a static plumbing test, a camera scope and an engineer's opinion are all real costs, and all of them are small relative to structural work. They also change what the structural work should be, which is the only reason to do anything in a particular order.
Water before structure. The interventions that act directly on the mechanism are, in rough order of cost: extending downspouts, rerouting air conditioning condensate, clearing brick weep holes, pulling mulch back off the slab edge, correcting sprinkler heads that spray the foundation, correcting negative grade, and putting the perimeter on consistent watering in line with the AgriLife guidance — soaker hoses 8 to 18 inches out, low pressure, several hours, on a timer, all the way around. Nearly all of that is a weekend and a trip to a supply house.
Then time. Re-measure after a full wet–dry cycle. Because this soil cracks half an inch to four inches wide at 12 inches depth for 90 to 150 cumulative days a year, a single season is the minimum interval over which "is it still moving" means anything. Monitoring costs nothing and it is the correct recommendation more often than the market admits. It is also the one recommendation that no company selling piers has any reason to make.
Structural work last. Underpinning is a different order of magnitude in cost and irreversibility, and it belongs at the end of the sequence rather than the start.
None of this applies if you have a genuinely progressing problem with a confirmed cause. It applies to the far more common case: a North Texas house with cracks, a free estimate on the kitchen table, and no measurements anywhere.
Why this page has no numbers in it
Deliberately, and for two reasons.
The first is that repair prices go stale within a year and this reference is intended to outlive them. A number published today is a wrong number soon, and a wrong number quoted back to a contractor helps nobody.
The second is more useful. What actually drives the total is structural, and knowing the drivers lets you evaluate any quote in any year: the number and depth of supports, whether interior access requires tunnelling or cutting the floor, whether the objective is stabilisation or lift, whether an engineer's plan governs, whether plumbing testing and repair are included, what the soil and access conditions are, and whether cosmetic restoration is in scope. Two quotes that differ on four of those variables are not comparable at any price.
It is worth noting that the Texas Standards of Practice take the same position for the same reason: under 22 TAC §535.227, an inspector cannot be required to provide repair cost estimates, recommendations, or re-inspection services. The report tells you what was observed. What it costs to address is a matter for the licensed trades who will do it, priced against a scope that somebody qualified defined — which brings the whole thing back to the first question on this page. What evidence is this number derived from, and can I see it?
Common questions
Is a free foundation estimate worth anything?
It is worth what it is: a priced proposal from the company that wants the job. It is not an evaluation, because it usually contains no floor elevation survey, no plumbing test, and no determination of cause by anyone licensed to make one. Free estimates are useful for understanding what a contractor proposes to do and what they charge. They are not useful for deciding whether the work is needed.
Why do two foundation quotes for the same house differ so much?
Almost always because they are quoting different work. Stabilising differs from lifting. Treating one elevation differs from treating the whole perimeter. Interior support requires tunnelling or cutting the floor. Support depth and termination criteria vary between systems. And some quotes include diagnostics and plumbing testing while others assume them away. Ask every company to price one written scope and the spread usually collapses.
Do I need a plumbing test before foundation work?
You should have one, because slab movement and under-slab plumbing are coupled in both directions — movement shears drain lines, and a leaking line causes localised heave or washout. Without a test, nobody knows whether the plumbing is a cause of the movement, a casualty of it, or uninvolved. On older slab housing a camera scope of the drain lines is worth adding, and the whole question should be settled before a structural scope is written, not after.
Should the elevation survey come from the repair company?
You can accept theirs, but get a copy and check that it carries a date and identifies who took it. The reason to prefer one commissioned independently is that the survey is the evidence the scope is built on, and the party producing the evidence is also the party being paid for the conclusion. Whichever way you go, keep the survey. It becomes the baseline against which any future movement is judged.
What should a foundation warranty actually say?
It should state what is being measured, at which locations, over what period, what conditions void it, whether it transfers to a subsequent owner, and whether it covers only the areas supported under this scope or the whole house. A warranty that promises the work rather than a measurable outcome is difficult to enforce. It is also worth asking what backs it besides the continued operation of the company that issued it.
Is it ever reasonable to do nothing?
Frequently. Nearly every slab in North Texas has moved, and movement is not damage. If the drainage and irrigation problems have not yet been corrected, if the distress has not been documented across a full wet–dry cycle, and if there is no vertical offset or progressive change, then correcting the water and monitoring for a season is the proportionate response. It costs almost nothing, and it produces the one thing a single afternoon's opinion cannot: a time series.