Montgomery Foundation Co. connects you with a local specialist for the full failure chain Black Belt clay causes: settlement (piering from $1,200/pier), slab movement (from $3,500), cracks (from $400), drainage (from under $500), and sunken concrete (from $500). Each preceded by a measured evaluation.
Foundation Piering & Underpinning
Steel piers past the active zone to stable bearing, with the depth each one reached logged individually.
Slab Foundation Repair
Perimeter or interior support for slab-on-grade, placed where the laser survey shows the drop.
Foundation Crack Repair
Injection, carbon staples and repointing: timed for after the movement, not during it.
Drainage Correction
Taking the wet-season swell off the footings, from downspout extensions to drain lines with verified discharge.
Concrete Leveling
Polyurethane lifting for drives, walks and porch slabs that have followed the clay down.
Foundation Settlement Repair
The full sequence where a corner has dropped: measure, underpin, then repair what cracked.
Pier & Beam Foundation Repair
Sills, girders and piers under the older in-town stock on brick foundations.
Helical Piers vs Push Piers
When helical makes sense over push piers, and when the Black Belt's deep active zone makes it the wrong call.
Exterior vs Interior Waterproofing
Which side to solve the water from, and why the answer here usually starts outside.
Insurance & Foundation Repair
What Alabama policies typically exclude, and the narrow cases that get paid.
Structural Engineer or Contractor?
When an independent engineer is worth the fee, and when the elevations already answer it.
Cost Guide: What Repairs Run in Montgomery
What actually moves a number here: depth to bearing above everything else.
Why the services come as a set
Expansive clay does not specialise. The same seasonal cycle that drops a footing cracks the brick above it, tilts the patio slab, and by the next dry August has pulled support from a different corner entirely. It is one mechanism producing five symptoms that get sold as five products.
A company organised around a product sells that product. A good specialist is organised around the soil, so the evaluation reads the whole chain and the scope carries only the links your house actually needs.
Which repair fixes which failure
| What you see | The clay mechanism | The fix | Typical range | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stair-step cracks, dropped corners, sloping floors | Black Belt clay shrinking away from the footing through a dry August | Piers to stable bearing | $4,000–$15,000 | 2 days–1 week |
| Interior slab cracks, doors racking | Differential movement as the clay swells unevenly beneath a slab | Perimeter or interior support | $3,500–$12,000 | 2–5 days |
| Cracks widening between seasons | The wet-swell, dry-shrink cycle opening paths through masonry | Injection and reinforcement | $400–$1,500 | Hours |
| Water pooling at the wall, soggy beds | Roof and lot water feeding the swell cycle | Grading, extensions, drains | Under $500–$6,000 | 1–2 days |
| Stepped driveway joints, tilted patio | Flatwork riding the clay with no footing beneath | Polyurethane lifting | $500–$2,500 | Hours |
Two or more symptoms nearly always share one cause. One evaluation, one scope, one mobilization. That's the cost control this soil allows.
Sequence is the service
Anyone can install a pier. The skill is ordering the work so it stays fixed: water managed before steel goes in, structure stabilised before finishes are repaired, cosmetics last and only once movement is provably over.
On Black Belt clay that last condition is the one people skip. Repointing brick during a wet winter, while the clay is swollen against the footing, means repointing it again after the next dry August. Ask for a scope written in sequence with an itemized price per line, and for lines the measurements do not justify to be left off.
Service questions
Which service does my house actually need?
The elevations decide. A floor survey shows which run of the foundation moved and by how much, and the scope follows from that rather than from a package. On this clay the answer frequently includes drainage alongside anything structural.
Is there a charge for evaluations?
Many local specialists don't charge for the first visit, but it depends on the company. Ask when the specialist calls, before they come out. Ask to keep the photographs, the crack measurements and the laser floor elevations whether or not the specialist ends up quoting the work, including when the recommendation is to watch it through a full wet-dry cycle and do nothing yet.
Can one crew handle structure and water together?
One crew can handle structure and water together, and on Black Belt clay that is the point. Moisture swing is the mechanism behind the movement, so a structural repair scoped without the drainage that caused it is half a job billed as a whole one.
Get a Montgomery foundation evaluation
Tell us what the house is doing (stair-step cracks, doors that stick every August, sloping floors, separating trim) and we'll pass it to one independent local specialist for an evaluation. A local specialist who works in Montgomery will call you back.