A good Chattanooga foundation evaluation takes about an hour and should produce a written report: laser floor elevations, measured crack widths, wall plumb, a mapped water path above the house, and itemized line prices, including a recommendation to do very little.
What a good hour includes
- The walk uphill, where water enters the property, what concentrates it, where it crosses, and where it leaves. On a slope this is the part that finds the cause.
- Laser floor survey: elevations across the plan, which defines what actually moved
- Crack documentation: widths measured and photographed, with orientation noted
- Wall plumb readings on any cut-slope or uphill foundation wall
- Crawl inspection where the house has one: piers, sills, girders probed for decay, moisture assessed
- Retaining wall measurement where a wall holds soil near the foundation
- Written scope: cause, sequence, an itemized price per line, and timeline
What you're not agreeing to
Nothing. Ask to keep the report whether you hire the specialist, hire someone else, or decide to build the swale yourself and see what happens. A good one is detailed enough to take to another company for a comparable bid, and a report that survives a competitor's review is the only kind worth having.
Get a Chattanooga foundation evaluation
Tell us what the house is doing (stair-step cracks, a wall pushed in on the uphill side, water crossing the lot, sloping floors) and we'll pass it to one independent local specialist for an evaluation. You get a call back from a local specialist who serves Chattanooga.