Foundation repair for Midland and Odessa homes

How it works

1. Call or send a request

   Call or send the form with your address and what you're seeing in the house.

2. We connect you

   We pass it to an independent foundation repair contractor that covers Midland, Odessa and the county around them.

3. They call you back

   The contractor measures the house, explains what's moving and why, and prices any repair with you directly.

Who is this site for?

It's for homeowners on both ends of the Midland–Odessa area who think the house is shifting. That might be a brick ranch in Midland with a crack running up from the garage corner, a 1950s house in central Odessa with floors that roll underfoot, or a newer place out in West Odessa where the slab edge has started to show a gap. It's also for buyers whose inspection report says "evidence of foundation movement," and for sellers who want to know what a buyer's inspector will find. We don't do repairs. We connect you with a contractor in Midland or Odessa who does.

Why do foundations move out here when it hardly rains?

Because the ground under a house doesn't need much water to change, and in a dry place the water it does get tends to be uneven. Midland International Air and Space Port averages about 13.5 inches of precipitation a year under the 1991 to 2020 normals, and Odessa's normals come in a little lower, around 12.3 inches. Most days the soil around a house is dry. Then a summer thunderstorm, a broken sprinkler line or a leak under the slab soaks one side of it.

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation explains the mechanism in its bulletin on foundations over expansive soils. Shrink-swell soil with high moisture heaves and lifts a building. When moisture drops, the soil collapses and the building settles. A slab that sits on soil kept wet in one corner and bone-dry everywhere else is being pushed and dropped at the same time.

What is the ground like under Midland and Odessa?

Both cities sit on the southern edge of the Llano Estacado. The Handbook of Texas describes the soils of that plateau as dark-brown to reddish-brown sands, sandy loams and clay loams, over a hard layer of calcium carbonate it calls caliche. For Midland County, the Handbook says sandy red and dark loam soils predominate. Ector County spans the lower shelf of the Great Plains and the northern edge of the Edwards Plateau, and less than 1 percent of it is rated prime farmland.

Caliche matters for foundations in two ways. It can sit only a few inches to a couple of feet down. The USDA's Kimbrough series, which is extensive on the Southern High Plains, reaches a cemented caliche layer 4 to 20 inches below the surface. That hard layer can stop a pier sooner than a crew expects, and it slows water from soaking in, so runoff can sit in the softer soil above it. Clay loam pockets, playa slopes and fill dirt on graded lots add their own movement. What's under your specific lot can only be told by digging or testing.

What should make you look closer?

• Stair-step cracks in brick that start at a corner, a window or the garage opening
• Drywall cracks running at an angle from the top corners of doors
• Doors that rub at the top, won't latch, or swing on their own
• A floor that slopes toward one wall, or a hump down the middle of a hallway
• A gap opening between baseboards and the floor, or between cabinets and the wall
• Tile cracking in a straight line across a room
• A water bill that jumped without explanation, or a warm spot on a slab floor

One hairline crack in a garage floor is usually just concrete shrinkage. Several of these together, or cracks that keep growing, are a reason to have the floors measured. Our foundation evaluation page explains what that visit should cover.

What repairs can a contractor offer?

• Slab repair. Supporting and lifting a section of slab that has dropped, usually along the outside beam. See slab foundation repair.
• Pier-and-beam repair. Re-shimming, new supports and wood repair under older raised-floor houses. See pier-and-beam foundation repair.
• Foundation piers. Pressed concrete, steel push, helical and drilled piers, and how caliche affects them. See foundation piers.
• Evaluations. Floor elevations, crack reading and a written cause. See foundation evaluation.
• Drainage. Gutters, downspout extensions, grading and irrigation fixes that keep water off the beam. See foundation drainage.

Is Midland handled differently from Odessa?

The repairs are the same, but the paperwork isn't. Midland and Odessa each run their own permit office and contractor registration. Midland's permits go through PermitMidland, run by Development Services at 300 N. Loraine. Odessa's go through MGO Connect, run by the Building Inspection Division at City Hall, 411 W. 8th Street. Parts of Odessa reach into Midland County and small parts of Midland reach into Martin County, so the city on your water bill is what counts, not the county. West Odessa and Gardendale are unincorporated, so neither city's permits apply there. See the Midland and Odessa pages for details.

Can the oil field cause foundation cracks?

That's a common question here. The Railroad Commission of Texas has tied some Permian Basin earthquakes to saltwater disposal, and in 2021 it asked operators in the Gardendale Seismic Response Area, northeast of Odessa, to cut injection. It cited magnitude 3.6 quakes northeast of Odessa in 2020 and 2021. Most foundation movement around here still traces back to soil moisture, and that's what a contractor will look for first. If you noticed new cracks right after a felt quake, write down the date and mention it.

What can you do before the evaluation?

• Photograph each crack with a tape measure in the picture, and note the date
• List the doors and windows that stick, and whether it changed after a storm
• Run the sprinklers and look for heads spraying the brick or pooling at the slab
• Check recent water bills for a rise you can't explain
• Find any earlier repair paperwork, warranty or engineer's letter from a previous owner

Are you a foundation repair company?

No. Midland Odessa Foundation Repair is a referral service. When you call or fill out the form, we connect you with an independent contractor that serves your address. That contractor inspects the house, writes the proposal, does the work and stands behind it. Before you hire anyone, read how the referral works and what to ask, and check the Midland and Odessa foundation guide for soil, permit and hiring details.

Areas we cover

• Midland
• Odessa
• West Odessa
• Gardendale

Planning ahead? Read our Midland and Odessa foundation guide.