Whether you’re new to the area or a seasoned Texan, as a Dallas-Fort Worth area homeowner, you know that months of extreme heat often accompany a summer in the metro. That scorching weather can significantly impact your home’s foundation.
How DFW’s Extreme Heat Impacts Foundations
Dallas residents can expect both subtropical humidity and light summertime rainfall, with an average of just over two inches of rain recorded in the blazing months of July and August. The dry ground and humid air are often accompanied by temperatures that consistently reach the upper 90s or 100s.
While every year is different, it’s not uncommon for the area to experience long summer stretches without rainfall or to declare a drought. In 2022, DFW went 67 days without rain.
Drought or dry conditions can be especially dangerous for your foundation. As the ground around your home dries up, shrinks, and pulls away from the foundation, your foundation itself can start to move or settle unevenly, which can lead to cracks. While the center of your foundation often stays moist, dry conditions at its edges can be enough to create a severe problem throughout.
When your foundation moves, so can other parts of your house, creating plumbing issues, cracked walls, sloping floors, and stuck doors or windows.
Dallas soil can be especially prone to movement that could harm your foundation. The DFW area has high concentrations of expansive soil, which expands when saturated and shrinks when dry. Those shifts can change the soil’s volume by up to 10%, creating a potentially destructive situation for your home’s foundation.
Fortunately, the best tips and fixes for maintaining your foundation through extreme heat are right at your fingertips with help from the pros at Ecospace Foundation & Home Services, which specializes in helping DFW homeowners protect and repair their foundations.
Replace Lost Moisture
Daily use of a soaker hose or irrigation system can be an invaluable tool in your fight against foundation issues. As the ground dries up during a heatwave, keep your foundation moisturized by watering it daily.
Run a soaker hose around your house, placing it six to 18 inches from the home and running it at least 15-20 minutes daily. Stick to this schedule as much as you can during water restrictions or conservation recommendations.
Keep an Eye on Trees
Trees around your home can provide much-needed shade, but they can also spell trouble for your foundation if they’re planted too close to the house. Tree roots can dry up the soil around them as they pull in water, creating issues if that soil helps provide much-needed moisture for your foundation. While watering your foundation should significantly help that foundation’s moisture levels, consider installing root barriers to prevent further issues if your trees are close to your home.
Address Existing Issues
It may be too late to work on damage prevention for your foundation, but it’s not too late for foundation repair. While you may be clued into an issue by noticing significant cracks in the actual foundation, you may also realize something’s wrong when you start to see cracks in your indoor walls, feel your floors become uneven, or notice doors won’t close anymore.
If you allow these problems to continue without addressing them, they could turn into costly structural, plumbing, or water damage.
Because your foundation fix will be highly dependent on the type of house, your soil composition, and other individualized factors, you should schedule a consultation with an expert to determine your foundation’s needs. Ecospace’s free foundation evaluation can help you discover the best path forward for your damaged foundation.