bob, The reason most of Texas does not have basements, is because it is not just black dirt, but is called black gumbo, and stays quite wet, and expands with the moisture. Any basements would be constantly seeping water, and causing tons of mildew. Many of the foundations around the state, are floating slabs, and have no footings. When there are hard rains, for extended periods of time, the thing can start moving and get cracks in a bunch of places. These days, many custom homes have piers of reinforced concrete down to hard clay attached to the slab with rebar and concrete. That solves the floating action, but gets in the way of basements.
I had a house in south central Texas, that needed 30" piers, with 36" flares at the bottom, and it took over 20' to reach the hard clay. That was costly, but the slab didn't move at all. |
