Where we work

Foundation repair across Huntsville, Madison County and the river towns

Madison County runs from the Tennessee line to the Tennessee River, and the ground changes more than the street names do. Huntsville itself is the base; from there the crew covers Madison, Harvest and Hazel Green to the west and north, Meridianville up the 231 corridor, Owens Cross Roads under the eastern ridges, and Decatur and Athens on the far side of the river.

Quiet residential street in Huntsville, Alabama lined with one-story red-brick ranch homes, mature oaks and crepe myrtles, Monte Sano ridge hazy in the distance

Huntsville, neighborhood by neighborhood

The city sits on three kinds of ground, and the calls sort themselves by it. Along the foot of Monte Sano and the eastern ridges, from Five Points and Blossomwood out to the Hampton Cove edge, the perched water table drives basement waterproofing and bowing walls. South Huntsville and Jones Valley are mostly 1960s to 1980s brick on slabs and crawl spaces over clay, where settling corners and stair-step cracks are the usual story. Research Park and the northwest are newer, and newer houses settle on their own timetable in the first ten years. Every part of the city is covered, including the historic districts around downtown where the piers can be older than the sidewalks.

Five Points & Blossomwood
Monte Sano foot & Jones Valley
South Huntsville (Whitesburg, Bailey Cove)
Hampton Cove edge
Downtown & the historic districts
Research Park & Bridge Street
Northwest Huntsville & University Drive
Madison Pike & the Arsenal gates
Chapman Mountain side
Huntsville 35801–35824

The towns, each with its own ground

Excavated corner of a concrete slab foundation on a Huntsville-area brick home showing the footing edge, a galvanized helical pier bracket bolted beneath it and a torque motor resting in the hole

Madison

Research Park's fast-growing neighbor: newer subdivisions on freshly graded silt loam, where the first decade of settling is the question.

Madison →

$Fresh excavation wall showing a thick layer of red-orange clay over pale fractured limestone, a shovel standing in the cut, typical of the soils under Madison County, Alabama homes$

Harvest

Northwest of the city on red Dewey clay, new rooftops on well-water lots, and slabs that dry out from the edges in August.

Harvest →

Crawl space under a brick home lined wall to wall with a white reinforced vapor barrier, piers wrapped, a dehumidifier running on a stand and a clean light strip overhead

Hazel Green

Farm country along 231 near the state line, septic fields, crawl spaces and the slow settling of houses built on former pasture.

Hazel Green →

Under a 1960s wood-floored house, a new concrete block pier and steel shim supporting a sistered floor joist beside an older leaning brick pier on dry red clay

Meridianville

The 231 corridor north of the city: older slab stock mixed with new builds, and crawl spaces on clay that holds water through winter.

Meridianville →

Trench cut along the inside base of a poured-concrete basement wall with perforated drain pipe laid in gravel, a sump basin at the far end, in an unfinished North Alabama basement

Owens Cross Roads

Under Green Mountain and the limestone ridges, Hampton Cove's valley soils and the springs that keep basements wet.

Owens Cross Roads →

Technician in a work shirt pressing a clear crack-monitoring gauge over a vertical crack in the brick exterior of a Huntsville home, clipboard under one arm, a hardwood tree shading the yard

Decatur

Across the Tennessee River in Morgan County: an older downtown, river-bottom silts, and a water table that comes up with the river.

Decatur →

Low dark spring storm clouds moving over a street of 1980s brick homes in a Huntsville, Alabama subdivision, wet pavement and bending hardwoods

Athens

Limestone County's seat, Athens State's neighborhoods, and the new streets along I-65 going in on the agricultural plain.

Athens →

Whose rules apply where

Alabama's home builder licence rule follows the job, not the address: a residential repair of $10,000 or more needs an HBLB-licensed contractor anywhere in the state. Permits follow the address. Inside Huntsville, structural work goes through City of Huntsville Building Services. The other towns and the unincorporated county each have their own office, and the crew files with the right one before any pier goes in.

Town	County	Structural permits	Common ground
Huntsville	Madison	City of Huntsville Building Services	Clay over limestone; perched water on the east side
Madison	Madison (part Limestone)	City of Madison building office	Decatur silt loam, newer construction
Harvest	Madison	Madison County (unincorporated)	Dewey red clay, newer subdivisions
Hazel Green	Madison	Madison County (unincorporated)	Agricultural soils, septic, crawl spaces
Meridianville	Madison	Madison County (unincorporated)	Mixed-age stock on clay along 231
Owens Cross Roads	Madison	Town office, or Huntsville where annexed	Limestone ridges, valley alluvium, springs
Decatur	Morgan	City of Decatur building office	River-bottom silts, older downtown stock
Athens	Limestone	City of Athens building office	Agricultural plain, newer streets near I-65

Alabama 811 is notified two business days before any digging, in every one of these places. Where a house sits on a line between two jurisdictions, the crew confirms by address before filing.

Somewhere else in the county? New Market, Gurley, New Hope, Toney and the rest of rural Madison County are reachable; so are Priceville and Hartselle below Decatur and the Limestone County side of Madison. Call and ask. You will get a plain yes or no about the drive.