Nothing is charged for the evaluation. It runs roughly an hour and produces a floor elevation contour across the whole footprint, dated crack photographs, an exterior water review, and a document with a price against every line. The readings belong to you regardless of what you decide.
An hour, in the order we work it
The exterior comes first because on a graded lot it frames everything after. Where roof water discharges. Whether grade still falls away from the building. Which direction runoff arrives from, and whether a retaining wall is still plumb or has begun to lean. Where standing water sat after the last real rain.
Inside, floor heights get read at a grid of points and reported as differences in inches. That grid produces the contour, and the contour is what everything downstream depends on. After that, cracks get photographed with something for scale, doors and trim get checked for how they are behaving, and the crawl space or basement gets entered where one exists.
What the written scope contains
Whatever we recommend arrives as a document. It states the survey numbers and the contour they form. It names the water problems and prices their correction separately. If piers are warranted it gives the count, the placement and why, the depth assumption with a per-foot rate beyond it, whether load testing is performed, and the lift target — stabilize, or recover a stated amount. It commits to per-pier logging of depth and termination material. And it states plainly what our warranty covers and whether it transfers. Every number matches the cost guide.
Bring the other bids
This is the part we would most like Birmingham homeowners to use. Every national brand competes here, so most people reading this have or will have several proposals, and comparing them is genuinely hard because the differences hide in the warranty rather than the price. We will go through each one clause by clause at no charge, including if you hire the company that wrote it.
Under contract?
Tell us the inspection deadline and we will schedule inside it. What comes back is written to be handed across a negotiating table: numbers, photographs, and line prices. On a benched lot the gap between a cosmetic crack and five figures of consolidation is precisely the thing you want settled while there is still a contingency to use.
Evaluation questions
Is the evaluation really free?
Not a dollar, and that covers going through another company's paperwork with you as well. Survey, crack documentation, the exterior assessment, the priced document at the end - none of it appears on an invoice. Neither do the calls that finish with us recommending two longer downspouts and some regrading.
How long does it take?
An hour covers most houses. It runs longer on steep lots, on larger footprints, where retaining walls are involved, and on properties with real acreage to cross. Twenty extra minutes on site beats a scope built on an assumption, so we take them.
Do I need to be home?
For the final fifteen minutes, ideally - that is when a page of numbers becomes a course of action. Buyers who cannot get there are covered: we coordinate with the agent and send the report and photographs straight to you.
What if I already have bids from national companies?
Bring all of them. We will read each scope and each warranty against our own readings and say where they agree and where they do not - pier count basis, depth assumption, load testing, and what the warranty actually covers. If one of them is sound and cheaper, we will tell you to take it.
Get a free Birmingham foundation evaluation
Describe what the house is doing — a crack that keeps opening, a door that stopped latching, floors that fall away toward one side, a retaining wall starting to lean. If you already hold a bid from somebody else, bring it and we will go through the warranty with you. Same working day reply.