What Foundation Repair Costs Around Denton, and Why

Look closely at what each figure covers.

• What's counted. The large Texas company also gives an average for all the jobs it has done in 2026, and that one is $8,379. It's lower, likely because it mixes repairs with smaller jobs. Its drainage repairs and installs averaged $5,276. So "the cost of foundation work" depends on which jobs go into the number.
• What's included. The Lewisville company says its average includes a third-party engineer inspecting the work, the city permit and a hydrostatic plumbing test by an outside plumber. A quote that leaves those out isn't comparable to one that includes them.
• When it was published. One DFW company's cost page from 2020 says repair can cost as little as $1,500 or over $15,000. The same page says a job that only needs shims may come in under $1,800, and that pier and beam repairs around Arlington, Irving and Grand Prairie averaged about $3,500 to $8,000. Prices from 2020 are a guide to the spread, not to today's price.

Ranges with no stated basis tell you even less. A regional company's Denton page gives a typical range of between $2,500 and $14,000. It doesn't say where that comes from.

The number of piers

For a pier repair, the count is the biggest driver, and it isn't guesswork. A Foundation Performance Association guideline, from a Houston group of engineers and repair firms, sets the most space allowed between outside piles:

• 8 feet on a one-story wood or brick house
• 7 feet on a two-story house with brick on the first story only, or a story-and-a-half
• 6 feet on a two-story brick house

Corners where a wall changes direction each get a pile, and so does the middle of any room 12 feet or wider.

Take a 40-foot wall as an example. Spaced at the 8-foot limit, the wall breaks into 5 spans, which takes 6 piers. At the 6-foot limit, 40 divided by 6 rounds up to 7 spans, which takes 8. So the same wall on a two-story brick house needs two more piers. The guideline also says an engineer can lay out a different plan.

Only a floor survey shows which walls have moved, so only a survey can set the count. That's the reason to wait for the measurements before you trust a figure.

How deep they go

The same guideline says the final depth will vary from pile to pile on most projects. Pressed piles are pushed down until they stop, and steel piles until they meet the needed resistance or reach rock. Around Denton, the ground ranges from deep swelling clay with no rock in the top 80 inches to soils over limestone about a foot down. Our soil and rock guide shows which band your house is on.

What else the job needs

Some repairs are only part of the bill. Drainage work, plumbing repairs found by the leak test, and putting the house and yard back afterward can all add cost. Ask whether a quote covers them.

The permit and the engineer

In the towns that publish a rule, a permit and an engineer's sealed plan are part of the job. Permit fees are small where they're published: $75 in Frisco and The Colony, and $50 on Lewisville's 2024 schedule. Our permits guide goes town by town.

The Foundation Performance Association's guideline lists what a repair contract should spell out. It's a handy checklist:

1. The number of piles, and which are inside and which outside.
2. Concrete breakouts, the places the slab has to be cut open.
3. The price, with how payment ties to the work.
4. The warranty terms. Read what's excluded. By the same guideline's account, finishes such as drywall and brick usually aren't covered, and neither is heave, the clay pushing the house up, unless the contract names it.

After the work, it says the contractor can provide pile records, a final elevation survey and a written plumbing leak test. The Texas engineers' guidelines also call for a floor survey after a repair, with a copy to you.

Two quotes that list the same things, built on the same floor survey, can be lined up side by side. If one is far lower, check what it leaves out.

Not every repair uses piers. Mudjacking pumps grout under a slab to raise it, and foam injection does much the same. The Foundation Performance Association lists both as shallow repairs that ride on the moving soil: if the soil's moisture changes, it says, the slab can move again. It also warns that grout may get into cracked pipes under the slab and plug them.

That doesn't make a shallow repair wrong for every house. But on the clay bands west and east of Denton, where the soil moves the most, a cheaper method that doesn't reach below the moving clay may need doing again. It's worth asking any company why it chose the method it quoted.

Whatever the method, the same paper says the soil around and under a repaired foundation has to be kept at steady moisture, with rainwater drained away, for most repairs to work as intended. Our watering guide covers that part.

Often, yes. The Lewisville company says 1 in 3 of the people it evaluates don't need any repair. A structural engineer you hire yourself has nothing to sell you, which can help when a big quote needs a second opinion. Our engineer or repair company guide weighs both.

It also helps to know what repair can't do. The Texas engineers' guidelines say piers don't help the parts of a foundation that don't get piers, and that a lift is unlikely to leave a foundation perfectly level. A quote that promises a dead level floor is promising more than the engineers do.