Research
Foundation research
Written by HyreFoundation Research Desk Primary-source research and fact checking
The short answer
Foundation research at HyreFoundation means public data we pulled and counted ourselves: USDA soil survey records and Census Bureau housing surveys. Every study publishes its source, retrieval date (October 27, 2026), method and CSV.
All HyreFoundation research
Each study names its public dataset, the date we pulled it, the method, and a CSV you can download.
What every study here includes
A named public source (USDA NRCS or the Census Bureau), the date we retrieved it, a method section that says what we counted and left out, a chart drawn from the same data as the CSV, and a citation you can copy.
We do not publish price studies. Prices need dated, sourced quotes we do not hold yet (see our cost method). We also do not publish insurance-claim studies where no public claims dataset exists.
Written and audited by
HyreFoundation Research Desk
Primary-source research and fact checking
We read the model building code, the federal soil and moisture guidance and the insurer position ourselves, and we publish each figure with the document it came from and the date we retrieved it.
Where a number cannot be traced to a primary source, we say so instead of printing it. HyreFoundation does not inspect, engineer or repair foundations. Authorship is organizational: this desk, not a named persona.
- 40
- pages published on this site
- 12
- free tools, each showing its assumptions
- 0
- foundation repairs we perform or sell
- 0
- paid placements or rankings
How this desk works
- Primary sources only. Code statements come from the International Residential Code, Chapter 4, as the model code. Soil statements come from USDA and USGS. Insurance statements come from the policy language and the Insurance Information Institute. We open the source rather than cite a blog that cites it.
- The code is a model, and adoption is local. Your jurisdiction adopts an edition and amends it, and foundation chapters are amended more than most because frost depth and soil are local facts. Every code figure says so.
- We hold no job data. We have no dataset of bids, pier counts or invoices, so no page claims an average from one. Calculators show the arithmetic and the inputs they assumed, and label the result as an estimate.
- We do not diagnose your house. A crack guide can tell you which pattern to measure and when to call a structural engineer. It cannot tell you whether your foundation is failing. An engineer on site does that work.
- We do not repair foundations, and we take no payment for placement, ranking or a favorable mention. Nobody buys a position on this site.
Authorship on this site is organizational: the analysis belongs to the desk rather than to a named individual, and we do not publish credentials we do not hold. Our editorial policy sets out how we source, date and correct what we publish.