Foundation inspection checklist: is your file complete?
Six items to have before a contractor quotes. A free inspection from a repair company can be honest, but it is a sales visit.
6 itemsa count, not an inspectionDated photos and a report from an engineer you pay are what bids should follow. Six of six is not a structural opinion.
This checklist counts which of six items your foundation file holds: dated photos, a written date, a water and grade walk, notes on doors and windows, measured crack width, and a report from an engineer you paid who does not sell repairs.
It returns N of 6 and names what is missing. It is not an inspection, and a complete file is not a diagnosis.
What is in the packet
Six items. Completeness is not a diagnosis. Nothing is emailed.
—Items present
—How to read it
—What this page will not do
What this assumed—
Homeowner packet completeness. Print and take it into the crawl. Completeness is not a diagnosis. HyreFoundation does not inspect houses.
The mechanism
The free inspection is not the problem. The bundle is
The bundle is easy to frame as honest companies versus dishonest ones. That framing is wrong and it is not useful. The problem is structural, and it survives everyone involved being entirely sincere.
Source fact. In February 2018 the Texas Board of Professional Engineers held: "Analyzing the cause of a condition, recommendations for repair, or providing any other expert engineering opinion associated with a foundation … would be considered the practice of engineering."
Read the three activities it lists. Analyzing the cause of a condition. Recommending the repair. Providing any expert engineering opinion on the foundation. In Texas, all three are the practice of engineering.
Now look at what a free inspection produces. A cause ("your northeast corner has settled"), a recommendation ("fourteen piers"), and a price — from one visit, at no charge, from a company that will be paid only if you accept the third item.
The diagnosis has no invoice of its own. It is funded by the repair.
Our analysis, and why this is not an accusation. A skilled foundation contractor may well read your house correctly. They see more foundations in a month than most engineers see in a year, and that experience is real.
The issue is that no arrangement exists in which the person naming the size of the problem is not paid according to the answer. That is a property of the structure, not of the person, and it does not go away because everyone is honest.
What unbundling costs, and why it is the best money in the process. An independent licensed structural engineer, paid directly by you, produces a report and is then finished.
They earn exactly the same whether the scope runs to eighteen piers or to "monitor for twelve months and extend your downspouts".
We hold no price data and will not quote a fee — ask two or three firms.
But the number is a fraction of the repairs typically being proposed, and it is the only document in the whole transaction whose author has nothing riding on its conclusion.
The check that costs nothing. When a diagnosis and a price arrive together, ask: is this an engineering opinion, and who is the licensed engineer of record?
Some firms retain one and will show you the seal — a good answer.
Some will say it is a proposal based on visible conditions — also honest, and it tells you the diagnosis is still missing.
Three visitors
Three people can look at your foundation. They are doing three different jobs
Confusing them is the most common and most expensive mistake in this process. The last column is where the money is.
Who
What they are actually for
What their standards say they need not do
How they are paid, and what that means
Home inspector
A visual survey of the whole house at a moment in time. Their own standards describe it as "a limited visual survey and basic performance evaluation of the systems and components of a building using normal controls that provides information regarding the general condition of a residence at the time of inspection"
It is not meant to find the cause of what it notes. A noted deficiency is "intended to only be an indicator of visible conditions or symptoms observed by an inspector that may warrant further evaluation by another qualified service professional" They are not required to determine "the cause or source of a condition", nor to "recommend or provide engineering, architecture, appraisal, mitigation, physical surveying, realty, or other specialty services"
A flat fee from you, usually inside a transaction deadline. Cheapest and broadest of the three. When they decline to say what caused a crack, they are following their standards correctly — that is a sign of a good inspector, not a poor one.
Structural or geotechnical engineer
Naming the movement and its direction, an opinion on cause, and a specified scope. In Texas this is the activity reserved to a licensed PE.
They are not a repair contractor and will not price or perform the work. Many will not recommend a specific firm, which is a feature.
A fee you pay directly, once. Their income does not vary with the scope they specify. This is the only clean incentive in the transaction and it is the entire reason to spend the money.
Repair contractor
Performing the work — and, in practice, also offering a free diagnosis in order to be considered for it.
Nothing binds their assessment to a professional standard unless a licensed engineer signs it. Ask who did.
Paid only if you buy. Often deeply experienced. But the diagnosis and the invoice come from the same document, which is exactly what you are trying to separate.
Texas standards are quoted because Texas published a clear opinion on exactly this question. Every state regulates engineering practice and most license home inspectors, but the wording differs — check yours. Not legal advice.
The evidence
What actually belongs in the packet, and why each item is there
The tool above counts ticks. This section explains why those six items and not others — every one of them exists to answer a question that will be asked later, by someone, in a conversation you cannot yet see.
Illustrative weighting, not data. The point is the order and the proportion: most of what decides this is free and you collect it.HyreFoundation analysis
1. Dated photographs, with a scale in the frame. A coin, a ruler, a tape. Wide for location, close for the crack.
The date in the filename, not only in metadata — metadata does not survive being emailed.
This is the item that cannot be created retrospectively, at any price, which makes it the most valuable thing in the file.
2. Dates on everything, including the absences. When you first noticed it. When the door started sticking. When the gutter last worked. When it rained hard. Dates convert observations into a sequence, and a sequence is what distinguishes a scar from a process.
3. The water walk. Gutters, downspouts, grade, irrigation, and any wet patch that has no explanation.
IRC R405 requires foundation drains around below-grade walls enclosing usable space and exempts them only where the ground already drains — "A drainage system is not required where the foundation is installed on well-drained ground or sand-gravel mixture soils according to the Unified Soil Classification System, Group I soils."
Water is the variable most likely to be driving the whole thing and the one you can document for nothing.
4. Doors and windows, noted per opening. Which stick, which have been planed, which are out of square, and in which season. Openings concentrate stress and they are a distributed sensor network you already own. A door that was adjusted and then stuck again is a very strong observation.
5. Crack width, measured against something physical. Not estimated. A coin or a ruler in the photograph, and the ends marked in pencil with the date.
This site publishes no crack-width threshold table — The excerpt published free by ACI is chapter 3 and the front matter.
The tolerable-crack-width table in chapter 4 sits behind the paywall and we did not read it, so this site does not publish crack-width thresholds attributed to ACI.
Measure anyway, because the value is in the second measurement, not the first.
6. An independent engineer you paid. The item that converts a folder of observations into a document with standing. It is also the one most often skipped, because a free assessment is available and looks like the same thing.
What "complete" does and does not mean. A full packet means you can have an informed conversation and get comparable bids.
It does not mean your foundation is fine, and it does not mean it is failing.
Completeness is a property of your file, not a diagnosis of your house, and this page will not blur those two.
Method
How to photograph a foundation so the pictures are still useful in three years
Most homeowner photographs of cracks are unusable later — not because they are badly taken, but because they cannot be repeated. Three habits fix that.
Make every shot repeatable
Mark the spot you stand on, or record a landmark in frame that will not move. The comparison you want in two years is same crack, same angle, same distance. A different angle changes apparent width more than most real movement does.
Always include a physical scale, in the same plane as the crack and touching the surface. A coin held slightly closer to the lens than the wall silently exaggerates everything.
Take the wide shot first, every time. A close-up of a crack with no context is unplaceable within months. Wide, then medium, then close, in that order, every visit.
Record the conditions, not just the crack
Date in the filename. 2026-09-05-northeast-corner-wide.jpg. Metadata is stripped by messaging apps and by many email clients, and a photograph nobody can date is an anecdote.
Weather and season. "Late August, six weeks dry" or "after two days of heavy rain". In expansive clay regions this is the difference between an interpretable observation and a confusing one — the Colorado Geological Survey notes such soils can "expand up to 20% by volume when exposed to water"
Whether the crack is wet, damp or dry, and whether there is efflorescence. That is a cause observation sitting next to an effect observation, and the pair is worth far more than either alone.
Store it as though a stranger will read it
One folder per property, subfolders by date, a plain text file listing what each visit found. Backed up somewhere that survives a lost phone.
The stranger is real: a future buyer’s inspector, an engineer, an insurer, a lawyer, or you in 2031 having forgotten which corner was which. Files that require you to explain them do not survive that transition.
And keep the elevation readings in the same folder. The elevation log holds two readings and an interval; crack photographs and floor heights moving together across the same dates is the strongest evidence a homeowner can assemble without spending anything.
Order of operations
The sequence, and why doing it out of order costs money
The market pushes you to start at step six. Starting there is how people buy a repair they cannot later evaluate.
1
Document before you call anybody
Photographs, dates, the water walk, the door notes. An afternoon. Doing this first means every subsequent conversation starts from your evidence rather than from someone else’s impression.
2
Rule out the cheap causes
Blocked gutter, downspout at the corner, reversed grade, irrigation against one elevation, a leaking service under a slab. The water intrusion diagnostic walks it. This step alone resolves a meaningful share of foundation complaints.
3
Wait, if you safely can, and take a second observation
A season apart, from the same marks. The exception: a horizontal crack in a basement wall, particularly with inward bowing, is not something to watch for a season. That is an engineer now.
4
Engage an independent engineer, and pay them yourself
Ask the fee up front, and ask whether the firm has any financial relationship with a repair contractor. What you want back is a written report with an elevation survey and a specified scope.
5
Get the scope in writing before any price exists
Method, count, locations, depth or capacity, what happens to the water, and what "done" means. A scope is a document you hand to three companies unchanged.
6
Then bid it — three companies, one scope
Three bids against one scope is a price comparison. Three bids against three self-diagnoses are three different jobs, and comparing the totals tells you nothing. The cost calculator runs your own rates against a scope you already hold.
7
Keep documenting after the work is done
Same marks, same intervals, same photographs. This is the half of the file almost nobody collects, and it is the half that decides a warranty conversation two years from now.
The questions
What to ask, and the two sentences that should slow you down
All of these are short, fair questions with checkable answers. An honest contractor will not object to a single one.
"Is this an engineering opinion, and who is the engineer of record?"
The single highest-value question on this page. Both possible answers are informative and neither is an accusation.
"What is your evidence for the cause?"
You want a mechanism, not an adjective. "Settlement" is a category. "The northeast corner is low by an inch, here are the readings, and the downspout discharges at that corner" is evidence.
"Can I have the elevation readings and the point locations?"
So that a future reading can be taken from the same points. A survey that cannot be repeated is an impression with decimal places.
"What is in scope for the water, priced separately?"
Drainage, grade, downspouts, sump and outfall as their own line items. Its absence from a foundation proposal is the most informative gap in the document.
"What does the warranty exclude, and does it transfer?"
Read the exclusions before the headline. Who honors it if the company is sold, whether it survives a change of owner and at what fee. A warranty that does not transfer has no value in the transaction that matters most to you.
"We do a free inspection and can start Thursday"
The FTC’s standing home-improvement advice is to get it in writing and get more than one bid. Speed is a feature for the seller. In a process where the discriminating evidence is a second observation months later, it is rarely a feature for you.
"You do not need an engineer, we do this every day"
Often true about the doing. It is not an answer about the diagnosing, which in Texas is a licensed activity — and it is an argument against buying the one document whose author has nothing riding on the answer.
Vocabulary
Words that appear in these documents
Standards of practice
The published scope a licensed home inspector works to. It defines what they must report and, importantly, what they are not required to determine — including the cause or source of a condition.
Deficiency
An inspector’s term of art. Per the Texas standards quoted above, it is "intended to only be an indicator of visible conditions or symptoms observed by an inspector that may warrant further evaluation by another qualified service professional" Not a defect finding, and not a diagnosis.
Engineering opinion
A judgment on cause, condition or required repair, signed by a licensed professional engineer who is accountable for it. The signature is the product.
Scope of work
Method, quantity, locations, depth or capacity, and acceptance criteria, written down. The document that makes three bids comparable, and the thing most homeowners never obtain.
Elevation survey
Measured relative floor heights across the whole building against a fixed reference, drawn on a plan. The nearest thing to objective data in this trade.
Shrinkage cracking
Cracking from concrete losing water and being restrained while it does. NRMCA: "Typically, drying shrinkage related cracking is evident within days to several weeks after construction." Extremely common and usually not structural — the reason "there are cracks" is not by itself a finding.
Efflorescence
White crystalline salt left where water passed through masonry or concrete and evaporated. Evidence of past water movement, readable months later on a dry day.
Differential movement
Parts of a building moving by different amounts. What actually damages structures — uniform movement damages very little.
Assignment or referral relationship
A commercial link between the party assessing and the party repairing. Worth asking about directly. In an adjacent trade — mold — two states legislate against exactly this pairing, which tells you the concern is not theoretical.
Free inspection
A sales visit that may also be competent. Both halves of that sentence are true, and this page is about keeping them separate rather than choosing one.
Limits
What this tool cannot do
Six ticks is a narrow input. Here is precisely how narrow.
Completeness is not a diagnosis. Six ticks means your file is in order. It says nothing whatever about whether your foundation is sound, and a full score is not reassurance.
It has not inspected anything. We did not visit, did not see the wall, did not read a level. Nothing on this page is an inspection or a report, and it cannot be cited as one.
It cannot judge the quality of what is in the packet. A blurry undated photograph and a properly scaled dated one both count as one tick here. The methods section above is the difference between them, and only you can apply it.
It cannot tell you whether your engineer was independent. It asks whether you engaged one and paid for it. Whether that firm has a commercial relationship with a repair contractor is a question you have to ask them.
It knows nothing about your soil, water table or climate. RETRIEVAL FAILED — the USGS publications warehouse returned HTTP 403 to automated retrieval on 5 September 2026.
The map is named here as the national reference that exists; we did not read it, and we publish no figure from it.
For a site-specific answer the correct lookup is the USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey, and even that is a general soil context rather than a reason a particular crack exists.
It has no price data and will not produce a number, including for the engineer’s fee. We hold no dataset of foundation work and will not reprint figures from lead-generation sites to look authoritative.
It cannot triage an emergency. A horizontal crack in a basement wall with inward bowing, a wall that has displaced, or a floor that has dropped suddenly are not documentation exercises. That is a licensed engineer now.
HyreFoundation does not inspect houses, does not survey them, does not repair them, holds no dataset of jobs or bids, and takes no referral fee from anyone who does.
That is what allows this page to say that the most valuable thing you can buy is a report from someone who will sell you nothing else.
How this calculator works
There is no score that means "pass." Six yes/no items are counted:
items = photo + date + water + doors + width + engineer
count = N of 6 (or "none" / "1 of 6")
if N < 6: next = a free inspection can be honest and is still a sales visit
if N = 6: next = the packet is more complete; completeness is not a diagnosis
never = not an inspection we performed
The engineer item is the one people try to satisfy with a pier company’s free visit. That visit does not count here. An engineer who does not sell repairs has no stake in the size of the recommendation.
HyreFoundation does not inspect houses, does not crawl your crawl, and does not repair foundations.
What each input means
Inputs on this tool, in the order they appear on the form.
Input
What it is actually asking
Photos
Dated photographs of every crack, with a scale in the frame. A blurry phone shot from across the room is not this tick.
Date
When you first noticed it, and when you last looked, in writing. The camera clock is a start. A card in the photo is better.
Water
You walked grade at the wall, downspout discharge, gutters and irrigation. Preferably while it was raining. Not "I think the yard is fine."
Doors
Which openings stick, and when that started. Several at once is a different note from one bathroom door in humid weather.
Width
A measurement at a marked location, plus whether the faces are offset. Not a guess from a photo on a forum.
Engineer
Licensed in your state, engaged and paid by you, no relationship to the repair company. A free inspection does not tick this box.
Worked examples
Including one where the naive answer misleads, which is the example most calculators leave out.
Nothing ticked yet
All six at no. Count: none of the listed items were ticked. Next: a free inspection from a repair company can be honest and is still a sales visit.
Dated photos and an engineer you pay are the document bids should follow. The useful hour is a camera and a walk in the rain, not a sign-today contract.
Photos, dates, water, doors, width, no engineer
Five of six. Next still points at the sales-visit warning, because the engineer line is empty. You have a file an engineer can use. You do not have the diagnosis. Do not let a pier quote stand in for that line. The buyer checklist makes the same point if the file is for a purchase.
The one where a free inspection misleads
A pier company offers a free inspection, a on-the-spot count, and a lifetime warranty. You tick engineer yes because "someone looked." The naive reading is a complete packet. The actual rule on this form is that the engineer is someone you paid who does not sell repairs.
Recode that tick to no. The count drops. The next sentence is the sales-visit warning again. That is the example most checklists leave out, because they are written by the company that wants the tick.
What changes the result
Each yes adds one to the count. There is no weighting. Five photos do not make up for a missing engineer. A paid engineer does not make undated photos into a trend.
Crossing from 5 to 6 only changes the "next" sentence from the sales-visit warning to "more complete, not a diagnosis." It does not become a structural opinion. It does not become a pass you can show a buyer or an insurer as if we visited.
Nothing on the form asks about soil, pier count, or insurance. Those are real questions and they are deliberately not on a completeness list, because folding them in would pretend this is a diagnosis.
Local considerations
Who is licensed as a structural or geotechnical engineer is a state question. Contractor licensing is too. This checklist does not look up a license number and will not pretend a directory listing is verification. We publish no company ratings.
What a building department treats as a dangerous condition is local. Hairline shrinkage is not. A horizontal crack with bowing is not a local mystery either. If those are in the photos, the engineer tick is the one that matters, in any state.
When not to use this
Do not use this as an inspection, a diagnosis, or a reason to skip an engineer because you ticked five other boxes. It cannot see the house.
Do not use a 6 of 6 result as a clean bill for a buyer, an insurer, or a landlord. Completeness of your file is not a condition report we issued.
Do not enter a crawl space you cannot get out of, and do not treat a look as work we performed. HyreFoundation does not inspect houses.
Do not tick engineer yes because a repair company looked for free. That is the misleading example this page exists to catch.
Matching is still being built. The inquiry form is not an inspection booking.
Yes, if a crack is wide or offset, a basement wall has a horizontal crack or bows, cracks are widening, floors slope, or several doors and windows go out of square. Get an engineer who does not sell repairs, plus an elevation survey. See foundation inspection.
What should I photograph for a foundation inspection?
Every crack with a coin or ruler in frame, inside and outside, and anything that shows offset or bowing. Repeat the same shots later and date the files. The crack identification tool names the pattern; this checklist only asks whether the photos exist.
Why does the date on a crack photo matter?
Because whether a crack is changing is the most useful fact, and one undated picture cannot show it. If the camera clock is unreliable, hold a dated card in the frame. Look again in a few months, ideally across a wet and a dry season.
What counts as the water walk?
You have checked grade at the wall, downspout discharge, gutters and irrigation, ideally in the rain. The water intrusion diagnostic lists the questions. This item asks whether you did the walk, not whether the wall is dry.
Why note doors and windows?
Because frames going out of square show movement across the whole house, not just one spot. Humidity also sticks doors, so note which ones and when it started. Several at once is a stronger signal than one sticky door in August.
How do I measure foundation crack width?
Use a ruler, a crack gauge, or a coin as a rough scale. Record the widest point and where you measured it. Offset, where the faces no longer line up, is a separate fact. This checklist does not turn a width into a repair.
Does a free inspection count as the engineer item?
No. The engineer item means a licensed structural or geotechnical engineer you hired and paid, with no tie to a repair company. A free inspection from a pier company can be honest, but it is a sales visit and not independent.
I have 6 of 6. Am I done?
You have a complete file, which is not a diagnosis. Take it to an engineer if you have not already, and take the engineer’s scope to contractors if you have. See choosing a foundation contractor.
Can I print this checklist and take it into the crawl space?
Yes. A flashlight, a camera and this list beat a product brochure. Do not enter a crawl space you cannot get out of.
Does HyreFoundation inspect houses?
No. This checklist counts what is in your file. We do not inspect, survey or repair, and matching with companies is still being built.
Sources and methodology
Figures dated 26 August 2026. Last reviewed .
Engineering Advisory Opinion Request 43 (February 2018) (Texas Board of Professional Engineers, retrieved 2026-09-05. Read directly as PDF. Diagnosing a foundation and recommending repair is engineering under Texas Engineering Practice Act §1001.003(c)(1). Also the source of the quoted Texas inspection standards. Texas law.)
TIP 17 — Drying Shrinkage of Concrete (National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, retrieved 2026-09-05. Read directly as PDF. Source of the statement that drying shrinkage cracking is typically evident within days to several weeks after construction.)
International Residential Code, Chapter 4 Foundations (International Code Council, retrieved 2026-08-26. Model code, not a homeowner inspection form. Cited so "code" is not used as a local scare word on this checklist.)
How to avoid a home improvement scam (Federal Trade Commission, retrieved 2026-08-26. Written estimates, not a sign-today contract from a free inspection. Get the diagnosis from someone who is not selling the repair.)
Web Soil Survey (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, retrieved 2026-08-26. General soil context. Not an inspection of your crawl or basement. Onsite investigation is needed for engineering applications.)
Building America program (U.S. Department of Energy, retrieved 2026-08-26. Moisture and durability research. Not a punch-list we performed on your house.)