About Murfreesboro Foundation Co.

Murfreesboro Foundation Co. works the Central Basin: thin residual clay over limestone, and a lot of new houses on graded fill. Every job starts with a free measured evaluation and ends with a written scope priced per line.

How we scope work

Measurement, then a recommendation, then a price, in that order every time. A floor survey defines which run of the foundation actually moved, so pier counts describe your house rather than a package.

Here the survey also has to answer a question about what the house is standing on. Rutherford County has grown quickly and much of that growth sits on graded fill, which settles on its own schedule regardless of the soil beneath it. Fill settlement and soil movement look similar from the doorframe and want different answers, so establishing which one you have comes before any recommendation.

What we tell people before they hire anyone

• Get the elevations. Anyone recommending piers should show you the floor readings behind each one.
• Be sceptical of deep-pier pricing. Bedrock is generally close beneath the Central Basin, so refusal often comes shallow. A bid priced for deep piers here may be pricing a repair the ground does not require.
• Ask whether anyone probed for voids. This is karst country. A solution cavity under a footing is a design question, not a line to be averaged into a pier count.
• On a newer house, ask about the fill. Settlement in a recent subdivision is often a fill problem rather than a soil problem, and pricing it as the latter buys the wrong repair.

How we work in the field

Crews photograph each stage and log refusal depth per pier. In the Central Basin that log usually shows piers reaching bearing sooner than national averages suggest, which is worth having in writing when a future buyer's inspector reads the file.

The house stays livable through nearly every job. Access routes, excavation locations and restoration are named in the scope before anyone starts, so the first day holds no surprises.