Groundworks is a national foundation-services company headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which describes itself as the nation's leading, fastest-growing vertically integrated foundation and water-management company. The important thing to understand is that it is a consolidator: rather than operating under one banner, it runs roughly 30 locally branded companies — names like AFS, JES, Alpha Foundations, AquaGuard, and Baker's Waterproofing. Per HousingWire (Feb. 2026), the Groundworks family of brands has served more than 1.5 million homeowners since 1972. This page is an independent explainer and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or representing Groundworks; verify current company details before relying on them.

Is Groundworks one company or many?

Both, and that is the crux of it. Groundworks is one corporate parent, but it does business through roughly 30 locally branded subsidiaries rather than a single national brand. The homeowner who hires "Groundworks" is, in practice, hiring a local brand in the family — AFS in the Southeast, JES in the Mid-Atlantic, a regional company elsewhere. The national scale, the shared systems, and the transferable warranty are real and corporate-wide; the crew that does the work, and the local reputation you should be checking, belong to that individual brand.

What brands does Groundworks own?

Groundworks operates through roughly 30 locally branded companies. Examples reported in our research include A1 Sewer & Drain, AFS, Alpha Foundations, AquaGuard, Baker's Waterproofing, Complete Basement Systems, Dry Pro, Florida Foundation Authority, Foundation Recovery Systems, Foundation Support Specialists, Indiana Foundation Service, JES, Mount Valley, and Tar Heel Basement Systems, among others. The roster changes as the company acquires and rebrands businesses, so confirm the current brand list — and which brand, if any, covers your address — on the company's own site rather than relying on this page.

Does Groundworks operate in Texas?

Not as a dominant presence. Groundworks' reported footprint is concentrated in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, and Mountain West — it is not the leading brand in Texas, and a San Antonio homeowner may find there is no local Groundworks-family option at all. The Texas mainstays are different companies: Olshan, Ram Jack, Perma Pier, and a range of regional and San Antonio firms. Because coverage shifts as the company expands, confirm current Texas availability on Groundworks' own site rather than assuming the national name means a local branch near you.

Is Groundworks a good foundation repair company?

That is not a question this page will answer with a rating, and any site that hands you a single verdict on a 30-brand consolidator is overreaching. Groundworks reports real strengths — national scale, an employee-owner structure, transferable warranties, and industry awards — but a parent-company reputation does not tell you whether the local brand that would do your work will diagnose and repair your foundation correctly. The honest answer is a process, not a score: get your own independent licensed engineer's report first, verify the specific local brand's current standing yourself on the BBB, and judge any quote against what the engineer specified. That logic applies to Groundworks and to every competitor.

Is Groundworks' warranty transferable?

Groundworks reports industry-leading transferable warranties across its brands — coverage that can pass to the next owner at resale, which is a genuine resale asset when it holds up. As with any warranty, the value is in the document, not the headline: read the actual written warranty for what is covered, the transfer terms and any fees, exclusions, and whether coverage is tied to a permitted, engineer-sealed install. Confirm the terms with the specific local brand doing your work, since the paperwork you sign is issued at the local level. Our warranties guide walks through how to decode that fine print.

Who actually does the work for Groundworks?

A local brand in the Groundworks family — not a single national crew. Depending on your region, the company that shows up could be AFS, JES, Alpha Foundations, or another regional subsidiary operating under its own name. That means the national reputation and the transferable warranty are corporate-wide, but the workmanship, the local reviews, the BBB record, and the permit history all belong to that individual brand. Vet the local brand the way you would any independent contractor, by its own name, not just by the Groundworks parent.

What should I check before hiring a Groundworks brand?

The same things you would check before hiring anyone: an independent licensed Professional Engineer's elevation survey and sealed report before any contractor writes a quote; confirmation that the proposed method matches that report; per-pier pricing and target depth in writing; the specific local brand's reviews, BBB standing, and permit history — not just the national Groundworks name; and the actual warranty document, including transfer terms and any arbitration clause. A recognizable national brand is a starting point for your shortlist, not a substitute for the engineer-first workflow. See our how-to-choose guide for the full checklist.

Is this site affiliated with Groundworks?

No. This is an independent editorial guide. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or representing Groundworks or any of its brands, and nothing here should be read as an endorsement either for or against the company. The Groundworks facts on this page are company-reported or drawn from public sources such as HousingWire, and company details change over time, so verify current figures, brands, footprint, and warranty terms before relying on them. Our consistent position is engineer-first: whichever contractor you consider, hire your own independent licensed engineer to diagnose the problem before you commit to a repair.

Groundworks Foundation Repair: What to Know (2026)

Groundworks is a national foundation-services company headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia, which describes itself as the nation's leading, fastest-growing vertically integrated foundation and water-management company. The single most useful thing to know about it is that it is a consolidator, not a single contractor: rather than operating under one banner, Groundworks runs roughly 30 locally branded companies — AFS, JES, Alpha Foundations, AquaGuard, Baker's Waterproofing, and more — and, per HousingWire (Feb. 2026), the family of brands has served more than 1.5 million homeowners since 1972. If you searched "Groundworks foundation repair," you are most likely weighing a quote or trying to understand what the company actually is. This page is an independent explainer — we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or representing Groundworks, and nothing here is a promotion or a hit piece. One honest caveat up front for a Texas reader: Groundworks is not the dominant brand in Texas, and a San Antonio homeowner may not have a local Groundworks-family option at all. Every company fact below is company- or HousingWire-reported and worth verifying yourself — and our one consistent recommendation, for Groundworks or any contractor, is to get your own independent licensed engineer's diagnosis before you sign.

What Groundworks is: a consolidator, not a single contractor

Most national foundation brands a homeowner encounters are one of two things: a single company with many branches (Olshan), or a franchise network built around one product (Ram Jack). Groundworks is a third model, and recognizing it changes how you read everything else.

Groundworks is a vertically integrated consolidator — a corporate parent, private-equity backed (with Cortec Group involvement per our research), that has acquired and now operates roughly 30 locally branded foundation and water-management companies. It does not generally rebrand them all as "Groundworks." Instead, AFS stays AFS, JES stays JES, and so on, each keeping the local name homeowners in its region already recognize, while sharing corporate systems, purchasing, training, and warranty infrastructure behind the scenes.

"Vertically integrated" is the company's own framing, and for a homeowner it cuts two ways. On the upside, it can mean standardized installation systems, in-house manufactured products, corporate-wide quality programs, and a warranty backed by a large national entity rather than a single small business. On the realistic side, it does not collapse 30 local crews into one uniform standard of workmanship. The corporation sets systems; the local brand executes them, and execution is where foundation repair succeeds or fails. So the relevant question is never just "Is Groundworks good?" — it is "Is this local Groundworks brand good, and is the install spec'd by an engineer who works for me?" That distinction runs through the rest of this page.

The brand family

Groundworks' defining feature is its roster of locally branded subsidiaries. The names below are examples reported in our research; the roster shifts as the company acquires and rebrands businesses, so treat this as orientation and confirm the current list on the company's own site.

Local brand (examples)	What it is
AFS	A long-established Southeast foundation and waterproofing brand in the family
JES	A Mid-Atlantic foundation, basement, and crawl space brand
Alpha Foundations	A regional foundation-repair brand
AquaGuard	A waterproofing-and-foundation brand
Baker's Waterproofing	A regional waterproofing and foundation brand
Complete Basement Systems	A basement-and-foundation brand
Foundation Recovery Systems	A regional foundation-repair brand
Indiana Foundation Service	A Midwest foundation-repair brand
Tar Heel Basement Systems	A Carolinas basement-and-foundation brand
A1 Sewer and Drain, Dry Pro, Florida Foundation Authority, Foundation Support Specialists, Mount Valley	Additional regional brands in the family

The practical takeaway is simple: the brand you actually hire is local. When you research "a Groundworks company," you are really researching one of these named businesses in your region — its reviews, its complaint history, its permit record. The shared corporate scale is real, but it does not transfer the reputation of a strong brand in one state to a weaker crew in another.

On the product side, Groundworks markets its own branded systems — for example SettleStop and IntelliJack — alongside a service line that spans foundation repair, basement waterproofing, crawl space encapsulation, concrete lifting, plumbing, and gutters. As with any proprietary system, the branded name describes a product, not a diagnosis: which method (if any) your house needs is an engineering question, and we are deliberately not citing code-evaluation numbers for these systems because we have not verified a current listing for them. Ask the contractor to name the method and show you the current third-party evaluation for whatever product they propose, and confirm it against the live directory yourself.

Footprint: and why Texas is different

Here is the honest, Texas-specific point a national brand's marketing will not lead with. Groundworks' reported footprint is concentrated in the Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, and Mountain West — and it is not the dominant brand in Texas.

For a San Antonio homeowner, that has a concrete consequence: there may be no local Groundworks-family option serving your address at all. The companies that actually saturate the Texas market are different ones. The Texas mainstays include Olshan (Houston-rooted, operating since 1933, with its Cable Lock ST Plus system), Ram Jack (a steel-pile franchise network with a San Antonio operation), Perma Pier, and a range of regional and San Antonio firms with deep local soil experience. If you are in Bexar County, those are the names you are far more likely to be choosing among in practice.

None of this is a knock on Groundworks; a strong Southeast or Midwest brand can be excellent in its own region. It is simply a reason not to anchor your San Antonio search on a brand whose strength lives elsewhere. If you reached this page expecting a local Groundworks branch and cannot find one, that is expected — and the better next move is to evaluate the Texas operators against an independent engineer's spec. For two of those operators, see our Olshan explainer and our Ram Jack explainer; comparing branded national models side by side is a useful exercise precisely because it forces the engineering question to the surface.

Reputation signals (and how to verify them yourself)

Groundworks reports several trust signals that searchers encounter immediately. They are worth understanding — and worth checking yourself rather than taking from this page or any marketing copy, because a company's standing can change and, crucially, the signal you most need to verify is the local brand's, not the parent's.

Signal	What it is	How to verify
1.5M+ homeowners served since 1972	Company scale, reported via HousingWire (Feb. 2026)	Treat as a corporate-wide figure, not a local one; cross-check current reporting and confirm the local brand's own track record
84 offices; nearly 5,000 employee-owners	Reported footprint and an employee-ownership structure (HousingWire, Feb. 2026, notes a roughly $31 million dividend paid to employee-owners in January)	Read this as a corporate-scale signal; verify current figures and confirm the local brand actually serves your area
Industry-leading transferable warranties	Coverage that can pass to the next owner at resale	Request the written warranty from the local brand; confirm transfer terms, fees, exclusions, and that it is tied to a permitted, engineer-sealed install
Multiple Inc. 5000 honors	Recognition for company growth	A growth award measures business scale, not install quality on your job; weigh it lightly
BBB awards / accreditation	Better Business Bureau recognitions Groundworks reports	Look up the specific local brand (AFS, JES, etc.) on the BBB site and read its current rating, accreditation status, and recent complaints yourself

The pattern to take from the table: these are real, generally positive, and almost entirely corporate-level signals. Scale, growth awards, and an employee-owner structure tell you Groundworks is a large, established operation — they do not certify the local crew that would dig in your yard. Use these to decide whether a Groundworks brand makes your shortlist, and use the local brand's own BBB record, reviews, and permit history — plus an independent engineer — to decide whether any given quote is sound.

What to verify before you sign (with a Groundworks brand or anyone)

The same short list protects you regardless of which logo is on the truck:

An independent licensed engineer's report first. Hire your own Professional Engineer — not the contractor's — to diagnose the movement and specify the fix before you accept any quote. Per the ASCE Texas Section Guidelines for the Evaluation and Repair of Residential Foundations, v3 (2022), diagnosing foundation distress and specifying the repair is the practice of engineering, not contracting. Start with our engineer's report guide.
The method should match the report. A branded system like SettleStop or IntelliJack should be installed because an independent engineer specified that method for your soil and structure — not because it is what the brand sells. The product follows the diagnosis, not the other way around.
Per-pier pricing and target depth in writing. A quote should state how many piers, where, to what target depth, and at what price each — not a single lump sum. Vague scope is where surprises live.
A warranty you have actually read. Confirm transferability, exclusions, any arbitration clause, and whether coverage survives at the trust or corporate level. Read the document the local brand issues, not the national brochure. See our warranties guide.
The local brand's standing, verified by you. Read the specific subsidiary's current BBB profile and reviews yourself, and verify any engineer involved on the official state roster.

For the full vetting checklist — references, red flags, and how to compare bids on equal terms — see how to choose a foundation repair contractor, and the broader contractors overview.

FAQ Note

The FAQ below answers what homeowners ask most after searching "Groundworks foundation repair" — what the company is, whether it is one company or many, which brands it owns, whether it operates in Texas, whether it is a "good" company (answered as a process, not a rating), whether the warranty transfers, who actually does the work, what to check before hiring a Groundworks brand, and whether this site is affiliated with Groundworks (it is not). For the structured second opinion that should precede any contract, start with an engineer's report; for the full vetting process, see how to choose a foundation repair contractor.

Get Matched With a Vetted San Antonio Foundation Specialist

If you are weighing a Groundworks brand — or you searched the name, found no local option, and want to know who actually serves San Antonio — the right next step is a measurement, not a sales call. We'll match you with a vetted San Antonio foundation specialist and point you to an independent engineer who can confirm whether your foundation has actually moved and, if so, specify the fix. The match is free, the quote is no-obligation, and we don't take a fee from you. To be explicit: we are not affiliated with Groundworks or any of its brands, and a match is not an endorsement. Whether you ultimately choose a Groundworks-family company or a Texas competitor like Olshan or Ram Jack, get your own independent engineer's report first — it tightens every bid you receive and is the one document that protects you no matter whose truck shows up. That's the only way an editorial matching service should work.

Groundworks Foundation Repair: An Independent Explainer