Foundation Maintenance Checklist: A Season-by-Season Routine

Foundations fail slowly and quietly — by inches a season, not all at once — which is the good news and the catch. The catch is that nothing dramatic ever tells you to act. The good news is that the homeowner's real job isn't complicated: it's a simple, repeatable routine. Water and drain consistently, look at the house twice a year, and learn the handful of signs that mean "stop and call an engineer." Do those three things and you keep small movements from compounding into a five-figure repair. This page is that routine — the season-by-season checklist, the two-minute monthly checks, the signs to watch, and the bright line where do-it-yourself monitoring ends and an engineer begins.

The Twice-a-Year Survey

The backbone of foundation maintenance is a survey you do twice a year. The Foundation Performance Association recommends surveying your site and structure twice per year, and the timing is the whole point: do it right after the seasonal extremes — once after the worst of summer drought, once after the wettest stretch — because that's when expansive clay has moved the most and any distress is easiest to read. A crack that's invisible in mild weather can gape open at the peak of a drought.

What turns a casual look into a survey is documentation. Photograph the same spots every time, square-on, and date the photos so you can compare year over year. A single photo tells you nothing; a year of dated photos tells you whether a crack is alive or asleep. Walk a consistent route and capture:

• Every existing crack — exterior brick and interior drywall — with a coin or ruler in frame for scale.
• Door and window gaps — the reveal above each door against the header, and any door that has started to stick or won't latch.
• The perimeter soil — where it meets the slab, looking for a gap that's opened up, and any spot where water pooled after the last rain.
• The chimney line — any separation pulling away from the wall.
• Floors — note any room that has begun to feel sloped or bouncy.

This survey isn't a diagnosis; it's a baseline. The value is in the comparison: next year's photos against this year's. For the symptoms worth photographing in detail, see our signs of foundation problems overview, which documents each sign rather than repeating them here.

Season-by-Season Checklist

The work tracks the weather, because the weather is what moves the soil. The table below is the year in one view. The deep how-to for two of these tasks lives in dedicated guides — for watering schedules and hose placement see foundation watering, and for grade, gutters, and downspout fixes see drainage and grading. This page keeps it to the checklist.

Two recurring drainage points are worth committing to memory because they govern every season. Keep gutters clean, and verify that downspouts discharge their water at least 5 feet from the foundation — 8 to 10 feet is better on clay, where you want the roof water nowhere near the active soil. And the grade itself should carry water away: per the International Residential Code, the ground should fall at least 6 inches within the first 10 feet from the house.

The Monthly Two-Minute Checks

Between the two formal surveys, a short monthly walk-around catches anything moving fast. Three quick checks cover most of it.

The screwdriver soil-moisture test. Push a long screwdriver or soil probe into the ground near the slab, about six inches deep. If it goes in easily and comes out lightly damp, your moisture is about right. If it's hard and the probe comes out dry or powdery, water more. If the probe comes out caked in mud, water less. The goal is steady and damp — never muddy, never powder-dry — because it's the swing between wet and dry that moves expansive clay, not moisture itself.

A quick perimeter look. Walk the foundation line. Has the soil pulled away from the slab and left a gap? Did water stand against the wall after the last rain? Has a crack you photographed last season visibly grown? You're not diagnosing — you're spotting change.

The water-meter leak test. A hidden plumbing leak is one of the most under-appreciated triggers of foundation movement, because it wets the soil under one corner and heaves it. To check, shut off all the water in and around the house and watch the meter's low-flow indicator — the small triangle, star, or sweep hand. If it moves with everything off, water is escaping under pressure. Before assuming the worst, rule out the common mimics: AC condensate, an irrigation valve that didn't fully close, a failed expansion tank, or a dripping outdoor spigot can all spin a meter. If movement is suspected, or the home was built before 1985, the FPA advises a hydrostatic plumbing test. Our plumbing-leaks page walks through detection and repair.

What to Look For: Signs (and Which Are Urgent)

Most of what you'll find on a survey is cosmetic. A minority is not — and the geometry of a crack, more than its mere presence, tells you which. The table below sorts the common signs into three buckets: seal-and-monitor cosmetic, keep-an-eye-on watch, and call-a-pro structural. It's a triage tool, not a substitute for a full read; for the detail behind each call, see our normal vs structural cracks guide and the signs cluster, which document each sign in depth.

One sign on its own is rarely conclusive — a lone hairline crack means little. What raises concern is a sign that scores badly on several counts at once, or several signs appearing together across the house. That clustering is the difference between "monitor" and "measure," and between "watch" and "call." For the symptom that most often brings homeowners to a survey, see signs of a sinking foundation.

When to Stop DIY

There is a clean line where monitoring ends. Cross any one of these thresholds and the right next step is an engineer's measurement, not another season of watching:

• A horizontal crack in any foundation wall.
• Any crack wider than ¼ inch, in any orientation.
• Any crack with displacement — one side stepped or offset out of plane.
• A stair-step crack wider than ¼ inch or visibly progressing.
• Doors sticking across multiple rooms (one humid door is not this).
• Visibly sloping or bouncy floors.
• A bowing or bulging wall.
• A chimney separating from the structure.

The quick field gauge for crack width is the quarter-edge-fit test: hold a quarter to the crack, and if its edge slips in, you're at the threshold that warrants an evaluation. It's a screen, not a verdict — but it's a reliable cue to stop sealing and start calling.

The honest framing is that this routine does two jobs at once. The watering and drainage are prevention — they hold the soil moisture steady so the clay never cycles hard enough to move the house. The twice-yearly survey and monthly checks are early warning — they catch the rare case where the house moves anyway, while the fix is still cheap. For the full prevention strategy this checklist puts into practice, see the prevention pillar.

FAQ Note

The FAQ below answers what San Antonio homeowners ask most about keeping up a foundation — how often to inspect, what each season demands, how to test soil moisture, how to check for a hidden plumbing leak, which cracks to worry about, when to call an engineer, whether to photograph cracks, and what matters most in a Texas summer. For the deeper how-to behind the watering and drainage tasks, follow the links to those guides; for the deep crack-diagnosis detail, see the cracks and signs clusters.

Get Matched With a Vetted San Antonio Foundation Specialist

If a survey turned up a sign on the "call a pro" list — a horizontal crack, a quarter-inch gap, doors sticking room to room, a floor you can feel slope — the right next step is a measurement, not a sales call. We'll match you with a vetted San Antonio specialist and point you to an independent engineer who can confirm whether your foundation has actually moved beyond tolerance and, if so, what it needs. The match is free, the quote is no-obligation, and we don't take a fee from you. We screen for sealed-engineer diagnosis over contractor say-so, repair scopes that follow the engineer's design rather than a sales target, and a documented moisture-management plan alongside any structural work — because on expansive clay, keeping the repair durable means fixing the moisture story too, not just the slab.