Farmers Branch repairs, from creekside ranch houses to new apartments

Our record here

One Farmers Branch job on the log, and a reopening in North Texas

Our job log for 2026 holds 1 logged job in Farmers Branch. Before that, we did a lot of work across Dallas–Fort Worth in earlier years, and we are opening up there again now.

That single job is all this page claims about our work in the city. It shows no photos from it, because none has been cleared for publishing, and it does not say what kind of job it was. The rest of the page is what we read about Farmers Branch before writing: who lives in which kind of building, where the creeks run, and what the city's building office asks for after a leak, a broken water heater or a foundation repair. Each fact links to the public agency that published it.

What we offer here is the same as everywhere we work: water mitigation, mold remediation, fire and smoke cleanup, air duct cleaning, reconstruction once the damage is handled, and construction and remodeling. One company carries the job from the wet floor to the finished room.

Two kinds of home

The median owned home dates from 1967; the median rented one from 2011

Farmers Branch is really two housing stocks side by side. The Census Bureau's survey for 2020–2024 puts the median year built at 1967 for homes lived in by their owners and at 2011 for homes that are rented.

Those two medians come from table B25037, median year built by tenure. Across all 17,260 housing units the median lands in 2001 (table B25035, margin of error two), a number that hides the split. The decade counts in table B25034 show it plainly: 5,209 homes went up in the 1950s and 1960s, then building slowed, and 6,816 more have gone up since 2010.

For an owner, that usually means the rebuild has to match an older house. For a tenant, it means the landlord or the building's manager usually decides on the repair and holds the policy for the building.

Creeks and floodplain

Three creeks cross the city, and the Elm Fork runs along its west edge

The city names three major drainageways that flow roughly east to west across Farmers Branch: Farmers Branch Creek, Rawhide Creek and Cooks Creek. The Elm Fork of the Trinity River forms the western boundary.

Those details are from the city's floodplain and drainage page (Public Works). The same page says Farmers Branch Creek begins upstream in Addison and runs about seven miles to the Elm Fork, that homes near it are highly valued, and that many of them lie in the 1-percent-annual-chance floodplain, with streambank erosion along parts of the creek. West of the interstate, the Valwood Improvement Authority built levees, channels and pump stations in 1981 to take land shared with Carrollton out of the floodplain.

• Ask the city about your street

  Public Works offers to tell an owner the flood zone and flood risk of a property, past flooding in the neighborhood, and copies of Elevation Certificates where it has them. It also makes site visits to look at drainage problems.

• Building near the creek

  Any work in a floodplain area, including grading, fill, bank protection and structures such as sheds and detached garages, needs a Floodplain Development Permit. The process starts with a pre-application meeting with the Engineering Department and needs a flood study. The city issues no variances inside FEMA's Special Flood Hazard Area.

• Insurance before the rain

  Standard homeowner policies do not cover floods. Flood policies through the National Flood Insurance Program usually take 30 days to start, are available for every property in the city, and renters can buy contents cover. Check your own address in FEMA's Flood Map Service Center.

When creek or storm water does get in, we take it out, dry the house and rebuild it; see water damage mitigation. A flood policy and a homeowner's policy are separate policies, so ask your agent which one a loss falls under.

Slab and soil

In Farmers Branch, a foundation repair ends with a plumbing test

The city's foundation repair permit asks for sealed drawings from a Texas registered professional engineer. When the repair is done, it wants two more things before final approval: a leak test of the plumbing and a sealed letter from the engineer.

Both come from the forms on the city's building permit forms page. The plumbing acceptance test has two parts: a pressure test of the water piping from the meter through the house, held for 15 minutes, and a test that fills the drain lines under the slab with water for 30 minutes. A plumbing contractor registered with the city runs it under a responsible master plumber.

Why the city cares: lifting or leveling a slab can crack the pipes cast in it. The soil explains why slabs move at all. Trinity clay, a soil the USDA maps on stream flood plains in the northern Blackland Prairie, opens cracks more than 20 inches deep when it dries, and they stay open for 60 to 90 days in most years, by its official series description. Your own lot's soil is in the free Web Soil Survey.

A slab leak shows up as a warm spot in the floor, a damp baseboard or a water bill that climbs. We take moisture readings to see how far the water has spread, then dry and replace what it ruined. Foundation repair for clay-soil movement is part of the work we do in North Texas, and the rebuild follows on rebuild after damage.

Water heaters

When the water heater fails, the permit can follow the emergency

Farmers Branch requires a permit for every residential water heater replacement. In an emergency the heater can be replaced first, and the permit application goes in on the next business day.

That rule is in the city's residential water heater guide, listed on the same forms page. The guide also asks for a drain pan under tank heaters in most locations, a full-port shut-off valve on the cold side, and a proper opening for heaters in the attic. It notes that houses in Farmers Branch built before 2010 generally do not need an expansion tank, unless the plumber finds the water system is closed.

A failed tank in an attic or a hall closet sends water through ceilings and into walls. The plumber replaces the heater; we take out the water, check the framing and insulation with moisture readings, dry what can be dried and replace what cannot.

Freezes

February 2021, read from the airport thermometer

On February 15, 2021, the daytime high at DFW Airport stayed below the record low for that date. The next morning it read −2 °F.

The National Weather Service office in Fort Worth logged two long below-freezing runs that month: 93 hours that ended on February 13 and then 139 hours that ended at noon on February 19. Pipes in outside walls, garages and attics are the ones that split, and the damage often shows only when the ice melts and water runs again.

A licensed plumber repairs the broken line. Our side is the house: water out, wet materials opened, drying until the readings say dry, then the rebuild. More on storm and hail damage repair, which covers roof, siding and gutter repairs after storms, documented for the claim like our other damage work.

Building office

Which repairs the Farmers Branch building office wants to see

Since October 1, 2025, Farmers Branch builds to the 2024 International Codes and the 2023 electrical code. The Building Inspection Division in Community Services issues the permits and runs the inspections.

The division's building inspections and permits page links its guide to work that needs no permit. For a house, that list includes painting, papering, tiling, carpeting, cabinets, countertops and similar finish work. Anything structural, a trade change, a new water heater or a foundation repair needs one. Applications and inspection requests go through the city's Citizen Self Service portal.

For an inspection in a home someone lives in, an adult has to be there to let the inspector in, and field inspections run between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. On remodels we handle the permits and the plans, and design is included; see construction and remodeling.

Mold, the Texas way

If a leak has turned into mold, someone else tests it first

Texas keeps the testing and the removal of mold apart. On every Texas project we remediate, an independent licensed mold assessor does the assessment, and we never do both on the same project.

The split comes from Texas Occupations Code 1958.155. Once the assessor has set the scope, we remove the mold, and every material it touched is replaced with new material rather than cleaned and put back. The full process is on mold remediation.

Paying for the repair

What your insurer receives from us, and what stays your share

When the repair is covered, your share is the deductible. Your insurer pays us directly for the rest, and any upgrade you pick is priced on its own.

Our role is the repair contractor, not the adjuster. The adjuster gets our photos, moisture readings and measurements and a line-item estimate in the industry's standard estimating format, and we answer questions about our scope. The claim and the settlement are between you and your insurer; details on working with insurance. The first consultation and quote cost nothing, the work carries a written warranty whose terms are in each contract, and financing is available through our lending partner.

Asked in Farmers Branch

Questions from Farmers Branch homeowners and renters