Mesquite houses on moving clay: leaks, hail and the rebuild

Our footing here

Reopening east of Dallas, and what this page leaves out

Our crews did a lot of work across Dallas–Fort Worth in earlier years, and we are reopening in the region now. No Mesquite job is logged in our current records, so you will not find Mesquite photos or job stories here.

Instead, this page is what we read about Mesquite before writing it: the soil maps, the county's storm records, the census count of its homes, and the rules its Building Inspection Division and Engineering Division publish. Every one of those facts links to the office that wrote it. Our own facts are the plain ones: we handle water mitigation, mold remediation, fire and smoke cleanup, air duct cleaning, the rebuild after the damage, and construction and remodeling, with one phone number from the first call to the last coat of paint.

The ground first

Four clays under one city

We looked up sample points across Mesquite in the USDA's soil database, the same data behind its free Web Soil Survey. Most came back as heavy clays: Houston Black, Burleson, Ferris and Heiden. Two exceptions turned up, a Wilson soil and, toward the south, an Axtell sandy loam.

The sample points are a picture of the city, not of your lot. Enter your own address in Web Soil Survey to see the soil mapped under it.

What the city asks of a foundation repair

Mesquite treats foundation repair differently from most repairs. Its Building Inspection Division's foundation repair handout, listed on the division's permit requirements page, says that all foundation repair work in the city requires a permit, issued and paid for before any work starts, with an engineer-sealed design in the application. The division does not inspect the repair itself: a State of Texas licensed engineer does, and the city finals the permit when the engineer's approval letter arrives. Work found without a permit is stopped until the permit is obtained, at a double fee.

Foundation repair for clay-soil movement is part of what we do, alongside the slab leak work that so often comes with it: meters to find where the water spread, opening only what has to come out, and drying to the readings before anything is closed up.

The houses

A city of owner-occupied houses from the 1960s to the 1980s

The Census Bureau's 2020–2024 American Community Survey counts 53,953 homes in Mesquite. Seven in ten are detached single-family houses, and six in ten households own the home they live in.

• Median year built: 1983

  The survey's median year built for Mesquite is 1983. Its year-built table shows the 1980s as the busiest decade, with 15,364 homes, and 21,852 homes, about four in ten, built before 1980. Only about one in six went up in 2000 or later.

• Mostly detached, mostly owned

  The units-in-structure table counts 38,140 detached houses, and the tenure table shows 31,501 of 50,171 occupied homes lived in by their owners. In practice, the person who calls us is usually the person who decides on the repair.

• What an older house adds to a permitted repair

  The city's remodel, repair and addition checklist says that when any construction work needs a permit, smoke detectors are required in the existing house, not only in the area being built, and hard-wired detectors must be interconnected. In a house built before 1980, that can add rooms to the scope, so we put it in the estimate from the start.

Creek water

When South Mesquite Creek rises

On August 22, 2022, more than 10 inches of rain fell in a few hours around Interstate 635 and Scyene Road, and South Mesquite Creek swept a car off the Loop 635 service road. Across the county, damage assessments counted more than 800 homes and buildings reached by flood water.

Those entries come from NOAA's Storm Events Database, which also records stranded drivers pulled from flood water near Military Parkway and Scyene Road on July 8, 2025. Flash floods here do not need a hurricane: a stalled front and a night of heavy rain have been enough.

Rising flood water is category 3, the most contaminated of the three water categories and in the same class as sewage, so the goal is a house that is clean as well as dry. See water damage mitigation and sewage cleanup.

Hail and wind

How often does hail hit Mesquite roofs?

Often enough to plan for. NOAA's database holds 196 hail reports for Dallas County from 2016 through 2025, 51 of them in 2023 alone, and several were logged in Mesquite itself.

1. June 2, 2017

   Hail 2 inches across in the city, by the database's report, and ping-pong-ball hail the same day.

2. March 9, 2019

   A weather service survey found an EF-0 tornado path in Mesquite: roof material torn off, a chimney down, broken windows.

3. June 13, 2023

   Three reports in one afternoon, up to ping-pong-ball size.

4. April 30, 2025

   Thunderstorm wind the database puts at 70 knots, just west-southwest of the city center.

After a storm we tarp and board up first, then repair the roof, siding and gutters, and every step is photographed and measured for your claim. Details on storm and hail damage repair.

Freeze and heat

A freeze that split pipes, a summer that dried the clay

For a burst pipe, a licensed plumber repairs the pipe itself; we take out the water, open what has to come out, dry the structure by the readings and rebuild. The rebuild side is on rebuild after damage.

Mesquite permits

Who can pull a Mesquite permit, and for what

In Mesquite, nobody applies for a permit until they hold a Professional License with the city, homeowners included. The Building Inspection Division registers it in its online Citizen Self Service portal, and a homeowner working on their own homestead can register at no cost.

• Permit needed

  The division's frequently asked questions list new construction, repairs, remodels, windows, exterior doors, demolition, electrical, plumbing, and heating and air conditioning.

• No permit

  Cosmetic work: new wallpaper, carpet, paint, cabinets or trim.

• Utilities come back after inspection

  Gas is not released to the gas company without an inspection, and on a house the final electrical inspection has to pass before the meter is released. After a fire or a flooded electrical panel, those inspections decide when power and gas come back.

On remodels and rebuilds we handle the permits and the plans, and design is included.

Mold, Texas rules

Why a separate company tests the mold

Texas Occupations Code 1958.155 keeps mold assessment and mold remediation apart on the same project. On any project we remediate, the assessment is done by an independent licensed mold assessor, and we never assess and remediate the same Texas project.

In a house that sat wet after a creek flood or a thawed pipe, that means the assessor looks at the mold first, and our removal follows that assessment. Everything the mold touched is replaced with new material, never cleaned and reused. The whole process is on mold remediation.

The money side

Your deductible, our estimate, the insurer's decision

On a covered repair you pay only your deductible, and your insurer pays us the rest directly. Upgrades you choose are priced separately.

We are the repair contractor, never the adjuster. We document the loss with photos, moisture readings and measurements, write a line-item estimate in Xactimate for your adjuster and answer their questions about our scope; the claim itself stays between you and your insurer. The first consultation and quote are free, our work carries a written warranty with its terms in your contract, and financing is available through our lending partner. More on working with insurance.

Asked in Mesquite

Mesquite permit, gas, flood map and fence questions