Named for the City of Fountains, built around the ground beneath it

Kansas City is known for its fountains. Under the fountains, the boulevards and most of the houses is a heavy clay that moves every year. That clay is the reason this company exists.

Two workers seen from behind walking across a shaded lawn toward a brick house on a limestone foundation

What we are

Fountain City Foundation Works is a Kansas City foundation repair and basement waterproofing company. We arrange and carry out inspections, crack repair, pier installation, wall bracing, drainage, sump pumps, crawl space work and slab lifting for homes and small commercial buildings on both sides of State Line. The crews who do the work carry general liability and workers' compensation insurance, and they pull the building permit the job needs from the city where the house sits.

Neither Missouri nor Kansas licenses foundation repair at the state level, so there is no state licence number to quote, and we won't invent one. What we can show you instead is how we work: measurements on paper, a written scope and price, the permit when it applies, and photos of the job.

How we think about a foundation

Most foundation problems in the metro start with water in clay. The Shawnee, Grundy and Wymore-Ladoga soils that much of the area sits on are rich in montmorillonite, a clay that swells when it is wet and shrinks when it dries. Spring storms soak it; a dry July and August pull it back; winter freezes the top layer. A foundation that rests on it moves a little every year, and a house built on loosely packed fill moves more.

So every visit looks at water first: gutters, downspouts, grading, window wells, the sump. Then the structure: floor elevations, crack widths, wall deflection. The repair follows from both. Sometimes that is ten piers and a drain. Sometimes it's a downspout extension and a note to check a crack next spring.

Where we work

All of Kansas City, Missouri, including the older neighborhoods like Brookside, Waldo, Midtown and the Northeast where the oldest foundations are, plus Independence, Lee's Summit, Blue Springs, Liberty, Gladstone, Raytown, Grandview and Belton on the Missouri side, and Overland Park, Shawnee, Lenexa, Leawood, Prairie Village and Merriam on the Kansas side. See the service area.

What we promise

A free inspection with real measurements.
A written price before any work, with every pier, strap and foot of drain listed.
No pressure to sign the same day.
A straight answer about insurance, which usually does not cover settlement.
The phone answered 24/7, every call logged and returned.