About BasementSoil
A basement problem is one of the few household decisions where the person diagnosing it usually sells the cure. This site exists to put the public data on the table before that conversation starts.
The specific gap
The USDA has spent decades mapping American soil. Drainage class, shrink-swell potential and depth to water table are published for essentially every acre of the country, free, in a machine-readable service. Those three fields are close to the whole story of why one basement is wet and the one two streets over is not. Almost nobody tells homeowners they exist.
Meanwhile the search results for “wet basement” are owned by contractors and lead vendors. Their content is not usually false. It is shaped: every diagnosis happens to point at the product the publisher sells.
What we do differently
- Soil facts, not diagnoses. We will tell you the ground is classified poorly drained. We will not tell you your basement is wet.
- Our model is labelled as a model. Prices especially. It makes them less convincing, which is correct.
- The source sits next to the number, not in the footer.
- We say when the answer is cheap. A lot of damp basements are condensation or a downspout. Saying so costs us referral fees.
How we are funded
Referral fees from contractor networks, disclosed at every point of ask. The full version, including what that incentive would push us to do.
What we are not
Not a contractor, not an engineer, not an insurer. If you need someone to look at your actual foundation, you need a licensed structural engineer, and at a few hundred dollars they are the cheapest part of a five-figure decision.
Corrections
If a number here is wrong, or a sentence crosses the line from data into diagnosis, tell us: hello@basementsoil.com. Corrections are the cheapest credibility there is.
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