How much does foundation repair cost in Central Texas?
Updated July 2026
Short answer: a typical residential slab piering job in Texas runs $8,000 to $25,000, driven mostly by how many piers you need and how deep they go. Small partial repairs land well below that; full perimeter-plus-interior work goes well above it.
The honest longer answer includes a caveat most cost pages skip. Nearly all published Texas foundation pricing is collected in Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. We could not find a neutral published cost dataset for the Copperas Cove–Killeen market specifically. The Killeen–Temple area is a lower-cost labor market than DFW or Austin, so local numbers plausibly sit at or below the low end of these ranges — but that's an inference, and we'd rather say so than dress it up as local data.
Published price ranges
These are third-party published ranges, not quotes. Your project may fall outside them — the next section explains why.
| Item | Published range |
|---|---|
| Engineer's evaluation with elevation survey | $500 – $1,500 |
| Pressed concrete piling (per pier) | $450 – $900 |
| Drilled bell-bottom pier (per pier) | $800 – $1,500 |
| Steel pier / deep underpinning (per pier) | $1,000 – $3,000 |
| Typical slab piering job (whole project) | $8,000 – $25,000 |
| Partial-perimeter bell-bottom job | $13,000 – $18,000 |
| Mudjacking — driveways, patios, walkways | $3 – $8 per sq ft |
| Polyurethane foam lifting (polyjacking) | $5 – $25 per sq ft |
| Minimum charge, small concrete leveling job | Often ~$1,200 |
| French drain installation | $23 – $36 per linear ft |
| Typical whole drainage project | $2,500 – $4,250 |
| Killeen foundation repair permit | $60 per project |
| Pier & beam leveling | Site visit required — see below |
A note on outliers: during research we encountered claims of “$4,500 per pressed piling” and “$9,500 per steel pier.” Those figures are wildly out of line with every other source and appear to describe whole jobs rather than single piers. We've left them out. If a bid you receive cites per-pier numbers anywhere near those, ask what exactly the line item covers.
What actually moves the price
Pier count and pier depth.This is the whole equation. Foundation repair is not priced by the square foot of your house — it's priced by how many support points the structure needs and how far down each one has to travel to find competent bearing material. In this area that second variable is genuinely unpredictable, because limestone and caliche sit close to the surface in much of Coryell and western Bell County, and the depth to rock can change dramatically across a single lot.
Method. Pressed concrete pilings are the cheapest per pier and the Texas default. Drilled bell-bottom piers cost more but resist clay uplift, which pressed pilings largely don't. Steel piers cost the most and buy you depth. If a proposal recommends the expensive option, ask what it needs to reach that the cheaper one won't.
Interior versus perimeter.The single biggest swing factor in the whole project. Perimeter piers work from outside the house. Interior piers require cutting roughly 2'×2' access holes through your floors, which means moving out for a few days, replacing floor covering afterward, and a substantially larger bill.
Access. Tight side yards, mature landscaping, decks, and patios that have to be demolished and rebuilt all add cost. Rocky ground adds cost to any excavation — including drainage trenching, which is a real local factor given how shallow the limestone runs here.
Engineering and permits.An engineer's evaluation runs $500–$1,500. In Killeen a foundation repair permit has been required since March 2022, the permit fee is modest, and both compliance paths require an engineer — so for a Killeen project, engineering isn't optional budget, it's baseline budget. See the permits guide for the details.
What comes after the lift. Post-lift plumbing testing is standard engineering practice, because raising a slab can break rigid pipe beneath it. If the test finds a break, repairing it is additional. Site restoration — beds, shrubs, sod along the work zone — is also frequently a separate line. Ask about both before signing.
How to spend less without buying a worse repair
- Buy the engineer's report first. For $500–$1,500 you get a defined scope, which turns three incomparable sales pitches into three comparable bids on identical work.
- Ask whether drainage correction and a season of monitoring is a reasonable first step — engineering guidance explicitly treats it as something to consider before or instead of piers.
- Compare scopes line by line: pier count, pier type, depth to refusal, interior versus perimeter, plumbing test included, site restoration included.
- Fix the moisture problem regardless. Piers stabilize what has already moved; drainage and vegetation management are what keep the rest of the house from following.
- Get the full warranty document before signing, not the brochure summary.
A word about “lifetime transferable warranty”
It affects the value of what you're buying, so it belongs in a cost discussion. These warranties are real contracts, but read what they actually say. Across published warranty documents from Texas contractors, the common terms are narrower than the marketing implies:
- Coverage applies to the piers installed, in the area worked — not to your foundation as a whole. If an un-piered section settles later, that's new work at full price.
- “Lifetime” typically means the life of the structure, not yours — and it's only as good as the company still being in business.
- Transfer to a buyer usually isn't automatic; terms commonly require a request within a short window after title transfer, often with a fee.
- Many warranties only trigger past a stated movement threshold — one published warranty starts at settlement greater than ¾ inch.
- Voiding conditions are broad: substantial additions, major plumbing leaks, a pool built too close to the foundation.
- Pier-and-beam shimming carries an entirely different and much shorter warranty, commonly 3–5 years and sometimes as little as one.
Want a real number for your house?
A free estimate takes a name and a phone number. Ranges are for budgeting — an assessment is for deciding.
Sources for the ranges above include published Texas contractor cost pages and third-party home-services cost surveys (HomeGuide, HomeAdvisor, Angi), collected mainly in DFW, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. Engineering references are from the Texas Section ASCE Guidelines for the Evaluation and Repair of Residential Foundations, available free at texasce.org. Permit figures are from City of Killeen published documents. Verify current figures before relying on them.