We are a referral service, not a contractor

What we do

Champaign County Foundation Repair takes inbound requests from homeowners in this county and routes them to an independent foundation contractor working here. That is the whole service. We do not own equipment, we do not employ crews, and we do not perform foundation work. We do not quote prices, because we are not the party who would honor them.

When you call (217) 882-0544 or send the form, we collect enough detail to describe the job accurately and hand it off. The contractor contacts you, looks at the property, and gives you their estimate. Any contract, payment, schedule and workmanship warranty is between you and that contractor.

Why a matching service instead of just searching yourself

You can absolutely search yourself, and plenty of homeowners do. What this saves you is the round of calls where you describe the same symptoms four times to companies that turn out not to do that particular kind of work, or not to travel to Sadorus, or not to have availability for six weeks. One description, routed once.

Illinois licensing, since it comes up constantly

Illinois does not issue a statewide general contractor license and has no state board for general contracting. This surprises people who have moved here from states like California or Florida where a state license is the baseline. In Illinois, requirements are set municipality by municipality. The City of Champaign requires contractors to be registered with the city in order to pull a permit, and other municipalities in the county have their own rules.

A few trades are handled at the state level. Plumbing is licensed through the Illinois Department of Public Health. Roofing contractors are licensed through the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation. General construction and foundation work are not covered by a statewide credential, which means anyone advertising a "state foundation license" in Illinois is describing something that does not exist.

What to ask any contractor, including one we send you

• Are you registered with the municipality where my house is, and will you be pulling the permit?
• Can I see written proof of your general liability coverage and workers' compensation?
• What exactly is the scope, in writing, and what is specifically excluded?
• What is the payment schedule, and how much is due before work starts?
• What happens if the repair does not hold, and is that in the contract or just verbal?

We do not vouch for outcomes and we are not a party to your agreement. Ask the questions.

Why the copy on this site talks so much about soil

Because in this county the soil is the story. Champaign County sits on the Bloomington Ridged Plain, on Wisconsin Episode glacial deposits, with the Champaign Moraine running through the northwest. The dominant soil is Drummer silty clay loam, very deep, poorly drained, formed in loess over stratified glacial drift, with its type location on the University of Illinois south farm. The land is flat enough that early settlers avoided it entirely and stuck to the timber along the creeks.

That ground was made farmable by organized drainage. After the Levee Act and the Farm Drainage Act of 1879 and 1885, landowners formed drainage districts, dug ditches and laid clay tile, and by 1900 most of the wet prairie in east central Illinois was gone. The Saline Branch Drainage District here is part of that legacy. Houses got built on the drained land without getting the drainage engineering, and the foundations pay for it.

Add a winter that pushes frost well down into that saturated clay and cycles it repeatedly, and you have the two forces behind nearly every foundation call in this county: water that will not leave, and ice that keeps lifting things.