HomeFoundation Soils vs ShrinkSwellCheck
Foundation Soils vs ShrinkSwellCheck
Foundation Soils · checked October 6, 2026
ShrinkSwellCheck is a county lookup for expansive clay risk, built on USDA linear extensibility. Foundation Soils is a reference site built from public data: soil, water table, drought and flood losses for the ground under US houses. They overlap, but they answer different questions. Use ShrinkSwellCheck when you want one expansive clay band per county. Use Foundation Soils when you want expansive clay, water table, drought and flood losses for a county, city or ZIP on one page.
Foundation Soils is a reference site that earns referral fees, so read its side of this page with that in mind. Every fact about ShrinkSwellCheck below was read from its own pages on October 6, 2026 and links to the page it came from.
Side by side
"Not on the pages read" means the page we read did not show it, not that the site lacks it. Checked October 6, 2026. Prices and counts change; check the linked page.
When ShrinkSwellCheck is the better pick
- You want one clean expansive clay reading per county in four bands, and nothing else on the page.
- You want the data table it publishes, one row per county.
When Foundation Soils is the better pick
- You want the water table, this week's drought and flood losses on the same page as the clay.
- You want the share of a county's land that reaches the high class, not only the dominant soil's band, plus city and ZIP pages.
A county or ZIP page here is a starting point. The soil under one lot can differ from its county, and what to do about a house is a question for a licensed engineer.