Foundation repair in Smyrna, TN
Smyrna shares Rutherford County's limestone and clay with Murfreesboro. What is different is the town hall you deal with, and Smyrna's Building Safety Department has a few habits worth knowing before a foundation job starts.
Permits
Smyrna looks before it permits
The town's Building Safety Department says anyone who intends to alter a structure must first obtain the appropriate permit from it. For interior remodels and renovations of an existing house, its stated first step is a pre-permit inspection by one of the town's own building inspectors, booked on 615-355-5704 or by email to permits@townofsmyrna.org. The office is at 315 South Lowry Street.
The town's page does not name foundation repair, so ask the department which route your repair takes and whether it wants an engineer's drawing. Ask the foundation company whether it has worked under a Smyrna permit before, and which of you will make that first call.
A useful check
What Smyrna asks a contractor to hand over
- A copy of its State of Tennessee contractor's licence, or its Home Improvement licence.
- A certificate of insurance with workers' compensation details, in the same name as the licence.
- A Town of Smyrna business tax licence, or the town's release form.
Those three documents must come with a contractor's permit application. A company that cannot produce them cannot pull a permit in Smyrna, which makes the town's list a ready-made test for anyone you are thinking of hiring.
The town issues homeowner permits only where the owner lives in the house or plans to. For a rental or a house being prepared for sale, a licensed contractor has to obtain the permit and do the work.
Water
Flood zones, ditches and sinkholes in Smyrna
Smyrna's Town Planner is its floodplain administrator, and a development permit is required before development in a mapped floodplain. The town's description of development includes placing earth fill. If your lot is in a flood zone, ask the Planning Department on 615-355-5706 before regrading around a foundation or building up the yard.
The town also asks owners to keep drainage ditches on their property clear of brush and clippings, because a blocked ditch backs water up into yards. Flooding from a blocked public drain goes to Public Works on 615-459-9766. Smyrna's stormwater pages speak of keeping its streams and sinkholes clean, a reminder that the ground here drains downward as it does in Murfreesboro.
Questions
Smyrna homeowners ask
Does the Home Improvement licence apply in Smyrna?
Yes. Smyrna is in Rutherford County, one of the counties where that state licence applies. Choosing a company explains how to look one up.
My house backs onto a creek. Does that change a foundation repair?
It can. Ask the Planning Department whether the lot is in the mapped floodplain before any soil is moved, and tell the foundation company what you learn.
One phone call
Speak with a foundation repair company near Murfreesboro
Mention the crack, the dip or the lean, name the room, and give the month you first spotted it. Whoever picks up belongs to a Middle Tennessee foundation outfit whose only tie to this website is the referral. They can pencil in an inspection and follow it with a written price.
A house that is cracking as you listen, a wall on the point of failing, gas in the air: everybody outside first, then 911 and the gas company.
Expect the call to be recorded. Two short pages cover the rest: who pays for referrals and what becomes of call details.