Meet Clay Crain

Clay Crain has spent so many years in foundation repair (over 40 now, and he’s even known across San Antonio and Austin as “Foundation Grandpa”) that it’s easy to forget he actually started in foundation repair when he was young. Really young.

He was 16 when he joined the hole-digging crew of a major foundation company, leveling houses just two years later, then moved into estimating a year and a half after that when the owner told him he didn’t need to be a salesman, just someone who knew how to fix a house.

And three years after that, in his early 20s, he was running the company's operation for the entire state of Texas.

When that company left the foundation business, Clay right away knew what to do: he founded Above All Foundation Repair in 1990 by himself with one crew; today, 46 employees work for him.

He hires no salespeople. Instead, every estimator at Above All started on the crews, digging holes and leveling houses, before moving into estimating. Just like he did all those years before.

Clay's specialty is finding why a house is moving, not just measuring it. Instead of the generic plan with piers every six feet that many companies provide, he works out how and why the house is moving and designs a custom pier plan around that.

In addition, Clay and his team take on homes with lower-quality foundation work that now need to be done right. Engineers, including those who’ve never worked with him, constantly refer him, even for basement foundation repairs, which are rare in Texas. And before anyone thinks it, those referrals aren’t done “for a referral fee or anything like that. They refer me because they know my company is going to do a good job,” affirms Clay.

His approach overall is simple: be honest, do what you say you're going to do. And when it can't be done, just tell people the truth.

For example, Clay’s had clients ask if he can guarantee “you won’t crack my house?” But he always responds, “Absolutely not. I'm not going to guarantee that. What we're going to do is level the house, and sometimes when you level a house, you're going to create cracks.” And he wants every crew member to do the job the way he would: with honesty, skill, and hitting the problem head-on.

Customers call him “Foundation Grandpa” more often than Clay Crain, but he doesn’t mind. He actually gave it to himself because he is a grandpa and is proud of his experience and years in the foundation repair business.

When he’s not leveling houses or fixing slabs, he coached youth football for years and enjoys bowling and watching football.