What Type of Soil Does Your House Sit On?

If you're curious about the soil on which your home or business sits, there's a few places you can find out.

First, check out the Web Soil Survey. The site is provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), specifically the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). According to the site:

The site provides access to the largest natural resource information system in the world. NRCS has soil maps and data available online for more than 95 percent of the nation’s counties and anticipates having 100 percent in the near future. The site is updated and maintained online as the single authoritative source.

In this blog post, we'll explore the Web Soil Survey (WSS).

To use the Web Soil Survey, browse to http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/ and click the big green "Start WSS" button. (Note: When we tried it, the map presented after the green button produced an error in Mozilla Firefox but worked just fine in Microsoft Internet Explorer.)

You'll need to enter your address and wait for the system to generate a map. Next, use the AOI ("Area of Interest") tools (see the icons at the top of the map) to draw a square or other shape around the address or neighborhood in which you're interested.

Next, go to the top of the page and click the "Soil Map" tab. If you haven't created an AOI, you'll get an error message. If all goes well, it won't seem like much happened. However, if you'll look at the left side of the screen, you'll see that the WSS has provided information about the AOI, including the county name, number of acres in the AOI, and the "Map Unit Name." (In our tests, we picked an area near downtown Dallas and our map unit name was "urban land.")

Click on the next tab, "Soil Data Explorer." The system may take a moment or two to load the page, but be patient. There are 5 tabs under this report.

By default, information for the first tab, Suitabilities and Limitations for Use, is displayed. The left side of the screen will switch to a list of data categories, including Building Site Development, Construction Materials, Land Classifications, Vegetative Productivity, and Water Management. (There's also Military Operations, Wildlife Management, and a host of other interesting items!)

What we're looking for is a piece of data called the linear extensibility, which is the amount of shrink-swell of the soil. So, click on the tab labeled "Soil Properties and Qualities" and scroll down (on the the left side of the screen) to category called "Soil Physical Properties." Expand the category and you'll find "Linear Extensibility" nine items down. There's no value given here, but there's a good description of linear extensibility.

To get the actual report, you'll need to go to the top of the page and click on the tab "Shopping Cart (Free)." Note that even though you're click on a button titled "Shopping Cart" you do not need to pay for the report if you simply want it displayed on your screen.

Review the parameters on the left side of the page (page size, etc.) and then click on the "Check Out" button (upper left corner). If your web browser has a pop-up blocker installed, you'll need to disable it so the report can pop up.

You can play with the soil explorer and add more information to your report. In any case, there's tons of information to be had with this tool and you'll have access to much of the same data an engineer would do when examining your property and preparing a report.

Get more information by visiting www.AceFoundation.com.