Should I water my foundation this week?

Two questions decide it: whether the ground is actually drying out, and whether your water provider lets you. The second one surprises people — in most of Williamson County, foundation watering is not carved out of the restrictions.

1. Are conditions actually calling for it?

Live rainfall for Williamson County, compared against the 30-year normal for the same three weeks of the year, plus what’s coming.

2. What your provider actually allows

Pick who bills you for water, not what city you live in. That distinction matters more here than people expect: Hutto’s own website lists three different water providers for Hutto addresses, and Manville WSC imposes mandatory restrictions every year from May 1 to September 30, which are stricter than some cities’ rules. Two neighbours on the same street can be on different schedules.

Every provider, side by side

Verified against each provider’s own published page on July 26, 2026. Where a provider doesn’t address something, we say so rather than guessing.

Hand watering with a held hose is allowed any day and any time by Round Rock, Georgetown, Leander and Manville. On a hot week outside your assigned day, that is often the only compliant way to get water into the soil at all.

How the light is calculated

No black box. Three signals, all visible above:

1. Recent moisture — total rainfall over the trailing 21 days, as a percentage of the 30-year normal for that same window.
2. Incoming rain — total forecast rainfall over the next 7 days.
3. Evaporative demand — how many of the next 7 days are forecast to hit 100°F.

Evaluated in order — the first row that matches is the light you get.

These thresholds are ours. No engineering standard defines when to water a foundation, so we picked values we can defend and published them rather than hiding them. Disagree with a cut-off? The underlying numbers are shown above so you can make your own call.

Where the normal comes from. We didn’t invent a baseline. For every day of the year we totalled rainfall across the same trailing 21-day window in each of the 30 years from 1991 to 2020, at the county centroid, using the ERA5 reanalysis via the Open-Meteo archive. The median is the headline comparison because Central Texas rainfall is skewed by a handful of heavy events, which drags the average above a typical year.

One honest caveat about the comparison. The baseline is ERA5 reanalysis; the live trailing rainfall comes from Open-Meteo’s forecast model. They are different products with slightly different precipitation biases, so the percentage is a good indicator rather than a precise measurement. We’d rather say that than imply more precision than the method supports.

If live data is down: the seasonal rule of thumb

Through a hot, dry Central Texas stretch, soil at the slab edge dries and shrinks first — the south and west sides fastest. The aim is steady moisture, not saturation. Slow, even re-wetting over days. Dumping a lot of water quickly onto shrunken clay can heave one area up sharply, which is its own kind of damage. Full routine in watering your foundation through a drought.

Common questions

Can I water my foundation during restrictions?

Only Pflugerville explicitly says yes. Round Rock is the only other provider that addresses it — its drought-stage rules bind it to your assigned days, though it is currently in no numbered stage. Everyone else is silent, which leaves you with the general schedule. Check your row above and follow the link to your provider.

Aren’t soaker hoses always allowed?

No. Cedar Park allows them anytime; Round Rock, Georgetown, Leander and Pflugerville all bind them to your assigned days; Hutto and Taylor exempt drip irrigation but never say whether a soaker hose counts as drip. If you’re in Hutto or Taylor and want certainty, ask them.

Why does the tool sometimes say yellow when it just rained?

Because a wet three weeks followed by a 105°F week with no rain is a drying trend, not a safe one. Recent rainfall alone would have called today green in exactly that situation.

Does any of this actually prevent foundation damage?

Steady soil moisture reduces the shrink-swell cycling that moves slabs on Blackland clay, which is why the practice exists. It is not a guarantee, and it is not a repair. If you’re already seeing cracks or sticking doors, start with the crack checker.

Sources

• Provider rules — each provider’s own published page, listed in the panel above. We do not cite watering-schedule aggregator sites: while researching this we found several publishing the wrong drought stage for Cedar Park, Georgetown and Round Rock.
• Live rainfall and forecast — Open-Meteo forecast API, Williamson County centroid (30.63, −97.68).
• 30-year normals — ERA5 reanalysis via the Open-Meteo archive API, 1991–2020, same coordinates and same 21-day window. Method described above; the derived table is published in our repository alongside this page.
• Not legal advice, and not a substitute for your provider. Drought stages change with lake and plant levels, sometimes with a day’s notice; Pflugerville last changed stage on July 25, 2026. Confirm with your provider before you water.

Provider rules last verified July 26, 2026. We re-check weekly through the watering season. If a provider’s rules go unverified past 30 days, the table above hides itself rather than show you something stale.

Foundation repair by city

Soil, neighborhoods and permit rules differ across the county. Local detail for Round Rock, Georgetown, Cedar Park, Leander, Hutto, Pflugerville and Taylor, or see every area we serve.