What are foundation conditions like in Claremore, Oklahoma?

Reviewed by Preston · Updated 2026-11-11

In short: About 37% of Claremore is mapped in soils rated high shrink-swell and about 41% in soils that drain poorly ¹. Dennis, the clay soil whose official type location is just north of town, covers about 30% of the city ¹³, so perched water on clay in winter and spring is the condition to plan around.

How much of Claremore has expansive soil?

Claremore covers about 15 square miles ² across the Rogers and Mayes county soil surveys ¹.

Which Claremore soils matter most for houses?

• Dennis is very deep and somewhat poorly drained, with a perched water table 12 to 30 inches down from December through April; its type location is about half a mile north of Claremore ³.
• Bates, about 15%, is a well drained loamy prairie soil that reaches soft sandstone or shale at 20 to 40 inches, with lower swell than clay soils ⁴.
• Okemah has a silty clay subsoil with slickensides and water perched 2 to 3 feet down in winter and spring ⁵.
• Apperson and Summit are smectite clays: Apperson, over limestone 40 to 60 inches down, cracks open and closes with the seasons ⁶, and Summit's subsoil is 40 to 70 percent clay ⁷.
• Collinsville is shallow sandy loam on hard sandstone 4 to 20 inches down ⁸. Verdigris is a silty floodplain soil subject to flooding ⁹.

What does this mean for Claremore houses?

Clay that swells when perched water rises in winter and spring, then shrinks in late summer, drives perimeter heave and edge drop ³. Keeping roof and surface water away from the foundation matters; see surface drainage and grading and groundwater and perched water.

Which soils cover Claremore?

Looking for a foundation company near Claremore?

Companies that serve Claremore can appear on the company map in the Homeowner Hub. Paid listings there are marked Sponsored; the library and the AI guide don't rank or recommend any of them.

Buying or selling a house in Claremore? Realtors who serve the area can be on the same map, also marked Sponsored, and for realtors covers the seller disclosure form, inspections and the sale timeline. Seeing cracks at home? Start with for homeowners.

How were these numbers measured?

We overlaid the city's current limits from the Census Bureau ² on the USDA soil survey's map units ¹ and added up the area of each soil. Where a map unit is a mix of soils, its area was split by the percentages the survey lists for its major soils, so the shares above leave out minor inclusions and do not add to 100%. A soil counts as high, moderate or low shrink-swell by the linear extensibility of its most expansive layer, the survey's measure of how much a soil changes length between wet and dry (6% or more is rated high). Water table, bedrock and flooding come from the survey's map-unit summaries: the shallowest water table in any month, the shallowest bedrock, and the most common flooding frequency. Bedrock here includes soft, weathered sandstone and shale that a pier can push through, so it is not the depth where piers stop. These are mapped averages for the whole city, not a test of any one lot. Fill, grading and the soil actually under a house can differ, which is why a site visit or soil boring still decides a repair.

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