What are foundation conditions like in Jenks, Oklahoma?

Reviewed by Preston · Updated 2026-11-11

In short: Jenks sits where Dennis clay uplands meet the Arkansas River floodplain. About 28% of the city is mapped in soils rated high shrink-swell ¹, mostly on the uplands, while river soils are deep and soft, with 18 to 35 feet of soil over rock measured along the banks ⁹.

How much of Jenks has expansive soil?

Jenks covers about 17 square miles ² across the Tulsa and Creek county soil surveys ¹. About 38% of the city is in somewhat poorly or poorly drained soils ¹.

Which Jenks soils matter most for houses?

• Dennis, about 23% of the city, is very deep and somewhat poorly drained, with perched water 12 to 30 inches down from December through April ³.
• Radley is a moderately well drained floodplain soil in stratified silty alluvium ⁴; Severn is a well drained, silty floodplain soil ⁵; Choska is on low terraces of floodplains ⁶.
• Wynona floods occasionally and holds perched water about 2 feet down from November to April ⁷.
• Niotaze, on wooded hillsides, has a stony sandy surface over a dense clay subsoil with shale 20 to 40 inches down ⁸.

What is under the river side of Jenks?

Borings for the Arkansas River corridor projects found overburden (soil above rock) 18 to 35 feet thick in the river banks at the South Tulsa/Jenks site, versus about 4 to 10 feet within the channel, and the shale there averaged 737 psi over nine tests ⁹. Deep, soft ground near the river is why a pier or footing depth from an upland street does not carry over to a river-side lot. See depth to rock from borings and creeks and flood history.

Which soils cover Jenks?

ZIP codes in Jenks

ZIP 74037

Looking for a foundation company near Jenks?

Companies that serve Jenks 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 Jenks? 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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