The native soil profile throughout the Southgate Estates sector consists of heavy alluvial silts and highly expansive clay matrices that are deeply impacted by regional weather. These clay soils swell dramatically when saturated by heavy seasonal rainfall and shrink during hot, dry summer spells, causing unreinforced concrete slabs to shift, tilt, or crack apart. We counteract these subsurface movements by over-engineering our bases. We excavate deeply, lay down a thick course of crushed stone aggregate road base, and fortify our slabs internally with a heavy-duty grid of structural steel rebar.