Lyon County, KS Shrink-Swell Risk

What Lyon County, KS's soil means for a foundation

High

USDA's SSURGO data puts Lyon County, KS's soil at "High" shrink-swell potential, an area-weighted linear extensibility of 6.88% across 40.5% of the county's surveyed land. Ground like this needs active moisture control to keep a conventional foundation from cracking - it's not automatic either way.

This is a county figure, not a lot figure

USDA's survey covers the whole of Lyon County, KS at once, not any single address. A local geotechnical report, typically $1,000-$5,000 (around $2,700 typical), is the only way to know what one lot in Lyon County will actually do.

Report cost vs. repair cost

Lyon County's soil reading is exactly the case where a report before construction, or before cracks widen, pays for itself. The report ($1,000-$5,000) is what tells you whether Lyon County's county-level reading applies to your lot; the repair ($5,000-$15,000) is what it costs if you skip that and find out from the cracks instead.

How Lyon County, KS compares

Nationally, Lyon County, KS is the 81-most-constrained of 3,085 rated counties for shrink-swell soil. Within Kansas alone it ranks 1 of 105. The county spans 847 square miles, home to 32,520 people.

For contrast

Orleans Parish, LA carries this site's most-constrained reading. Racine County, WI and Montgomery County, AR are worth a look for comparison.

How this reading is built, and its real limits · The warning signs of expansive-clay damage, explained

More of Kansas

Every county in Kansas is on this site, including Meade County, KS and Clark County, KS. The full underlying dataset is downloadable directly, one row per county.