Mid-century lots on wet sand, downstream of the 2020 dam failures.
Most of Midland's 19,459 homes have some age on them: the median build year is 1971, and about 52 percent went up between 1950 and 1979, per the 2024 American Community Survey. Alden B. Dow brought modern design to the city in the early 1930s, and the Mid-Century Modern Midland project had documented 423 mid-century structures by 2019. Behind many of those houses sit walks, steps, patios and garage floors that have taken fifty or more winters, in a place the city's own design criteria rate as severe for weathering.
Under much of the city the ground is sand with water close beneath it. NRCS soil maps for central Midland are led by the Wixom-Belleville and Pipestone-Oakville urban land complexes. Pipestone carries a seasonal high water table 6 to 18 inches down between October and June, and Wixom and Belleville put sand over slower, loamier layers. Along the rivers, Cohoctah soils flood often. A slab poured on saturated sand with no gravel bed can heave once it freezes, so we excavate, compact the subbase, lay gravel bedding and pitch every slab away from the house.
The Tittabawassee River raises the stakes for basements. NOAA storm records show the river at Midland, where flood stage is 24 feet, cresting above 27 feet in 2004, 2013, 2017 and 2018, then setting a record 35.05 feet on May 20, 2020, after the Edenville and Sanford dams failed upstream. About 1,000 buildings across Midland County were severely damaged or destroyed. City records add a second issue: a 1996 survey found about 57 percent of homes had footing drains tied to the sanitary sewer, a hookup barred for new homes since 1987. On a new foundation wall we lay drain tile before backfill and seal the outside.
Midland splits concrete paperwork two ways. A driveway or walk on your own lot, no more than 30 inches above grade and not over a basement, needs no building permit. Anything in the right-of-way, meaning the public sidewalk and the approach between walk and curb, needs a permit from the Engineering Department, and the city spec calls for four inch sidewalks, five inch approaches and half inch expansion joints at the curb and walk. In 2025 the city set out to map 335 miles of sidewalk with survey-grade GPS for its first comprehensive replacement program, and repair requests for public walks go to Public Works.
What Midland concrete runs into
- Slabs heaving where Pipestone sand holds water 6 to 18 inches down from October to June.
- Damp basements in older homes whose footing drains still run to the sanitary sewer.
- Scaled, cracked walks and garage floors on 1950s to 1970s lots, in weather the city rates severe.
- Approaches broken at the curb where the half inch expansion joints in the city spec were skipped.
- Deck and tower footings set above Midland's 42 inch frost line, or set with dry mix.
- Sheds on bare ground that need a rat wall, when a slab reaching 2 feet past each side avoids it.
