Union City was incorporated in 1959 and grew quickly through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Most of the housing stock dates from that 30-year window, which means a large portion of single-family homes in the city are now between 35 and 65 years old. At that age, original roofing, stucco exteriors, concrete driveways, and masonry structures are commonly at or past the end of their useful life. Stucco cracks that were hairline a decade ago are wider now. Driveways that cracked in the 1990s have been flexing with the clay soil ever since and rarely benefit from another patch job at this point. The pattern across Union City is consistent: homes from this era need real repairs, not cosmetic cover-ups.

The clay-heavy soils that cover most of Union City are a primary driver of masonry maintenance here. As the California Geological Survey notes, expansive soils shrink when dry and swell when wet - and that seasonal movement puts stress on every surface that rests on or is anchored into the ground. Union City's wet winters followed by long dry summers create one of the more active soil movement cycles in the Bay Area. Freeze-thaw nights add a secondary stress that widens small cracks into larger ones over successive winters. A contractor who does not account for soil movement in the design of repairs is leaving the homeowner with a result that will fail again in the same way.

Union City is a city of about 75,000 residents in southern Alameda County, sitting along Interstate 880 between Hayward and Fremont. The city was incorporated in 1959 and grew rapidly through the following decades, filling in with single-family neighborhoods that now line both sides of Mission Boulevard and stretch east toward the hills. The housing stock is a mix of 1960s ranch-style homes on modest lots, 1970s and 1980s two-story construction, and newer townhomes and multi-family development built near the Union City BART station over the past two decades. Union City is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the Bay Area, with a large South Asian and Filipino community and many long-term homeowners who have invested in their properties over the years. You can read more about the city on the Union City Wikipedia page.

The city is well connected to the rest of the Bay Area by the Union City BART station and direct access to I-880. Everyday commercial life runs along Mission Boulevard and the Union Landing shopping area on Whipple Road, where most residents do their routine shopping and errands. The eastern part of the city rises into hillside neighborhoods with larger lots and more varied terrain than the flatlands near the freeway. We serve homeowners across all of these neighborhoods, as well as neighboring Newark and Fremont to the south.