Most of Alamo's single-family homes were built on concrete slab foundations between the 1970s and the 2000s. Those slabs sit on heavy clay soil that is common throughout Hidalgo County - soil that expands when wet and contracts as it dries. Over a decade or two of wet seasons and dry summers, that movement works on the concrete from below. Driveways develop surface cracks. Garage floor corners lift slightly. Patios start to show the clay's fingerprints. Addressing those surfaces correctly means understanding that the soil is not done moving, so a properly designed overlay or coating system has to tolerate some ongoing movement without delaminating.

The climate in Alamo adds to the challenge in two ways. First, summer heat regularly hits 100 degrees Fahrenheit from June through September, and UV radiation at this latitude degrades standard coating products faster than in most of the country. Second, the Rio Grande Valley gets intense, short-burst rainstorms - especially in late summer - that can flood flat yards and driveways that do not drain efficiently. A contractor who works in Alamo regularly knows which coating and sealing systems hold up through both the heat and the sudden moisture load that South Texas weather delivers.

Alamo is a city of about 19,000 people in Hidalgo County, sitting near the center of the Rio Grande Valley in deep South Texas. The city grew up as a farming community surrounded by citrus groves and agricultural land - that heritage is still visible in the open fields on the edges of town and in the community's close ties to the land and its seasons. Most housing in Alamo is owner-occupied single-family homes, predominantly built from the 1970s through the 2000s on concrete slab foundations. The majority of those homes are single-story with modest lots, and homeownership in Alamo tends to be long-term - many families have lived in the same house for a decade or more.

Alamo is not a suburb in the traditional sense - it has its own city government, commercial strips, and community identity, even though it sits within easy reach of both McAllen and Edinburg. Residents here are accustomed to working with contractors from across the broader Valley area. Nearby communities like Mission to the west share similar property profiles and soil conditions, and homeowners throughout this part of Hidalgo County face the same concrete flooring challenges driven by the Valley's clay soil and intense summer heat.