We plan to redo our kitchen in our 25 yr old house. One corner of the room, toward the center of the house, seems to be about 1 – 1 1/2 inch lower that the rest. A recent termite treatment renewal showed no evidence of nasties. The house is over a 2 foot crawl space, 2 x 10’s on 16 centers, with 3/4 ply sub floor.
My thought is to install floor jacks on concrete footers, bearing on a beam spanning several joists at the sagging area. Any advice on how long a beam, how big, how many jacks, footer sizing, and how rapidly to raise the floor (1 turn per day, per week??) would be much appreciated.
Replies
bump
"All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." Pascal
Huh??
I "bumped" your question so you might get a response.
After a thread goes for a while with no responses it falls off the current view list and may not be seen. My "bump" response brought it back to the top so that it could be seen by someone who might could answer your question.
Hope it helped.
"All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." Pascal
Gotcha! Thanks.
First find out why it failed. That normally leads to one answer.
Old rule of thumb is a 1/2 inch per week on the jacks but that wont raise it by 1/2. Reset screw jacks, dont leave hydralic jacks with pressure on but you can leave them in place. Mark it on your calendar. I like treated 6x6s to 6x12s and the load can determined off load span charts.
Tim
Thanks!
This sounds like a fairly simple fix, but it would be a good idea to do an accurate survey of the floor height before you get started. One of those new, inexpensive laser levels used in combination with a story stick will enable you to map the floor fairly quickly.
Working with a partner, set the story stick on the floor in one corner. Aim the level at it, and make a mark on the stick where the beam hits, which you label "0". Then mark up and down from that zero mark in ¼" increments about an inch or two in both directions.
Get a floor plan of the house and mark "0" on the spot you are using as your zero reference on it. Then keep moving across the floor with the story stick, in 2' increments, taking new readings of the relative floor height to the zero mark in each new spot. Mark the relative heights on the floor plan in the appropriate spots using + and - (+¼", -½", etc.).
When you're all done, draw contour lines through all the points on the floor plan that are at the same height. This will give you a topographic map of the shape of your floor, and show you where you have to jack and how much.
As a general rule, I'd suggest you spread the jacking across 3 or 4 joists minimum. If the contours show that you have several discrete dips in the floor, you can jack each of those points. If they show you have a constant slope toward one long 'valley', you need to put a beam across that low line and jack that using several jacks about 4-6' apart maximum.
You can jack the whole amount in one day if you don't mind fixing gyprock cracks and re-setting your trim work and doors. If you want to try to ease things up slowly to minimize damage to your finish work, go with Tim's suggestion.
You'll know when to stop jacking when a new survey of the floor shows you that you're level.
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
Many thanks, Dinosaur! This should get me started, along with the other replies.
The laser level will work fine for one room, easier but more expensive than a water level. If you need to go around the corner and down the hall, a water level will be easier to use. This being in the middle of the house, it's probably a good idea to check out more than just the one room.
-- J.S.
Actually, I'm not sure the low-end laser levels are cheaper than a water level. The water level I bought back a quite while ago cost me $29.95; the laser level I got about 2 years ago cost $39.95 complete with tripod etc.
It's entirely possible to move through a house with a laser, recalibrating either the story stick or the tripod height on a transition spot of known elevation. So if I shoot the living room, including the hallway leading out to the kitchen, I can then move the tripod and level to a spot I have already shot and shoot the same story stick at another known place to discover the diff. between where the level was and where it is. From there, it's a matter of either adjusting the height of the instrument, or of re-marking the story stick (which is easier, usually). Since all heights are relative to the orignal zero point, which was chosen arbitrarily, this will work perfectly well.
Of course, if you wanna get fancy, you could use mirrors, LOL....
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
Yes, it's possible to go around re-calibrating like that. But with a water level, all you have to do is drag a piece of hose around. One setup of the fixed end can cover the whole house.
-- J.S.
1.5" of setteling on a house that is only 25 years old seems like a lot... Were building codes enforced in your area 25 years ago? I'm with whoever said to diagnose the cause of the prob before designing a fix.