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I’ve jacked many a house, several over water that came and went with the tide. I use scaffold screw jacks and 11/2″ pipe with a pad for the base and cap to prevent punching a hole in anything that might be either soft or have excessive resistance to changing it’s location. If the pipes are long or I am lifting it off the foundation entirly I weld tangs onto the pipes with holes to allow nailing of crossbracing. It is a good idea to just take a little bit up on each jack and move on starting at your lowest point, working in a prearranged (forethought) pattern to keep it consistant. It helps to have someone inside the house to look, listen, and keep an eye on the plumbing. Good luck.
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I've jacked many a house, several over water that came and went with the tide. I use scaffold screw jacks and 11/2" pipe with a pad for the base and cap to prevent punching a hole in anything that might be either soft or have excessive resistance to changing it's location. If the pipes are long or I am lifting it off the foundation entirly I weld tangs onto the pipes with holes to allow nailing of crossbracing. It is a good idea to just take a little bit up on each jack and move on starting at your lowest point, working in a prearranged (forethought) pattern to keep it consistant. It helps to have someone inside the house to look, listen, and keep an eye on the plumbing. Good luck.
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I could use a vacation and New Orleans is as good as any. 3500 bucks and I'll come down and do it for you.
Pete Draganic
*Pete, for true? Don't you need details? Actually, New Orleans isi wonderfulin the Spring - but come before it gets hot! I will e-mail you details, if you're serious.Patty
*Bob, thanks for the info! Of course I didn't quite understand all of it, but I got the general idea. All of our plumbing is visible fromi underthe house (no sub-floor), and I'm not sure I want to hang out under there during jacking! ; )Patty
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Sounds like your house is on piers. If it were me, I'd do it the way you did previously and keep your money in the bank. I'm not so sure concrete piers would be a "permenent" solution unless the pad area at the base of the pier was large enough to carry the house .... if not, the house would just settle again. I think the Houston, Tx area has similar soil conditions, and there, the better homes used bell bottom piers .......the pier flares at the bottom, as in a bell shape. If the house has settled unevenly, I'd be leery about jacking it up too fast ...... it's too easy to do some damage (don't ask me how I know). Good Luck!
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jc, I agree about the fast jacking - been there, too, but not at my house, thank goodness! Yep, the house is on brick piers. Actually, with this new method of levelling, they're supposed to dig down 'til they hit something solid, about ten feet (which is easy in my area, we're all ready below sea level), and then pour the concrete, etc. It's supposed to be guaranteed for the life of the house, but, so far, no one will offer anything in writing. The structural engineer who checked out the house gave me a list of respectable tradespeople who do this; he said that some of the others don't dig far enough, or maybe just til they hit an air pocket (?).
Thanks for the vote of confidence on the plain ol' vanilla jacking - much cheaper! My termite guy says that most of the old houses he treats in Uptown New Orleans have permanent screw jacks under them! They just go under and give them regular quarter turns.
The reason for all the extreme sinking problems (yep, in Texas, too) is that we didn't have enough rain (and no floods!) a couple of years ago, which drastically changed the soil conditions. Interesting about the bell-bottomed piers, though I don't quite understand why they wouldn't sink, also... (spoken like a true DIY, lol!)
Patty
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The wider base spreads the load (the house) over a greater area .....kind of like being at the beach and pushing a toothpick into the sand .....it will disappear .......if you took something like a beer coaster,and pushed with the same force, it would be much harder to do. Each square inch of sand under the coaster has to carry less weight vrs. the small area under the toothpick. If you were push into a rock, it wouldn't make much difference because the rock is capable of carrying both loads ....the sand can't. Same idea with the soil under your house. Hope this isn't too confusing, I'm not so good at explaining things sometimes.
*I have leveled lots of old houses....I prefer a John Deere 890!
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jc, your explanation was just fine! Except that I felt really dumb after I read it, duh! : )
G.L., that's not funny. I have actually had people offer to do that to my wonderful old house. But you were joking, huh? ; )
Patty
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Patty, Yes, in your case I was just kidding. I have restored quite a few classic old houses, but in a more serious tone, I think it's really important to determine whether the home is actually worth saving before embarking on some of these projects. Good luck with your restoration!
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>I had planned to put some screw jacks under my 100-year-old frame house, where the old ones were, and do the usual jacking in quarter-turns, like I did 15 years ago. Now I'm told that it's a waste of time and that the way to go is with hydraulic jacks, in order to do it in a day or so (though some companies still believe a slow levelling with screw jacks is better), then dig a hole, as deep as you can go, under each (new) pier and fill it with rebar/concrete, so that the leveling will be "permanent." Of course, this process starts at $5-6,000. My house needs four jacks along a 30-ft. span of outside wall and 2 inside jacks along a 10-ft. span of a perpendicular connecting inside wall (did that make sense?). Most of the houses in uptown New Orleans sink - happens when you live in a swamp - so there are lots of levelling/shoring companies, none of which seem to agree completely on anything, especially this relatively new procedure. The choices are confusing, not to mention that the money is a big chunk of change for me right now... any ideas/suggestions/comments would be greatly appreciated!
*Hi Fiyo,I leveled a 50'x70' 60 year-old dance hall in two days with a crew of 20 and 20 jacks.It was down in one corner 10".Is your house tilted but the floors are still flat(planar)? What I mean is, is the first floor like a hardbound book lying not quite flat on the sofa, or is it like a paperback that has conformed to the sofa's rounded arm?How to find out: run stringlines across the floors, through doorways and look for flatness or big dips(more than an inch in ten feet).If it is flat, you can jack your house in a day.If it isn't, you may be better off doing it slowly, so everything is eased back into alignment. You may crack some plaster or create leaks in the roof.Keep an eye on any plumbing that might be affected.Happy jacking, Weogo Reed