I am thinking of lifting up my single level house but am unsure what guage of steel beams to use any ideas
Discussion Forum
Discussion Forum
Up Next
Video Shorts
Featured Story
A rear addition provides a small-scale example of how to frame efficiently.
Featured Video
Highlights
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Fine Homebuilding Magazine
Fine Home Building
Follow
-
Fine Homebuilding
Dig into cutting-edge approaches and decades of proven solutions with total access to our experts and tradespeople.
Start Free Trial Now -
GBA Prime
Get instant access to the latest developments in green building, research, and reports from the field.
Start Free Trial Now
Replies
anybody who offers help will need to know something about the size and weight of the house.
Welcome to the
Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
And, location, too, I'm guessing.
I'm hoping it's a "mis-speak," too to refer to lineal foot weight of the steel beams by gauge, too.
Mega Movers on History channel has certainly made it look incredibly easy to heave buildings about.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Good point
The house is 1200 square feet (45feetx26 feet) I am assuming that the house weight is 1200x60lb/sq ft= 72000lbs I came up with the 60lbs/sqft by adding the main floor at 40lbs/ft and the roof at 20lbs/ft. The floor joists are running from side to side with a bearing wall down the center so the floor joist are approx. 13 ft long. so my steel would have to be a least 45feet in length. that is all I can think of
Get a house mover to do it right.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Wow. What are you going to do with the steel once the lift is complete? How are you going to move it around on site? I'd suggest buying a knuckle boom mounted on a flatbed with a big trailer, and probably at least 200 pieces of 6x8x48" cribbing. A unified jacking system would be nice, and luckily you probably only need 4 jacks to do your place.
Seriously, the guys who lifted my house brought a pair of W12x65 beams about 50 feet long. They had the other stuff listed above, plus more, and they had some major expertise to do it safely and without cracking the building. It's not a DIY thing unless you have absolutely no money and all the time in the world.
i'm still scratching my head trying to figure why you would need beams over 45' long. A 26' x 45' house can be lifted with 30' beams.but the beams, the methods, everything depends on the end goal and the why of it. I can think of several reasons to lift a house, each of which can entail different methods. you are keeping that ionformation close to your vest fo rsome reason. Many of the other statements you have made show a lack of understandiong. That is why I suggest getting a professional to take care of this. Your lack of knowledge would be unimportant in choosing what colour to paint the house, but this project is a vary dangerous thing to do with the mall amt of experience you display along these lines.Communicate a little and you might convince somebody that you can handle this without killing yourself...
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Lift and put where?
Nice big DEMAG will lift but not move very far? Fly you maybe 50'
Beams? They got'um
Just joking. We fly objects that heavy a couple times a month or week. It takes a lot of engineering!
Edited 9/26/2006 9:21 pm ET by VAVince
If you mean lifting the whole house all at once, like a house mover would, then hire a house mover. They have all the stuff, and much more important, the knowledge, to do it safely. A friend of my father used to make a living buying vacant lots and houses to move onto them. The movers' prices are a lot more reasonable than you might guess.
If you mean tweaking things up to level here and there, doing foundation repairs and such, then you have a whole lot to learn before trying it yourself. The folks here will be quite generous in answering specific detailed questions when the poster demonstrates enough knowledge to do it right with a little extra help. They rightly shy away from helping someone get in way over their head, especially on dangerous stuff like this. What you might get here is a referral to a local contractor who can bid on your project.
All that being said, I did a little foundation work on my two story wood frame house using a 20 ton bottle jack, a 12 ft piece of w8x15, and loads of cribbing and blocks. But I have an MA in mathematics, read up on structural engineering, and did a whole lot of planning and calculations before I started pumping that handle in the crawl space.
-- J.S.
I helped my bud lift the end of his house once, poured footing and all. That end had settled due to clay in the soil such that the middle of the house had a 1" crack at the top of the bricks. Crack was basically zero at the bottom of the bricks.
We rented a backhoe and dug along that end of the foundation to 3' below the bottom of the footing and we dug it back under the footing about a foot and a half.
Then we poured about 1.5 feet of concrete in the hole. Once it hardened sufficiently we got down in the hole with 4 hydraulic jacks and started jackin her up. Once the crack closed at the top of the bricks, we drove 6" casing pipe between the concrete and the bottom of the footing and took out the jacks. Then we poured several yards of concrete in up a little ways past the bottom of the footing.
3 years later when he sold the house, the crack was still closed.
Total cost was about $600. Best bid beforehand was about $15,000. That did not include the cost of hiring someone to fix the inside of the house.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)
PlaneWood
the price for lifting a house here is $13000. I have lifted a house before but I am not sure what size the steel was . It was fairly straight forward and cost effective, of course that was when steel was a little cheaper. I think the total cost of lifting the house for the cribbing and the steel was $2500, my labor was free. Anyway if someone knows how to size steel that would be great. I guess I should just pay an engineer.
What does steel cost you per pound?
I was just thinking about steel prices/pound, and this project. At 50 cents/lb, which is a guess (but it can't be too far off), those 12x65 beams you had would cost about $3500 by themselves.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
Yeah, and I pay about .70 here.
That's about what I paid 3-4 years ago here in LA. It would be a great price today.
-- J.S.
Yeah, 50 cents a pound was a couple years ago, while working for a steel bridge company (i.e., discounted price).
By the way, I met Chester today. He's doing well, though apparently he's afraid of everything that moves.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
In 1984 we hired a house mover to move an eight bedroom two story house. They moved it and poured the foundation for 11K at the time. There was not one crack. Once they brought the jacks up the equipment they used kept the house level as it went down the road. They did an outstanding job.