I am moving and am looking at buying an old house (80 years or so) that needs work and fixing it up. The biggest issue is that one side has sunk over the years. It’s not just that you can see cracks, but you can visibly tell the window sills and door frames are slanted. You can also feel it a bit walking in the house.
I have absolutely no idea what raising and stabilizing a house costs, and I know that it’s different for different situations and you need a pro to come analyze it. But I’m curious as to whether that’s even worth doing. Does anyone know what the low/high price for something like that is? It’s a 2 story house sitting on level ground. Are you then required to replace all windows and doors?
Very, very rough estimates and guesses are fine. I would just love to have a clue as to whether it’s even worth considering.
Replies
It depends where you are; what resources are available; what the house is worth relative to the property; what a new house would cost to build on the property; if there is any redeeming architectural special items on the existing house, etc, etc.
Quality repairs for your home.
AaronR Construction
Vancouver, Canada
$50-80K to level it and retrofit a concrete foundation
Is it frame or masonry? Why is it sinking?
I've done some pretty bizarre jacking projects, so I'm of the frame of mind that about anything can be fairly easily lifted providing you have the proper equipment and understand it's limitations.
If it's frame, you can either lift it off the existing foundation and shim it level, or get under the foundation and push it all up. If it's masonry, I'd get under the foundation and lift it all.
Check with a house moving company. Moving a house is realitively inexpensive (so I'm told).
OOPS, I did it again.............................
don't know exactly - my brother paid the moving company $10K to pick up and move a 1.5 story relatively small house (1000 sq ft or so) a hundred feet, I would expect the professional jacking $ to be reasonable, but then you have to decide how you are stabilizing it - could be quite expensive or not depending on conditions -
I watched a botched job along a road I traveled once a week - brick 2 story farm house - they ended up losing it - wood frame is much more forgiving...
David, can you elaborate on your story of the botched job...sounds interesting.
David, can you elaborate on your story of the botched job...sounds interesting.
I'll try...I don't have inside info on what/how, just the observation of the progression as I would drive by once a week on the way to saturday markets - looking back, I'd love to have a pictorial - it took a year and a half...
There's a stretch on IN 114 that has several brick houses dating from the late 19th/early 20th century - this dwelling on the north side of the road appeared to be the classic progression of the mid 19th century 2 room single story settlers house with the 'golden age of agriculture' major addition - I'd call the addition a 'four square' variant - two full stories with some victorian elements under the eaves - full brick construction - not a modern veneer job -
one day I drove by and the oldest part (the single story) was in the process of being demolished - not uncommon in the renovation of such farm houses as the original structure is commonly deficient in several respects -
the project moved forward slowly as the new garage/kitchen/family room addition emerged, standard frame construction - never saw a GC's sign, I'm thinking the owner was acting as his own -
one saturday morning I drove by and and spotted a small steel I-beam sticking out a hole in the foundation of the four-square sitting on a little bottle jack near the south east corner (opposite side from all the action) - a small area of brick had collapsed from the first 3-4 courses, kinda under a corner of the window nearest that corner -
this state of affairs remained for several weeks/months and one day I drove by and there was a bigger beam and a bigger jack and a bigger pile of bricks - work continued on the new frame part - this is the first I realized there were big problems - -
anyway the big I beam and jack remained in place for some weeks/months then one saturday I drove by and the four-square exhibited movement and a crack from the foundation level to the aforementioned window and from that window to the one above it on up to the fascia - -
the next week the foursquare was gone...
the project continued with a new two story on the original brick footprint (walls framed with 2X10's!?) - -
so now there is a completed house on the site - the whole thing is veneered in some sort of brown stone material that appears kinda garish to my eye - but hey! - it's new and done -
heard third hand that ill-advised excavation in the basement of the brick four-square was the genesis of the problem - but don't know for sure -
surely there was a lot of headache/heartache associated with the circumstance -
"there's enough for everyone"
Any guess would be completely measingless.
It could be a few thousand dollars on up to pass the can of gas and the matches.
You really need to have a local structural engineer look at it.
I disagree.... I've done it once and estimated another two in the past couple of years.
You have repaired a sinking house and estimated 2 others without even looking that them?
I'm no expert, but I think the major question is what's up with the foundation?A friend of mine purchased a house with a sagging middle...old wood posts had rotted out decades ago. I think it was something like a 3" sag.A few lolly column jacks, a few months of quarter-turn-day, and a lot of re-plastering righted things just fine. That cost little other than some sweat labour.But a sinking foundation sounds like a bigger problem.
"I'm no expert, but I think the major question is what's up with the foundation?"We don't know any of that.It could be rotten posts holding up a beam.It could be termites have eaten 1/2 the house.It could be that part of the old foundation is crumbling.It could be that there is a sink hole under the house.It could be .............
Bill, your posts are usually worthwhile... what's the point of a snipe like that?
What was the point of your comment?You already list a price a price.Then I said that it could be anything from relatively simple to very, very expsensive.Then all you said was that you disagreed.How could you disagree with what I said without having any idea of what the problem was?
You have 5 or 6 posts on this thread and none of them are worth the electrons you arranged to make them. The original poster is fairly clear in his question and asked for rough estimates.
His house is 80 years old. It is very unlikely to have a poured concrete foundation, and even less likely to have a rebar if in fact there is concrete. More likely he has brick or post and pier. Highly unlikely that any type of drainage was installed around whatever foundation is there, and there may be no rain gutters either.
He says it's on level ground. Doesn't sound like it's sliding down a hill. He is also describing significant settling.
His house will have to be raised in order to be levelled. It is also quite possible that it's very low to the ground and will not have a legal crawl space unless he raises it more than just enough to level it. Therefore I assume a pro house mover would come in and do that. Some people can shore their own houses, and fewer can jack them in a corner or two. Very few can actually raise them safely WITHOUT using the existing foundation as bearing points. Someone who owns steel, cribbing, and hopefully a unified jacking system would be best for the job, IMO.
In order to clear the way for the steel, it's likely that most or all of the underfloor plumbing will have to come out, along with mechanical and anything else in the way. Holes will have to be cut thru to to allow the steel to be placed.
Once raised and cribbed an excavator can dig for new footings and a contractor can form and pour them. Then he can add subdrains. The same GC can frame down to the new foundation to support the house, then the cribbing is pulled. Then the plumber, electrician, heating guy and others can replace whatever was removed underfloor. The GC then has his carpenters repair the exterior siding and trim, replace the stairs to grade since they are now too short, build new railings, repair doors and windows that are stuck, etc. The plaster or sheetrock guy can fix the inevitable cracks.
It goes on and on, several trades, several weeks of work... much much more than a few screw jacks and a chunk of 6x.
My guess of $50-80K was based on doing the above to my own place, and estimating the same type of scope on two other homes in the past year. I have cost records for the work, quotes from subs, etc. Obviously I'm located where I'm located, and not where anyone else is, but that's the retail cost range for a job like that around here. You can always find someone cheaper, and probably more too.
You stated that any guess would be meaningless... I'll take that to mean that you yourself do not care to make one. If you have something useful to post in this thread, then go ahead... otherwise don't be so hasty to hit the reply button.
I understood Bill's post completely. The original poster asked for an estimate. Someone said a house could be jacked up and moved to a new foundation for $10k. Someone else said they did it for under $5k. You said what, $50-80k? Someone else said "not too expensive", or something like that. Another poster said someone did-it-themselves for free, then hired a contractor to add pilings. So which one is the correct answer? From where I sit, I have to say, since none of the estimators have seen the project, the WAG's are just that, and basically, meaningless (in terms of a budget number), but (like Bill's post) worthwhile reading nonetheless. Everyone has a point of view. You gave yours. Bill gave his. No harm, no foul.
"More likely he has brick or post and pier."
"It is also quite possible that it's very low to the ground and will not have a legal crawl space unless he raises it more than just enough to level it."You have absolutley no idea what part of the country that it is in or any details of construction.It is just as likely taht it has a "full" basement. Maybe rubble stone.And it is just as likely that the problems have nothing to do with the foundation, but are caused by undersized structure, rottened structure, termites, plumbers structural engineering.
I still don't see the point to your posts on this thread... you're just blowing smoke, whining, getting argumentative. The man asked for some input on his question. He got some. You seem to feel compelled to scream about how no one has seen his house. Does that mean that the thread shouldn't even exist??
I don't think we have enough information here to give good guesses, but I'd add it's probably doable. He really needs to ask a local expert, but it's worth asking. Around here (NY suburbs) most houses that age have 12-18" stone foundations with full basements. It's rare to have foundation problems other than damp basements, but we have one house in our neighborhood that is very close to the local pond that has a severe foundation problem, due I think, to the wetness of the property especially in the corner nearest the pond. There are cracks in one corner running right up to the first floor window sills and noticable sinking in that area.
What fun! Just love a sinking framed house as it's usually so easy and fun to get them back on an even keel.
Some examples. About 25 years ago my 5 man crew and I jacked up and moved a 1200 square foot piling house 14 feet to the side and 7 feet to the rear. We did it with 6 three ton bottle jacks from a discount store and a 10 ton come-a-long. It took us 5 days total and as I recall I charged the owner less then $5,000.00. It was scary as it sure creaked and groaned as it moved. My deal with the owner was that I had NO liability if things went bad.
Several years before that I worked for a guy whos parents lived in an old frame house at the beach. They were concerned that rising water could flood their house so they decided to raise it themelves. They were both in their 70's. They spent several months visiting construction sites gathering scrap lumber from scrap piles for cribbing before they started to work. They had 2 five ton bottle jacks that they used. Every morning and every evening the two of them crawled under the house and jacked it up the height of a 2" X 4." They lived in the house while all this was going on and over a period of several months raised the house about 6 feet. They hired a contractor to put piers under it when they were done.
Slow and steady is the ticket when jacking an old house. If it were my house I wouldn't jack it more than one turn of a screw jack a day so the doors and windows had time to straighten out some.
I'm not suggesting that you do the same but simply pointing out that jacking up a house need not be a deal breaker.
I recently raised a 132 year-old Mansard 5' to replace the entire foundation. The house raising was the inexpensive part, the new foundation/basement was much more expensive.
Very little plaster broke inside the house, we had also removed the original sashes and only had storms left to keep the elements out. When some of the more egregiously out-of-true sections came to rest on the new foundation, the wood there tensed up quite a bit... so much so, that some storm windows popped out of their frames and that exterior paint started to rain off the building. (quite a sight!)
Naturally, a big component of the reaction was that the bay area in question had sagged 2" over the years and that the storms had been intentionally installed crooked to compensate. Once the bay was less crooked, the formerly-square storm windows became crooked...
So, if the job is done right, you can most likely keep all the windows and doors, though the process will have to be slow (to allow the wood to deform). Naturally, you may discover that none of the doors and/or windows may still fit properly if the previous owners shaved the "sticking" corners down over the years.
Edited 6/26/2005 3:32 pm ET by Constantin
Did you have house movers raise the building? How long did it take them and if I may ask, what did it cost? Any photos?
Yes, I had professionals raise the buiding, namely Northeast Building Movers, a fantastic outfit out of NH.
The footprint of the structure at the time of the lift was about 40' x 25'. The lifting didn't take long (2 days) as each lift (14") took only 15 minutes to 1/2 hour. Demo'ing foundation holes for the I-beams, needling all the I-beams into place, straightening the walls, etc. took much longer (at least a week). Total tonnage (w/beams) about 65 tons. The photos give some scale.
I'd rather not get into the cost. Contact me offline if it's of real concern.
Edited 6/26/2005 10:43 pm ET by Constantin
wow, didn't expect to have so much input so soon. great! thanks for adding in. basically, my hope was for someone to say that it was possible for it to be done for 10k or less just for the lifting and stabilizing (excluding inside work as a result of the settling). That at least gives me a reason to even have someone come look at it. this is other info: that i didn't include:
frame house; very partial basement (no more than 75 square feet), and that's the side of the house that didn't sink; in canon city, co; and it's a pretty common occurence for houses that old in that area (we looked at 7 or 8- all had some sinking).
all other input would be great. and thanks again!
If it's a common to the area problem, you can probably get a pretty fair guesstimate easily.
Do you know the why of the local condition?
As you can see from the minor hisseyfit going on, the more details the better to get an answer that addresses your particular problem.
Obviously there's quite a range of foundations across the US, from slab on grade to sitting on rubble or brick piles.
More info = better answers, but sounds like a local condition that should be easily estimated by a local Contractor.
Joe H
I thought I started down that road ......Quality repairs for your home.
AaronR ConstructionVancouver, Canada
Canon City, Co. is a really nice place to be restoring an old house.
Have fun and Good Luck!
Come back and let us know how it goes. Maybe post some pics.
Whadda mean it's last call? I just got here.
Edited 6/27/2005 1:10 am ET by intrepid_cat
Very, very rough estimates and guesses are fine.
Well, you certainly have gooten that <g> . . .
Greetings, new member, and Welcome to BT.
I would just love to have a clue as to whether it's even worth considering.
Now, to help in that, you might want to move your cursor over your own screen name (in blue), and click on that an fill in at least some of your Profile informantion.
Knowing whether you are in Sault Ste Marie, SF, San Antone or Santiago, makes a certain amount of difference in "our" replies (barring burr-under-the-saddle exchanges <g> between answering posters).
"We" probably ought to know a bit more about the proposed project, too. Are you getting a great deal on an old farm, so you're getting a couple hundred acres and a partially dilapidated house; or is it an old house in an existing neighbourhood? If the house is 110% of the property cost, that suggests a smaller site, which means a bit less room for major site work.