Jacking up a house - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

clearline · 08-13-2009, 10:26 AM

Jay here from Tofino, Canada. I am planning to jack up one side of a house to replace the main support beams which have rotted out. The ground is very soft (if I dig down a foot, the hole fills with water). I need to replace two 8X10 beams in one run. One is 18 ft. the other 14 ft. I've got 3- 12 ton bottle jacks and a bunch of adjustable support pipes. My main concern is that the jacks will sink into the ground. Any ideas on how to keep this from happening. Do I have the right tools for the job?

I appreciate any advice you can give,

Jay

ps, Thanks for the great website!

neolitic · 08-13-2009, 10:47 AM

Make a bigger foot print.
Temporary pads spread the load,
just like tracks or wide tires on tractors.
I keep some 16" and 18" LVL cut-offs
for this.
The also help to spread the load when
jacking on a too thin slab.
You can get creative with layers of longer
2X12 and jack serious weight in a swamp.

WarnerConstInc. · 08-13-2009, 02:22 PM

Like Neo said, its called cribbing. Spread the weight out, thats why fat people dont wear heels!!

jtpro · 08-13-2009, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarnerConstInc.

Like Neo said, its called cribbing. Spread the weight out, thats why fat people dont wear heels!!

To the 1st: THANK YOU!

NEVER knew the term!
To the 2nd:
Forgive the correction but it's SHOULDN'T wear heels. Just like spandex it's something the shouldn't but do!

(and dirty dancing)

CScalf · 08-13-2009, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jtpro

To the 1st: THANK YOU!

NEVER knew the term!
To the 2nd:
Forgive the correction but it's SHOULDN'T wear heels. Just like spandex it's something the shouldn't but do!

(and dirty dancing)

it's they...

WNYcarpenter · 08-13-2009, 05:24 PM

We save most of our PT 4x4 and 6x6 cut offs just for this purpose.

We jacked up a house that was like you're doing, and we buried RR ties! PITA...we'd run out a bottle jack (some lift, but mostly driving our pier deeper, Take the weight off with cribbing, add another piece of lumber, jack etc... until we finally got what we needed.

We replaced/added 27 piers under a P.O.S house at lake level. We did get a bonus to buy new clothes to replace what we ruined!

WarnerConstInc. · 08-13-2009, 06:08 PM

Someone makes big rubber mats for this as well.

dayspring · 09-03-2009, 04:29 AM

Just done a large house leveling project last winter, I had the same problem with the soft ground near a lake. I had several 1/4" x 2' x 2' steel plates cut to sit under the jacks, I also had them make me some tops for the jacks (a 1/4" x 6" x 6" square plate with a piece of pipe welded to it to sit over screw on jack to keep screw from pressing into 6 x 6. Worked pretty well.