Re: [papercreters] Re: Restoration of old house

:-D
slurryguy,

Your memory is pretty good.  I found after uncovering a 4 inch wide section were the most sinking took place that the house is not lagged, at least not on the corner.  I managed to get a farm jack under a section and raised it up.  Your idea has simplified my plan.   I think I can go around the house raising it one section at a time, then pull it in and pour a new footing under it.  I will drill into the slab where the new footing is going and drive rebar into it and then run some horizontal piece of rebar above that.  I am not sure how I can use the papercrete.  I know filling the walls with cellulose insulation would be easy, but I want to go one step further and thicken the walls so I have say R35.

I bought 2 ranch jacks from Harbor Freight and they were only $30 each.  I jacked one section up with ease.  so the plan is starting to jell.

Hal



slurryguy wrote:

LOL  Dang Hal, I'm doing pretty good to remember where my keys are, let  alone what we did 30 some odd years ago.   I do know this.  The way we did it back then, was NOT the way I would  hope to do it today.  Back then we did an awful lot of work with a small hydrolic bottle  jack, a couple of heavy ancient cast iron screw jacks that Archimedes  himself may have built, and about 10,000 pieces of cribbing.  The house was a very old structure and had several small additions  using various building techniques.  I think the oldest part of the  house was on a simple rock foundation.  Chunks of limestone laid on  the ground and stuck together with a mortar that was falling out of  the joints as we raised the house.    A second section was build on concrete block foundation, and another  section was on a slab.  I think the slab section was a porch once  upon a time, but converted into a bedroom.  I don't think any of the house was connected to the foundation.  I  think it was all just resting on top.  I would NEVER build a  structure like that today.  It was a real hodge podge.  We would jack up a small area a quarter inch or a half inch and  insert cribbing under the crawl space.  Then we'd move the jacks to  another small area and repeat.  I spent a huge amount of time  slithering around in the dirt like a mole.  There were places I could  only slide through by turning my head sideways so my fat head would  fit through.  I remember a lot of work was spent excavating small pits so we could  fit the jacks under the joists and the braceing blocks that we'd use  to span 3-5 joists.  We probably spent 3 weeks jacking the house up.   It took forever.  The good part was that as the house got higher it  got easer to move around under there and I knew a lot more about what  we were trying to do and how to do it.  I remember the best idea I  had was to staple twine onto a lot of the longer bracing blocks so  that my Uncle and Grandpa could adjust them while standing or  kneeling around the perimeter and out from under from the structure.   It freed my hands up to handle the jacks and cribbing, and we weren't  trying to crawl on top of each other.  That old house was creeking, popping, and groaning all the time.  I  kept having visions of the whole thing crashing down on me.   Obviously it didn't, but I never felt very confident whenever I was  under there.  The rock foundation was drilled and pegged.  We essentially built  kind of a reinforced concrete bond beam around the rock.  By the time  we were finished the foundation for the entire structure had all been  tied together in one big mass.    If I were going to undertake a similar project today, I WOULD DO IT A  LOT DIFFERENTLY!!!!!!  Today I would get a steel I-Beam and dig out the dirt as required to  slide it perpendicular to the joists right next to the rim beam.   Then I would only need to jack from either end of that I-Beam and not  10 places in between like we did back then.  The I-Beam would allow  someone to move all the joists in unison and very gradually.  I've also seen some hydrolic bottle jacks that don't have the jack  piston and jack handle right next to the ram.  I've seen these newer  ones that have a hydrolic hose that leads to a second device that has  the jack piston and handle.  THAT WOULD MAKE IT 1000 times easier.   The person doing the jacking would have full motion and leverage and  not be confined by the tight work space.    Having several more jacks would be nice too.  That way you wouldn't  have to move them around as much.  You could just pump each jack  slightly and move on to the next one.  With the advent of EBAY, I  wouldn't hesitate to purchase a bunch of jacks only to turn around  and sell them once the job was completed.  This is especially true if  I could purchase the jacks used.  Of course there is always the  possibility of renting the needed jacks, but you never want to be in  a rush when doing this kind of work.  Slow and careful = a lot  safer.  Trying to rush a job to save on the rental fee could be  dangerous.  I hate renting tools.  Sometimes it is necessary, but I  try to avoid it.   ============================== Hal wrote:  slurryguy,  Your grandpa was a wise man in many ways.  How did you detach the  house from the foundation.  I will have to cut a strip along the  lower edge of the wall and see it I can find any lag bolts.  These  walls are tilting in, since the slab broke and the footing gave way.   I posted picture show how they are off by 3 inches.  I will need to  pull them in but maybe I can put in a new set of lag bolts.  How did  you jack the house up?  I have 2 farm jacks and some bottle jacks and  a floor jack.  I a curious how you got under the wall, if the house  was on a slab, or was it?  Thanks   Hal    ------------------------------------  Yahoo! Groups Links  <*> To visit your group on the web, go to:     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/papercreters/  <*> Your email settings:     Individual Email | Traditional  <*> To change settings online go to:     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/papercreters/join     (Yahoo! ID required)  <*> To change settings via email:     mailto:papercreters-digest@yahoogroups.com      mailto:papercreters-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com  <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:     papercreters-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com  <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/     

__._,_.___

Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe

__,_._,___