Adding floor jacks to correct Sagging Floors
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- čas přidán 14. 05. 2020
- Come with us into a very tight crawl space to correct some sagging floors. The builders of the addition didn't place posts or supports in the middle of the floor and simply spanned almost 19.' After a few years the floor was sagging down and the windows and doors didn't open and close. The walls were pulling off the ceiling. We went under and dug six footers and set six floor jacks. We had to use a steel beam due to the space constraints but made out fine with a 3x2x 1/4" rectangular tube. This beam far exceeded the 18,000 lb capacity of the floor jacks so we felt good about the repair.
If this had been new construction you wouldn't need six posts, but because the joists were already sagging and failing we needed that many to provide an even support to level things back out. We finished up with great success and the homeowner was very happy.
Setting these floor jacks on concrete, fastening them to the concrete and to the beam above is the correct way to provide permanent secondary support. This repair is permanent and will also pass inspection. Although very labor intensive and costly, in our opinion, it's the only way to go for a repair of this type.
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Using an auger bit for breaking up soil is brilliant, especially in such a compact, claustrophobic space; I have to tackle a bunch of posts in my crawlspace, so this video has been inspiring to get the job done. You've over built this solution for your customer and they will never have to worry about floor support again. It's rare to have a contractor that cares that much. Fantastic work, Shawn.
Indeed. You said it perfectly. Hard finding a contractor that cares. Easy to find one that just takes the money and leaves.
This is easily the best video detailing this work I've seen so far.
Thank you, fellas.
Thanks! I was hoping it would be a useful video!
5:37 the almost subliminal facial image proves that even in crawl spaces, we're never alone.
Wow… I can’t believe you have to lay down to drill into the dirt. It makes me appreciate my crawl space where I can crouch all around in it.
That crawls space was rough for sure!
Now I see why this kind of work costs so much. It takes a special person to get in these areas and do this for a living. Especially for a living!
That sled idea was pretty good. Its simple, cheap and it works.
Haha I've moved mountains of material with "the sled."
Watching this video gave me the same fear response as watching the film The Descent (2005). Thankfully there were no jump scares! Loved the bit with the tiny shovel...made you look like a giant! Also love your work ethic...when you do a job it's done properly first time. Your customers must be very happy all the time...😊
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I think I would have an anxiety/panic attack working in that space. You guys did an awesome job
It was rough for sure. They guys got hazard pay for sure.
I got nice and drunk for my first couple trips under the house to clean it up. It's not my job, it's my own house, so I can do what I want. After I got used to being under there, and the petrified rats were gone, it got a little easier and I could face the job sober.
😂😂😂 ive worked under houses and have done too many termite inspections/ reinspections/ treatments/ retreatments to remember with dead animals, snakes, snake skins, mice, bugs, etc lolol in low low clearance and ironically its never bothered me despite dealing with panic and anxiety for the last 25yrs. now, i wont go under a house w a plumbing leak, especially the drain. forget that
It looked clean under there at least. Mine is like that in the newer section of the house also, it's a pain to deal with
Turn on some jamming tunes and just work. I kind of have that problem until I turn up the radeo.
I saw another one of your videos that a Facebook friend of yours shared with me of you putting in a culver in yard. Wow you’re a hard worker. Solid honest work!
Thank you!
never thought of cutting a jack post. Good video. Thank you! Needed this for inspiration on my cottage that is sagging all over..
Yea, these are custom jacks (:
I hope your repair project goes well!
This helped give me tips for fixing my floor. I'll definitely consider buying a steel tube like that and some jacks. That way after I fix my damaged joists, I can rest easy knowing they have added support.
Fixing things correctly is the only way to go. This house was sold recently and the inspector had nothing negative to say about our repair here or how it was holding up.
@@GCFD I noticed the steel tube. My Crawlspace basement is on a hill and a third of my crawlspace has low clearance and sagging floors and rotted sill due to water. I would like to know exactly what were those beams, the type of steel, and the dimensions, please.
To the best of my knowledge, blocking prevents twisting. Never knew anything about it transferring weight to adjacent joists. The joist failed at the large knot. Knots in joists will aid in failures.
Yes! I learned that from This Old House about transferring weight
You could use a pulley system attached to the sled so the person on the outside can pull it both ways. They have more room to work. It looks good.
Great idea!
Exceptional video!
Thank you, Thanks for watching!
The sled is ingenious. I have to dig out for a sump pump in my crawl space and think this may be the ticket. IF.... I can talk the wife into dragging it out and emptying it for me.
Haha that should make it easier for her at least! Best luck, thanks for watching! - Shawn
Hard work, Good Job.
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Looks like hard work, I did lots of crawlspace stuff. 👍
It was rough for sure in that crawl
Great video! I have a similar problem to deal with in my crawl space. There have been a bunch of band-aid fixes, but the floor is still sagging. BTW my version of the crawl space sled is a plastic underbed storage box. It's the perfect height to fit under my drain pipe.
Good luck with your repair Colin. I think it's easier to struggle through the permanent repair than to have to revisit again and again.
Boy Sean..... you’re sure not afraid of work. Nice job!
This was pretty rough working conditions. Adding the lights and the fans makes it bearable.
Thanks for this video very important
Reminds me of the movie "The Great Escape" when they dug a tunnel to escape out of a POW camp.
It sure felt like it in that crawl!
I knew charles huppert, who was in that camp and dug those tunnels… they put the dirt in their pockets sewn long and scattered it through their pants bottoms. He was a genius of a man.
@@lisaphillipi7496 sounds a little like Andy in the movie Shawshank Redemption.
Holy moly, I'd have had a claustrophobic panic attack in there 😳... Good job! Those screw jacks are neat, I have to see if they are easily available in my part of the world (Scandinavia).
It was pretty aweful working in there.
I love you not you're you're a good legitimate company you're an honest man hard-working crew awesome
Thank you Lance!
the guy is a stud !
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I hate crawl spaces and that one was a really crappy one. One of your toughest job that I've seen so far due to the lack of room to move. I think this is the only "foundation" video that I've seen. Regardless, they're all great videos!
Yes this was a pain for sure. We have done a couple foundation repairs like this but we stick mainly to foundation drainage.
i thought i had tough working conditions in my crawl space, im taking dirt out in buckets to get more clearance, i can crawl through it.
Your job here is much tougher,doing a damn army crawl and working in that tiny height,very tough job
nice work.....especially by yourself
what a hard job~
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You make my ab muscles sore just thinking about all the crawling getting in and out.Your lucky they didn't have augers, impacts, sleighs in shawshank redemption...
Seems like the perfect spot for a GI entrenching tool.
The handle is too long! lol
Thank you very much. One last question. Do I need to get a line level on it ? Level it in anyway ?
Yes I would get it level at least on the floor above.
Insane amount of work
Yes it was! If whoever built that addition had added the pillars and support like they should have it would have been easy. Trying to install supports after the fact was challenging with that tight space. Having a strong air flow with those big fans and lots of lights really help make it easier to work in those conditions. But we got the customer's foundation properly supported!
Your work is so much fun plus you get money to do it. Ah, the good life.
Yea Right! This was a tough job for sure.
Yes, that is exactly what everyone thought, he was having such a ball under that crawl space. Lol!
Do you come to South Carolina? Of course not, but I wish I could find a company like yours here. Fascinating. Beautiful work. Craftsmanship like this is a rare find. I appreciate the excellence, integrity and solid solution that will last decades.
Thank you Dianne!
I was wondering the same thing, But he is in Greensboro, North Carolina, which is about 4 hours from my location in South Carolina. My mom has some joists that need to be jacked up because her floor is sinking. He would have an easy task of it since the crawlspace is about 4' tall.
excellent video! where do you find those jack bolts and plates at? i'm about to have to some drastic re-leveling on my house and its a tight crawl space like to had there.......
They are Akron C-4 posts. You can get them from the hardware store or from amazon. They are approved for temporary support or permanent secondary support if installed like we did. Good luck with your project!
army surplus stores are probably the best place to get (the size u want)pick shovels.
I need to do this under my house asap in central il. Do the footers need reinforced?
Very cool video. How thick is the concrete pads under the jacks? Do you think 5000 psi quickrete be good enough? (Of course this depends on the load on the jack, right?)
It's about 16" of concrete and yes that quickrete will work well.
This is a great video! It covers a lot in a fairly step-by-step format. Are those columns the type you can by at Lowe's/Home Depot? How much does a steel beam like that usually cost? Is it extremely heavy maneuvering in a tight space?
Yes, those are the ones from lowes. The steel beam cost depends on the current price of steel. This one was around $200 and was extremely heavy to move around.
@@GCFD Thank you for your response! I'm contemplating a similar job and trying to figure out exactly what I'll need.
Shawn, here in Alabama I believe you have to have a minimum of 18" of crawl space on a new home for them to approve it. Old homes are another matter. To me unless they installed a 2000 lb. safe on the floor above much of what you done was overkill in my opinion but you should know how opinion's go. Yes everyone has got one LOL
Great job guys, that has to be one of the most miserable tasks to deal with! It least it didn’t appear to be wet under there...
The conditions were about as good as we could have hoped for. Dry, plastic down, no insulation.
What is the depth and diameter of the hole for each concrete footer?
Just FYI, blocking does nothing to tranfer loads between joists. They are present to keep floor joists from bowing or twisting.
I am having a 107 year old saging beam and the posts replaced next January. I forgot to ask the inspector, but would they use pre cast footings or just pour new concrete like what you have done? This is in a basement.
If it's in a basement it would depend on the condition of the slab. You can't go wrong pouring concrete footers in a giant deep hole. More concrete is better. 👍
Not sure what is worse. Working in a tight crawl space or the expense of pulling up the flooring for access. That huge knot in the joist probably had something to do with the crack forming there. The builder should have scraped that piece or cut it up for blocking.
We thought about pulling up the flooring but it was much easier to deal with the crawl space. Dealing with the crawl space was rough but when we finished we were finished...instead of having to put the floor back.
i seen another guy who made a vacuum shovel, using a 2 1/2 in hose he made from steel a round end with handle and 5 triangles for teeth, started with a big shop vac then got a truck mounted unit
Sounds pretty useful. Do you have any more specifics on how I can make one?
Great job! What do you charge customers for such a job? Per pier block? Per sqaure footage?
How long you let the concrete cure? Why did you use a metal beam and a wood one? Thanks for the video.
Let the concrete cure for a couple days at least. We used a metal beam because there was so little space to work with we had a stronger beam with metal in 3" than with wood.
Good video. Not much room under there. I'm totally gutting a house I bout down to the studs. I'm not removing exterior walls. Just inside stuff. The floors are sagging and I'm thinking of replacing the wood floors to with new real wood floors, not that engineered or laminated stuff. Is it a lot easier to level the house after or befor removing the old floor?
I would say after removing the old floor. If you can access the footers and jacks from above you'll have a lot more room to work. We considered removing the floor for this job, but it was much easier just to work with the tight space and get it done.
Thanks
What brand supports did you use? I have a bouncy old farm house floor id like to add support to?
HI I have a question. Under my girder beam the builders used slate shims. The house is 30 years old and overtime the slate shims crushed and made room for the girder to move. In the summer it swells and in the winter it contracts. On the second floor of my home in one of the bedrooms there is a quarter inch gap where the wall meets the ceiling. Its 1/4 in x 1/2 wide gap. In the summer it closes up and in the winter it opens up again. Also the drywall tape in the corner of those rooms and the adjacent room crumples up from the movement. I put a dehumidifier in the crawlspace and I believe I stopped the movement. However I still have a gap in the ceiling. My question is should I jack up the girder and replace ALL slate shims with steel shims or just the shims that are crushed. How would I go about doing this as I do not want to cause further problems by doing this. Thanks
I think I would jack up the girder and replace all the slate shims. I would place a jack at each one and jack the whole thing up at one time to make things nice and evenly supported. Best luck!
Just wondering did you place each jack 5 or 6 foot apart. Also as an alternative to using concrete will Quikrete work for the footers to speed the job up a little?
I can't remember what the spacing was but it was way overkill. I wanted to give a very even support since the floor was sagging so much. I wouldn't do anything that would speed things up. Here, I wanted to give time to fully form a solid foundation. The homeowner recently sold this house and the inspection reports didn't even mention our work.
Thanks for the speedy reply the second part of my question was is it ok to use Quikrete for the footers or is it better to use regular concrete?
Oh my god! He has more than 15 inches underneath the joist! I wish we had such a luxury! Trying to figure out how to fix sagging floor in VERY limited crawl space
You may need to lift the flooring and work top down!
@@RamonInNZ I ended up crawling underneath and it was not fun.😭
OMG. Anxiety went up just watching. Just realized I must be claustrophobic.
What do you use as permanent supports in place of the jacks
Just a suggestion for anyone trying to correct sagging floors.. if the wood looks rotted, and the support beam you are using starts to crunch that wood... stop , go out and by new wood (matching dimensions) to sister to those joists.. and not just a patch , but a full span that goes from pier to pier..
If you live in a high humidity area like the southeast US, this will be more likely the case vs pier settling...
Can you use a metal beam that goes pier to pier (matching dimensions) to sister that joint you're talking about?
What type of stabilizer jacks are those? Where can you get them?
Why did you dig so deep for the footings? Generally a crawlspace floor should be excavated down to undisturbed soil already. Frost line ?
Im about to do the same would quikrete the orange bag (4000 psi) be strong enough? How long to wait before i put the jack on the concrete? Should i use rebars? Are 12 tons bottle jacks strong enough to lift the central beam and the joist ?
Yes that 4000psi will be fine. Wait several days at least at 70 degrees. More days for colder temps. You can use rebar if you like but not needed for a small pour like this. 12 ton jacks will be fine. Good luck!
Thanks a lot for your knowledge!
What brand of jacks are you using?
Great work. Can you wear oxygen while under there. . You need it. Great work. We need this on old adobe in Phoenix. Not that much space under house. Thank you
What was the psi on the concrete thanks !
I have a couple questions;
1. Where did you get those jacks?
2. How many inches of concrete did you poor and what if I have soft soil?
You can get those from lowes or HD. I think I got these on amazon. We set the concrete around 18" deep. I would much rather dig a couple more inches deep than come back because the post settled a little bit.
@@GCFD 18” deep and how big around? Diameter
Whats something like this cost with parts & labor?
What size steel beam is that ?
D-Smooth Videos I think it was a 2x3x 1/4” steel tubing. Space was so limited under there I had to go smaller but thick. I remember looking up the strength and it far exceeded what we needed.
Why did you use steal in one location and wood in another for the beams?
We had to use steel under the tighter crawl because it took up less space. The same strength wooden beam would have made it impossible to crawl to the other side.
The other side had tons of space and we got away with a wooden beam.
@@GCFD Understood
Where do you buy those screw jacks
Make sure to check your measurements amzn.to/44TEkdI
I have to replace the girder in a space as low as that,I just cut the floors out.
how much does a job like this cost ?
The blocking is to prevent the joist from rolling. It has nothing to do with load transfer.
What kind of auger is that?
It's for planting flowers! LOL
this is what happens then architect cutting corners (or to be accurate crawl space height) and don't consider long term maintenance ability of the structure
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Blocking is for what?
I wonder how that bad beam passed the building inspector?
Who knows!
jeez man the jack without a piece of metal in between it and the wood?
yes we used a 2x3 steel tube.
Why did you use the metal beam?
Because we didn’t have much clearance under the. Not enough room for a wood beam.
Thinner
That is a very shallow crawl space, mine is 40" deep, When I built houses fo HFH we shot for 48" or taller, Our tallest one was 7' due to loose soil.
I do love a good crawl space. This one was tight!
I'd rather use a long flexible tube to suck air from the back corner of the crawl space. Right now all the dusty and bad air is just floating around back and forth.
Setting up the wind tunnel like we do eliminates all the dust.
I’d never buy a house with a crawl space.......
I agree and love my 100 year old cellar.
We don't have many houses with basements or cellars here in the SE.
I work in pest control. There are benefits of having some sort of crawlspace or subbasement not meant for living space. It creates a water barrier, so water drains into the crawlspace from the yard when it floods rather than into the house. It creates a pest barrier, because things like house centipedes and earwigs will stay in the crawlspace rather than go straight into the lowest floor of the home. It also delays things like termites, because an inspector can find them going up the block into the sill plate, and treat and replace just those sections rather than having to deal with them getting into a wall stud.
There are preventative measures one can take on a slab to avoid these problems like termite bait stations, proper draining, pesticides on the outside perimeter, but it's not as effective prevention as a crawlspace. Obviously, a standing crawlspace, mud room, cellar, etc. is preferential, but any lower area is better than being directly on a slab.
Foundations are regional
How costly is a job of that kind?
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Should be around $400-$600 per jack. Steel beam should be extra.
You're like a bunch dwarves in there mining away. Careful you don't delve too deeply!
I know~
"You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm."
You had two fans that I saw...try using one fan blowing 'in' and the other fan blowing 'out'. I think this would give you the freshest air quality...give it a try. I would let it air out for 10 minutes before entering the crawlspace.
To beef up the cracked floor joyce I would have cut two, 8 foot long plywood boards by the width of the boards 2 x 10 (???). Then I would have glued and nailed them on both sides of the crack floor juice. It would be strong and look great...and you would not loose any head space...cheap, easy, strong, and quick.
“Cheap, easy and quick” definitely describes your solution and what caused the problem in the first place. It’s also why people have to spend more money to hire someone like Shawn to come in and fix shoddy work. Far easier and cheaper to do it right the first time.
Using plywood? Super ghetto and there's no reason your crawl space needs to look good.
digging so deep hole is not help if you dont find solid ground.all ground is the same so you sould do a wider form of concrete and not deeper
Nope, you could not pay me enough to do that.
Hahah 👍
Was he bragging or complaining about his accomplishments??? You decide.
That's an OK job when you are young. With age that becomes a torture chamber including a lot of sore muscles everywhere in your body.
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Thank God there are still people willing to do the tough, dirty, jobs. How the hell are the Millennials and Gen Z going to survive when all the Boomers are gone?
I don't know!
I learned from my Dad...and CZcamsrs like you fill in the rest 😊. Thanks for the video you’ve got some handy tips.
Honestly, it’s the Boomers that told their kids to all go to college instead of going into trade professions.
I said that our newborn son could maybe be a carpenter one day and my Boomer father-in-law vehemently refused in a very derogatory way. I was slightly offended because my father was a carpenter and I thought he was absolutely brilliant.
Edit: I’ll add that I have a BS in STEM and a Masters in accountancy so it’s not like I’m adverse to studying in college. My husband doesn’t even have a degree at all and it still didn’t register in my father-in-law’s mind that maybe a lot of the college stuff he was told was propaganda. 🤷♀️
It doesn't matter which generation. I work in pest control, and some people just don't want to go in a crawlspace. I've done a termite job where the diagram was missing several areas where termite activity was underneath, because the person selling the job clearly never went into the smaller section of a crawlspace. Sometimes you have to squeeze through about a 18 inch by 24 inch hole to access some areas. Often people won't go through muddy or wet parts. Some people even in pest control are scared of things like snakes, and won't go around the snake to do the job, even in winter when it's just sleeping. It's certainly a lot harder to find someone under thirty you can trust to do the job right, because in most cases the person paying for the work is unwilling or unable to go in the crawlspace to confirm the problem or repair.
The most annoying thing having worked in pest control is returning to inspect a house that had wood debris, cardboard, etc. underneath that I told them to remove, and a year later it's still there. That will void warranties on any work.
This type of construction should be banned and replaced with at least 3' high fully poured, conditioned space. No wonder I see two or three a/c's on one house in your videos, no insulation and air sealing at all.
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