Replies

1. 
   Framer | Jun 21, 2003 11:08pm | #1

   Is this whole foundation beyond repair?

   What condition is the house in?

   It can be done but it's alot of work and alot of money as I'm sure you know. If the money isn't an issue then you have to find a good company out there that can jack your whole house up and do this.

   I saw a company from Florida jack up a ranch house build a whole first floor underneath it.

   If the house is in good condtion, why couldn't you just add a second floor?

   Joe Carola

1. 
   tyearian | Jun 21, 2003 11:24pm | #2

   House is in pretty good condition, out of level due to settled foundation, one of reasons we'd like to redo foundation.  Probably possible to level out but lot of work in less than 18" crawlspace.  Built in 1920, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, we're outgrowing with 2 kids, dog, cat, guinea pig, turtle, cats, birds.  Only 2X4 construction and not sure possible to build up without tearing into walls and adding struct. support somehow.  Probably ought to move on but pretty attached to neighborhood, gardens, workshop.

1. 
   Framer | Jun 21, 2003 11:54pm | #3

   Only 2X4 construction and not sure possible to build up without tearing into walls and adding struct. support somehow. 

   If your talking about the walls being 2x4, that's fine. Have you had an architect or engineer look at the house yet?

   Adding second floors on top of first floors is being done every day. You just have to remove the roof and add floor joists if you have a Ranch house because the ceiling joists are either 2x4, 2x6 or 2x8. There not able to handle a second floor. If your house is a Cape, you might already have 2x10's and no need to add any floor joists.

   When I do an Add-A-Level, if the first floor header isn't big enough to handle the second floor we just put a flush header on the top plate and run the new joist into it with joist hangers. But all this has to be figured from an Architect or Engineer.

   Foundations can be fixed and footing can always be put in now. They do this all the time. it's called Underpinning the foundation. You can always jack the house up where it's out of level.

   I'm just trying to visualize this and give you some ideas. Ther's alot of solutions but I think that jacking the house up and adding a first floor under it should be the last one for now anyway.

   If you haven't had an Archtect or Engineer in there yet, that should be the first thing you do.

   Joe Carola 

   Edited 6/21/2003 4:55:04 PM ET by Framer

2. 
   IMERC | Jun 22, 2003 01:43am | #4

   Raise house a little. Replace old foundation with full sized basement, reset house. No warrenities on cracking plaster / SR and furture home settlings. Just under 45k. New 1st floor optioal.

3. 
   DavidxDoud | Jun 22, 2003 03:38am | #5

   elevate the house:  $10K (rural midwest)- get a pro in your area to tell you how much foundation/first floor would cost...

4. 
   Dinosaur | Jun 22, 2003 08:03am | #6

   I did a combo house jack-up/new basement and add-on second floor a while ago. I subbed out the jacking, moving (we moved the house 20 feet closer to the lake to make room for a bigger septic weeping field on the side away from the lake), and excavation; in 1995, that part cost about $5k. The concrete work for the new basement came in about $10k with forms and pours.

   We used the excavator to tear off the roof and toss it in the dumpster; whole process took about 2 hours (not counting the preparation the night before when we cut the roof loose from the top-plates with sawzalls and removed all the gable-end windows.)  Then we knocked the west wall flat and chucked that in the dumpster, too, to make room for a 6x20' extension. Once that was framed, we dropped 3x8 BC fir floor joists on top of the walls (2x4, like yours; we bumped them up with 2x2's to make room for more insulation) and laid a 2x6 red pine roof-decking floor directly on the joists. From there, we just framed the second story like we would have in any new construction.

   Here's a few pics of how the project looked at various stages. Total cost in 1995 was about $80K (Canadian dollars), which included a complete tear-out and redo inside the house as well. SF went from 480sf to 1800sf on three floors.

   Dinosaur

   'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?

   PS--To answer the question before you ask it: We couldn't knock it flat and rebuild from scratch; the lot was too small to build new on, so we had to renovate under a grandfather clause.

   
   

   ---

   Edited 6/22/2003 1:06:31 AM ET by Dinosaur

1. 
   tyearian | Jun 25, 2003 10:13pm | #7

   Attached are photos of the 900sf house I originally asked about elevating.  (Pictures were taken shortly after asbestos siding was removed which is another story!)  2nd photo shows settling either side of chimney.  House was built 1920s with no footings on wet clay soil.  Also rotten rim joists/plate in some areas, noticeable slant to floors in LR and Kitchen, askew windows that won’t open, cracked plaster, less than 18” crawlspace.  But overall not in terrible condition just not up to my aesthetic standards.

    

   So far get the impression it would cost $5-10K to jack up house, another $10K plus to demo and replace foundation.  For maybe half that amount we could raise house slightly and level out, maybe even underpin foundation in places. 

    

   Of course neither fix would solve our desire for more space which is I guess real issue.  Suppose we could solve foundation problems:  Is notion of jacking up and building new 1st floor that outlandish?  I thought due to 2x4 walls 2nd floor addition would be out of question.  Some of you seem to think otherwise.

1. 
   GoldenWreckedAngle | Jun 25, 2003 11:53pm | #8

   Even if the walls were insufficient to hold up a second story they could be reinforced. I would question the wisdom of doing a two story in that neighborhood if the rest of the houses look like the ones on either side of you though.

   Another thought about those houses... how will those neighbors feel about your house towering over theirs blocking whatever light they had coming in those side windows. Upsetting neighbors that live that close by might make that wonderful neighborhood you live in a little less desirable by the time your construction project is over.

   Finally, it is rarely advisable to have the most expensive house in the neighborhood from a resale viewpoint and by the time you do a jack and build you will almost certainly be in over market value. Course, that's a two bit analysis from a ten second review of a couple of photos. Your neighborhood may be much different than I'm picturing from the limited info in the photos.

   All in all the answer is yes, it can be done... the remaining question however is, should it be?Kevin Halliburton

   "I believe that architecture is a pragmatic art. To become art it must be built on a foundation of necessity."  - I.M. Pei -

1. 
   caseyr | Jun 26, 2003 02:46am | #9

   Raising houses and building a ground floor under them was fairly common in the neighborhood I lived in a little over a decade ago in Berkeley, CA.  These were houses not unlike the one pictured.  The area was older single family houses with rapidly escalating housing prices with almost everything within driving distance having been built on. 

   The houses were raised by jacking them up a bit at a time and placing cribbing underneath to hold them while the foundation was dug.  I never saw any that had a basement added.   

2. 
   Dinosaur | Jun 26, 2003 04:09am | #10

   Technically/structurally, there should be no problem adding a second story to your place. But I think I agree that your neighborhood might not be an appropriate place for a two storey house, if the photos you posted are a good indication. But what you could very well do is jack it up, tear out the existing foundation, and dig down to make room for a half-buried, full-height basement, which you could then finish.

   This is a bit trickier than just jacking and replacing in that you've got to have a very good shovel operator. In fact, if you've got the room, the best way might be to move the house to the back of the lot on rails (see my original post), store it there temporarily while the digging is done, and then move it back into place before setting your footings and forms for the basement. You definitely want to have the house over where you're going to pour before setting up the forms, so you can drop plumb bobs from each corner of the actual house to show where the wall corners have to be. Don't try to measure the house, then measure the forms: too many ways to screw up too easily. By the way, pick a calm, non-windy day to hang your plumb bobs, too: the wind can throw them off plumb and then the house won't fit on the basement when you jack it down--very embarrassing, to say the least.

   You said the soil is wet and clay-ey. If that's the case, make sure the French drain you install is oversized; the extra material cost is relatively inconsequential, and it can save you grief later in your finished basement. I'd also suggest digging back a good ways from the basement, and then backfilling with sand instead of the original clay soil; you'll get much better drainage, and stand a decent chance to have a dry basement. I did a post a while ago on how to set up French drains and handle ground water for basements, I'll have to go looking for it to find the link so I'll add it to this post later as an edit.

   If you jack up the house four or five feet, and dig down five or six feet, by the time you shoot your gravel in and pour the floor you'll have 8' headroom under the joists in the basement, and you can finish it as if it were at street level. Raising the existing house only another 4 feet above existing grade shouldn't bother anybody much. You can have your excavator truck out the clay before he brings in the sand to backfill, and then bring in a few 10-wheelers of brown earth for your landscaping.

   This will double your SF to 1800, which is not huge but can be made quite workable for a small family. (You can make the foundation oversize and add a bump-out to the house at the same time to get even more space.)

   An added benefit is this: assuming the top of the new basement walls are flat and level (DON'T hire the cheapest concrete-forms contractor--get references!!!), all the floors in the house will flatten right out when you drop it. You can repair the plaster later. Remember, you can't make an omelette....

   Dinosaur

   'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?

   PS--Here's the link to the post on ground water management: http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=31449.2

   Edited 6/25/2003 9:14:41 PM ET by Dinosaur

5. 
   valgenti | Jul 28, 2012 01:26am | #11

   same project

   just looking for info on a project we are undertaking and it is almost identical to what you posted back in 2003.

   we have a 900sqft bungalow on the jersey shore we want to jack up, build new foundation and floor underneath,

   how did your project go?

   regrets?

   trouble finding a contract that wanted to do wht they want (build new)

   was it cost effective to do that rather than build new.

   thanks in advance for any info / picts you can share

   frank

   [email protected]