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Leveling my floors, need some advice

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m_fumich:
We bought a 70 year old farm house. My wife looked at the house but I was unable to see the house before we made an offer and the inspection lacked some details so there were things I discovered after we moved in. Mainly that the crawl space is less than 18” so getting under the house is impossible. Also, do to the placement of the previous owners dining room table, I didn’t notice the bad slope in the floor when I finally did get to see the house which was after we made the offer. The uneven floor and the small crawl space would not have changed out offer or our desire to buy the property. There were no other properties in our area that met our needs and that were in our price range. BTW, I love my barn. We’ve been in the house since mid August and I’ve been able to figure some things out about how the house was built, the upgrades that have been made, and how the house is settling.

About the floors.....

I have discovered that all the floors in the house are not level except in the addition the previous owners had built. The most significant part is the the slope goes from the exterior walls to the interior walls. If you were to pour a glass of water on the floor anywhere in any room, no carpet in the house, it will run toward the interior wall. Due to the low crawl space, we will have to take up the floor to get under the house. That’s not a big deal. The flooring the previous owners put down is inexpensive manufactured flooring. We want to replace it all anyway. The upstairs bedrooms had the original hardwood floors under the carpet that we immediately ripped out. Unfortunately, the original flooring is 2 1/4” which I don’t really care for. We want to replace it with something a little wider. When we do, that will give me the opportunity to level the floors. After we pull up the newer flooring and the original flooring beneath that, I can pull up as much of the subfloor as needed to access to the underside of the house. I know I need a firm base to support the walls. I’m not counting on that being in place. Due to limited work room, I think I can dig a hole about 2’ deep at best to fill with concrete to create a pier to support a foundation jack or support blocks. I think I’d prefer screw jacks. Once I get them in place, I can just leave them.

Since I’ve never done this before, I don’t know the specifics on what to do. What would be the minimum and maximum spacing between the jacks. I was thinking 4’ apart. What weight rating do I need? The ones I’m looking at are 9 tons or better. What else do I need to know?

I plan to leave a way to get back under the house easier in the future.


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coolmercury:
Before you make any decisions/purchases find a way to look under the house with a light and see if in fact there is a main beam under the middle of the house, and if so how many piers are under it.  Also, using a three foot or preferably a longer level try to determine how much the house has settled in the middle.  Then the answers you get will make more sense.

m_fumich:
There had better be a central beam. There’s a wall running dead center through the middle of the house from one end to the other and it’s directly under the centerline of the roof. In the original floor plan, the rooms forward of that wall are the downstairs bedroom, the bathroom, and the room we call “The Library” that the front door opens into. Behind that wall is the kitchen, dining room, and the living room. The back wall of the upstairs bedrooms are directly above that dividing wall.

m_fumich:
Which purchases are you suggesting we hold off on?


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coolmercury:
Mainly the jacks.

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