Many older homes tend to sink slightly into the earth over the years, while at the same time, lots of streets get repaved every few years making them higher. This can lead to too much water drainage into the home and yard so many homeowners are in need of a restumping in order to get their homes more elevation. While it sounds like a huge job, and in many ways it is, the right professionals have the experience and equipment to do the project in quick order with the least amount of disruption to the house’s occupants. There are some more difficult projects, like restumping a very low house that will take more time and equipment as well.
Restumping Your Old House Is A Carefully Planned Operation
To start with, a qualified engineer will have to go under the home and decide how the home should be lifted in order not to cause any damage to the structural integrity of the home. This means placing huge beams under the home for support and then jacking the beams up carefully all the way around to just above the final level. The guys at Restumping Underpinning Experts, , are excellent are restumping older houses that are lower than the average new house built these days.
They’ll use a laser level that shines a perfectly level beam of light in all directions so that each worker can raise his jack in perfect harmony with all of the others. That way the home won’t be twisted out of shape causing cracks and possibly expensive repairs during the project. Once the home is the final resting place, then the foundation will be built up and the posts lengthened to the exact proper level before the home is lowered down onto its new foundation.
Restumping A Very Low House Is More Difficult
When a home has been built very low to the ground with almost no room to work below, it does create some problems. In order to lift the house properly, several large beams are needed underneath it for support. If workers can’t get the beams under the home along with the jacks to do the lifting, then they’ll have to excavate in several areas to make room. This task is made more difficult under the home since there won’t be space to bring in large equipment but they can do some of the excavating from the exterior and finish the job using other, slower tools under the home.
Once they’ve created enough space to insert the huge beams then the project can proceed pretty much the same as normal. There will be holes in the yard to fill at the end and hopefully, the home will then have plenty of crawlspace underneath it to service the plumbing and electrical more easily than before. Plus, it’s never good to have a home to close the soil because of the possibility of infestation with termites and other pests that like to eat our wooden homes.
If you have a very low house and are wondering if it can be restumped, most likely yes, it can. It will involve some more work but it isn’t something that hasn’t been done before. You’ll be amazed at how ingenious the professional restumping crew is at doing the job that to the average person would look to be impossible.