DIY Home Improvement Forum banner

Foundation system gone a muck

2K views 14 replies 8 participants last post by  redrocket 
#1 · (Edited)
I just purchase the house across the street from where I live. I hopefully can fix it up for my daughter to live in. It was a foreclosed home. It has cracks all over the house but mostly concentrated in the center of the home are areas where the walls meet the ceiling that don't meet. These cracks are a couple inches wide. I noticed that the house had been leveled. A little research and I find that it was 20 years ago. Needless to say I don't know who leveled it. I've call the city and they researched their building permits and still came up dry. So, I'm going level this house my self. Equipped with 75 feet of clear vinyl tubing, a yard stick, graph paper and a bottle of colored water I plot the damage. Come to find out that the two sides of the house that had been leveled are up 4 inches higher than the rest of the house. Also its just the perimeter that is raised. 6 feet inward and the house drops 3 inches. This should easy - just lower the brackets on the piers. I've dug the pier areas and I can't get the bracket to drop. I suspect Its rusted between the bracket and the pier. Anybody got any suggestions? Thanks
 
#2 · (Edited)
The Pier Bracket is an 18 inch half inch thick pipe with a lift shelf and ears welded to it. The ears have threaded 3/4 inch rods going upward to the top of the pier where it is bolted to a cap the spans across the top of the peir. Tightening of loosing the bolts should raise or lower the foundation. There appears to be a second sleave that the lift bracket slides on. The sleeve extends downward from about 2 inches below the peir top to into the ground. I don't know how deep.

I don't know if the bracket lift is suppose to slide on this sleeve or the sleeve slide on the pier. Either way - it won't budge. I've been spraying wd40 on it for a week. Using a heavy blunt end of an axe and even took the weight off the bracket and tried lifting it from underneath. Any help would be appreciated. Do you cut these thing off and start over?
Thanks
 
#7 ·
Thanks MTN. They are pressed pilings (hollow tubes). The footing is sound. In fact I can see under the footing on one side of the house. Its about 3 inches off the ground. Because of the dramatic slope downward from the perimeter I'm confident that lowing the brackets will lower the foundation.
 
#12 ·
Red.... PB Blaster is good... but it still seems to me an issue of what to turn....

On other pier/jacking issues, they have used a big hyraulic geared down wrench,..... maybe, if you can figure out what to crank on, a pipe wrench and a long "cheeter" bar.....
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top