To level or not to level?

Question

My home has been refurbished since Katrina left her stripes and sunken soils. However I realize now that the "re"setting of the concrete block foundation was an important process that was overlooked in the refurbishing phase to my home. The blocks (2 high) now look as though they want to calaspe on one side of the house. I inquired into the cost of leveling and setting additional blocks to support the house which is a small stucco 650 sq ft home and found that the price was way out of range. Now I am considering simply setting additional blocks close to the pre-existing blocks without the "leveling" process. I think this is someting that can be done by less than the usual experts and at minimal cost. The house seems level enough at this time. I need some opinions and suggestions from those of you who know. Is it wise to place reinforcement blocks close to the exisitng blocks for a fix or do I need to have the entire house leveled and reinforced? Thanks for your input.

Answer 1

I would recommend leveling the house now. This is something that you can accomplish yourself, since your house is on the small side. Work on one pier at a time, by placing temporary shoring (Blocks) under each side of the sunken pier. Use a bottle jack to lift that section of your house off of the old blocks and use the temporary shoring to hold the house. Remove the old blocks and make whatever repairs are necessary to the footer that the blocks sit on. This may range from no repairs, to breaking up the footer and replacing it. Once the footer is repaired, set the blocks back up and allow them to carry the load of the house. Once all of your piers and footers have been repaired, you can start to jack up sections of your home to get them leveled off. Use a 6' level on the floors of your home to know when you are level. Once it is level, use steel shims or concrete blocks to build up your piers to the new height. Don't go crazy on lifting the house, go with small lifts. You may have to go back and adjust as you go.
Even if this is something that you don't want to take on, I would recommend fixing the level issue now. The next hurricane will only double your troubles if it is left as is.
Good Luck

Answer 2

it seems you may have a serious settling problem. I don't know if this will help but I live in alaska. we deal with permafrost grounds. that is frozen parts of the ground that stay frozen untill it is built on with testing and major settling occurs, not a pretty sight. what many have done to fix the problem is to install a manual leveling bolt at all the critical point of a the foundation and when the home seems to settle throughout the years, you can easily access the bolts and lossen or tighten these bolts creating a rise and fall affect to maintain the level you need. regardless of the situation I would find a way to do just this.

Answer 3

Random Trivia...

Most homeowners insurance policies do not cover an unsound foundation as the cause for repairs citing it as a pre-existing, permanent condition of the home.

This means if your foundation settles to the point of causing some of the trusses or rafters in your roof to snap and break, your insurance will not cover it.

Simply placing new blocks around the ones that have settled further down won't do anything productive other than give you a false sense of peace of mind.

Answer 4

"Average" has the best answer.I was going to suggest the bottle jacks idea,but he beat me to it.It's the best solution and as a homeowner I've had to use them (with success) to level my kitchen floor when I needed to brace a basement joist.They work wonders.If you can do the work by yourself you can save lots of money.

Answer 5

NOT TO LEVEL