Cost of jacking up a house.

[LCD3]

Okay, I'm just daydreaming here, but I was wondering if anyone has a rough idea of what it costs to jack up a house that is approximately 25 feet by 40 feet.

Here's the daydreaming part -- I was wondering about the possibility of jacking up a house to add enough more rows of cinder block to the foundation as a way of changing a 4-foot high crawl space to an actual basement. The crawl space already has a concrete floor. The idea would be to change what is now a ranch style home into raised ranch style home, and create a whole new basement level usable area.

I was thinking about something similar with another home I own, but that one already has a basement and it seems like it would cost les to have the basement dug out a foot or so than to jack up the whole house by a foot.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Can be done. I have no idea of the cost effectiveness, but I saw a This Old House and they were doing just that in Florida. From what I saw on the show, it is fairly common to raise the houses in flood areas. I've seen this done often along the New Jersey shore also.

The house was supported with beams, raised, then a foundation of sorts was built. They gave a cost but I don't recall. It was not astonishingly high though. Ed

[Randd01]

I am not sure what it would cost but I jacked up my friends whole house for him over a foot higher to replace a field stone foundation with a concrete poured foundation. The expense comes from the time it takes to actually jack the house up. We did it very slowly a quarter inch at a time giving it time to settle over night between jacking. So I would imagine it would be coslty to do it if you hire someone. if you go to fast or to unevenly the walls will crack then you got more troubles.

[Steve]

Very do-able.. It's done all the time when a house is in a flood plane.

You would contact a house mover and get an estimate after telling him what you want to do.. He has the jacks and the timbers. You would disconnect the utilities and porch structures, etc. then let him knock the holes in the old foundation where he wants to run his full length timber through.

Once he has it high enough for you to have the blocks layed, he would pull his jacks, etc, but leave the timbers and cribbing until your ready for him to lower it..

To me this seems the most cost effective way.. Do what you can yourself but for the specialized work of raising the house or setting the blocks, leave that to the Pros.

The existing basement floor may not be of good enough quality, thickness or grade for your future use. I would look that over carefully when sorting all these details out.

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My experience in lifting and moving a house:: circa 1950

My Father and I jacked up a 3 room house and put it on utility poles. Skided it 12 miles to our property in another town.. The phone co. and utilities, met us at any areas where the lines might be too low and pushed them up out of the way.. Took a full day but went fairly well on gravel roads with surplus army 2.5 ton truck, lug wheeled tractor for a winch anchor when the going got tough.

BTW. the utility poles were worn to about 1/4 their original dia. when we finished.

[TURTLE]

This is Turtle.

There is a fellow here in Town that does it by the Hour. He has all the tools and a 3 man crew. he gets $65.00 a hour and does what every you want + Material. He can do most anything you want in 1 or 2 days + Materials. We do live in a lower cost of living area of the country.

TURTLE

[LCD3]

Thanks to everyone for your responses! I really thought this was just a goofball idea that I thought up in my head. But, based on the responses, I guess it's do-able and not too far-fetched of an idea. I'm really thinking about it for the ranch-style house because it seems like such a waste to have a 4-foot high crawl space under the whole house, when I could have a full basement instead.