How To Jack Up A Floor To Level It

Place one end of a level on the high spot and the opposite end to a predetermined level area on the floor.

How to jack up a floor to level it.

The inside pipe is threaded and adjusted up and down by turning a large wing nut. It consists of two heavy steel pipes one inside the other. Make sure that the lumber or lally posts are perpendicular when jacking or. As with other structural repairs jacking must also be done appropriately.

The 4 inch lally posts can be replaced by 6 x 6 inch lumber. The screw jack is attached with nails to the underside of the girder and to the wood block atop a concrete pier. Don t jack it up too high just high enough to remove the post. Jacking must proceed slowly.

Then measure the distance between the bottom of the level and the level area of flooring. It took a long time for your floor to sink so you can t push it back up quickly without causing cracks and stress in the building. Raise each jack by 1 8 inch at a time this will help to reduce any damage to window frames and plaster or drywall walls above the floor. You cannot simply put a screw jack under the lowest spot and start turning.

Make repairs to settling piers and weak joists to fix swagging floors and roof lines. Figure 3 jacking up floor joists. Your foundation may not be the problem. Instead it may be an issue with joists and beams below your floor that require shoring up.

If an engineer found no structural issues you may be able to level the floor by applying a cement based self leveling floor product such as henry level. The only tools required is a bottle jack string straight claw hammer circular saw and a light source. For instance you may have a dining room floor that end to end is level but between those two points are various sags and dips. If you have a sagging floor you may need to use floor jacks in order to restore any low points and re level the floor using floor jacks to level a sagging floor should be viewed as a temporary solution to your problem.

A screw jack is a metal support post that can be adjusted to level the floor. Figure 3 shows the jacking process. The long term solution for your sagging floor is to remove the flooring replace or fix the problems with the foundation that may contribute to the sag and replace the flooring.