Construction - Day Five

Today was a big day!  First thing this morning, they were ready to jack up the house, and it took a little under three hours to get everything pretty much jacked into place.  Really, the actual lifting didn't take long at all, just a few minutes in each section, but it took them a bit to move the jacks around & get everything shimmed.

First they lifted half of the north side & half of the back of the house, the corner that was sinking.  They were able to bring it up two inches so it's back level with everything else.  After that was in place, they jacked the rest of the piers in the garage (the back & under the fireplace), then just steadied the front half of the north side of the house.

Luckily, the lifting was nice & smooth, so nothing fell off the walls or shelves.  It was odd to feel the house moving & hear the creaking as they lifted.  When they lifted the fireplace, we could actually see the gaps closing up between the brick & the bookshelves.

After all the lifting, the spent the rest of the day back-filling & tamping the holes.  Unfortunately they weren't quite ready to pour the garage floor today, so tomorrow they'll get the garage ready so it can be poured on Monday.

This is the big hole/tunnel that went down under the fireplace.

They won't be taking out this bit of concrete in the garage.

Our big ol' rock. It's actually sitting on top of a piece of the old drain tile that they weren't able to get out.

They are doing a great job tamping the dirt as they fill the holes, so hopefully we won't have any issues with the dirt settling, especially in back where they'll be patching in the concrete.

Here are some before & after pictures of some of the issues we were having in the house due to the settlement.  

The gap behind the bookcase closed up quite a bit.


You can hardly see the crack in the corner of the doorway now, except where Nick picked off some of the loose drywall mud.


The gap at the top of the bookcase closed up at least a little.


The gap between the brick & the bookcase closed up quite a bit.


This gap in the paneling is above the bedroom door in the basement.  We just put up the paneling last summer, and it gaped this much in a little more than 6 months.  Luckily it closed up great!  You can hardly even see the seam in the after photo.


This trim was put in last summer as well, and a gap showed up in the corner.


The peninsula cabinet & countertop had pulled away from the wall.




Unfortunately we also got a few new cracks as well, but luckily we were expecting this & can patch them up.  It's worth it to have to patch a few cracks & have everything else fixed!

We're looking forward to getting everything back in order now that we're getting close to the end of the project.  Soon we'll be able to start getting everything patched up!

Until next time...