manzoni

Hi all

My husband and I live on the Eastern Shore of MD.
We are purchasing a 1924 Farmhouse that we want to renovate.

My husband has been a carpenter (new homes, home renovations) for 21 yrs.

I am sure we will be here looking for assistance and helping out where we can.

Cheers!

inspectorD

I love the old style homes. Good luck in your renovations.

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Just My
Made in the

Hack

Welcome! Good to see that others are buying old homes to renovate!

Good Luck and keep us updated...

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Hack (a.k.a. Jeff)

ToolGuy

1924 farmhouse? I'm green with envy!

I hope you manage to share some photos. As for your husband being in the trades for 21 years, just how are we supposed to be helpful??? LOL, maybe he can help us out some.

Anywayz, welcome to the forum and congats on the new 'old' house.

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manzoni

hehe yeah he does know how to do a lot of things. He totally amazes me when I see his work and what he knows. We will definitely help out here where we can.

The only thing he has never done, which we will need to do, is to raise the house. Its on piers and needs a foundation put in. He has done foundations but never had to raise a house to do one.

Here are a few pics of the house we are buying

ToolGuy

I'm looking at the barn and thinking "Ultimate Woodshop!", hehe. Let me guess, he has the same idea?

Needless to say, raising a house is quite a big project. But he can do it. I've never raised a house before but I know the principal and it's pretty straight forward. However, it's not something he's going to do without help. If anything, it's going to take at least 2 hefty guys to get beams under it.

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glennjanie

Welcome Manzoni:
I don't see any reason to raise the house (just my opinion), but the biggest problem in raising it will be the chimney on the back. If there is any way to get rid of that and replace it with metal pipe, I would do that first. Also the chimney is in a portion that appears to have been added on; he'll have to be very careful not to let it drop loose.
I have raised a few houses and can lend a hand when he is ready to get started on it. Please keep us posted and we'll be happy to work with you on it.
Glenn

manzoni

The chimney is for the furnace. I think he is going to demo that back little room and rebuild it afterwards. The furnace and stuff in there is sitting on a concrete slab.

The reason for needing to raise it is because its on piers. When inside there is the dining room downstair and bedroom upstairs that you can see the floor/walls have sagged down. Dave is under the impression, and I hope he is right, that by lifting the house and putting a real foundation under it, will mostly level out the floor/walls again.

Is there another way ?


And yes, the barn thing is going to be his... all his.

ToolGuy

What a lucky guy!

He's right, that will level the house. However, lifting and shimming as needed will also do the trick. I thought you we're maybe going to put a basement under it or someting like that. You stay inside with a 6' level and he under the house with 6-ton bottle jacks lifting a little at a time, till you tell him it's level. Then he packs shims or some other material at the top of that pier. Then do the next pier as needed, and the next, till everything is level.

Then it's time to repair all the plaster that has cracked from all the movement.

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guyod

It would probably been a good idea to replace the center poles (they must be starting to rot by now) with footers and steel poled scew jacks.

If there is no foundation your husband is right. one should be put in. lifting the whole house seems like a scary project. i would rather build the foundation as high as possible to the house. maybe just adding 8 feet at a time. Using a 6x6 to span the opening and lay block up to that. It would be something that he could do as little or as fast as he wanted with out being to overwhelmed.