Jacking up the house
Jacking up the house
(OP)
I’ve been asked to give input to a friend on their home which is settling. They got an estimate from Ram Jack which is sort of like Micro Piles for houses. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of system?
I’ve looked the brochure over and have a few issues based on what I am seeing:
1. The support will be off center of the wall footing.
2. Assuming the wall footing is unreinforced, (and that it will [upon work completion] be supported only at the pile support points) I get that it does not have the flexural capacity to span between these points.
3. Overall, it doesn’t appear to be engineered (in any way shape or form; from the standpoint of what it will do to the home).
The thing about it is: the home owners seem to have the mindset that something has to be done…..and I agree (it is settling)......but I don’t think much of this solution (without modification to the wall footing).
I do mostly heavy industrial design so I’m hoping someone here has done more residential.
I’ve looked the brochure over and have a few issues based on what I am seeing:
1. The support will be off center of the wall footing.
2. Assuming the wall footing is unreinforced, (and that it will [upon work completion] be supported only at the pile support points) I get that it does not have the flexural capacity to span between these points.
3. Overall, it doesn’t appear to be engineered (in any way shape or form; from the standpoint of what it will do to the home).
The thing about it is: the home owners seem to have the mindset that something has to be done…..and I agree (it is settling)......but I don’t think much of this solution (without modification to the wall footing).
I do mostly heavy industrial design so I’m hoping someone here has done more residential.






RE: Jacking up the house
Next, do your homework and run the loads toi the foundation and based on the Geotech's recommendation, engineer a fix baased on those loads.
Underpinning with Micropiles is common 3 to 4" diameter and driven to refusal with jackhammers), but the system should be engineered based on the results of a geotechnical report. Just putting in the system blind is not the way to do it, regardless of any "experience" claimed by a salesman getting a cut of the profits...
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
http://mmcengineering.tripod.com
RE: Jacking up the house
Will pass along your suggestion.
RE: Jacking up the house
www.PeirceEngineering.com
RE: Jacking up the house
RE: Jacking up the house
That said, I do not like refusal piles which use the house as the reaction when jacking. Obviously, when jacked sufficiently, the house will go up, but I can certainly see how that may drift over time. I do not have any information on long term performance, but they did level part of my mom's house which sits in very deep, expansive clay soils. So far, so good.
At the other end of the spectrum, I have seen very poor performance with shallow refusal piles (basically, a series of concrete cylinders are feed down a shallow hole and jacked to refusal.) Usually, the problem is that the hole is too shallow to start and there is still seasonal moisture variation below that depth. Refusal takes very little movement since the weight of the house is providing the reaction against a slowly-driven, 6" diameter "pile".
RE: Jacking up the house
Realtors jack up houses a lot too.
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
http://mmcengineering.tripod.com
RE: Jacking up the house
RE: Jacking up the house
You know, I think we are both living in the past, All the jacking stopped four years ago. Now we are dealing with depressed foundations.
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
http://mmcengineering.tripod.com
RE: Jacking up the house
RE: Jacking up the house
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
http://mmcengineering.tripod.com
RE: Jacking up the house
RE: Jacking up the house
www.PeirceEngineering.com
RE: Jacking up the house