Leveling the Pier and Beam House | My First Renovation

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Have a horror story about entering your crawlspace? let's hear about it!

[@budnspud]

Not a horror story but a dead raccoon mundified.

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Wow, was there ever a stench?

[@budnspud]

@@Jay_Schmidt Probably when it died like 10 years ago before we bought the home. No idea how the last owner didn't get rid of it.

[@locomoco2012]

Have you done craw space insulation?

[@Jay_Schmidt]

@@locomoco2012 I haven't. The slave is so low that I'd I decided to I would probably only be able to do the sides of the foundation.

[@sothathappened]

7:17 the look on your face says it all! I think we've all felt what you looked like. thanks for sharing this journey🤣

[@DeismThroughRevelations]

4:15 leaving the jack is a rookie mistake... I'm guilty of bringing a dead 20 ton jack all the way under myself. Happy you didn't need a pad. Nice vid

[@ekkharenterprises1207]

I thought I was the only one crazy enough to do everything myself. Good to see there's more out there!

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Yeah, I'm with you! We are a strange, mysterious few.

[@DeismThroughRevelations]

I've hired enough terrible contractors. My own fault, but now I learn stuff​@@Jay_Schmidt

[@Scristalp]

That bird and your reaction to it had me rolling!

[@Jay_Schmidt]

It was the best part of the video, in my opinion 😂

[@kevinjk27]

I saw the look on your face. Great job keeping going and moving forward 👏👏👏

[@ElbuenSpot]

I feel your pain in relation to home repair inconveniences. I really appreciate you showing how to lift your home using a hydraulic jack. Great work!

[@kittyvalentin3748]

The bird 🤣 Really enjoying these videos! Can’t wait to see what’s next!

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Hey, welcome to my channel! I was so scared I hurt the bird at first! I'm so glad to hear you're enjoying the videos. I've got another one coming up soon!

[@temosgarage]

The bird... the highlight of the video!

[@Jay_Schmidt]

It's always the little unexpected things I catch that steal the show.

[@carmenvalladares9853]

I really loved your video the part of the bird. I am watching these king of videos, because my brother is going to help me with the leveling of my house, I already bought 4 20 ton. bottle Jack, but I saw that he can also use 6 or 12 ton. instead 20, and we can not find the shovel that is used for this job. I just saw in your video what he needs.Thank you!

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I hope your house sits higher than mine; it's a very hard job to do in such a confined space. I wanted to use a shovel but had no room to dig so I ended up scraping with the flat bar in desperation. I'm not saying I did it right, but that is how I did it.

[@biggokii5083]

The bird was gobsmacked the whole time it couldnt believe this kind human let him free 🤣

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I love that I got it on camera.

[@razlo14u]

Good job bro Great video

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Thank you!

[@albertsalas9154]

That bird 🐦 was flabbergasted you didn't eat him. 😅 he saw his whole life beneath him

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I'm not sure who was more spooked 😂

[@mikez4132]

If the interior floor was not important or being saved I would have cut a section out and worked standing up between the joists. But it looks like you wanted to keep the flooring intact. Good real world vid. Take care.

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I really wanted to try to save the floor. All things considerd, because I had so much to do under the house I should have taken it up to do the repairs. Live and learn!

[@700singer]

you are right why not just cut floor out to the crawl space and stand on it for repair...as well as adding any hydraulics....

[@tompenny9352]

Oh boy...I just bought my brothers out on a 1948 house we inherited. Im trying to get rid of a hump where the floor buckled. I feel good after seeing this crawlspace though. I have a lot more room.

[@Jay_Schmidt]

It's really not too bad to fix. Check to make sure the beams are nailed together really well! Mine only had a few nails which did not tie them together well and offered no displacement support! Triangle nail patterns are your friend when trying to make the beams stronger

[@tompenny9352]

@@Jay_Schmidt A couple of years ago the floor buckled because the water heater was leaking and literally spraying a fine mist of hot water right onto a pier. It heaved and when I fixed the leak the floor pretty much settled back. It was good enough for 90 year old grandma. Now that Im putting a straight edge to it, it still needs to go down another 1 - 1 ½ to be right. Since there are no shims I decided to use a rotor hammer to shorten that pier. We will see. I got started last night. Hard work. My plan is renting it out. It isn’t in bad shape like yours was but its showing it age and and lack up updates. Im going to attempt to ground the 2 wire system rather than rewire. Mainly because it is not necessary to take the house down to the studs. Plus Im trying not to run out of money lol

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Oh, it was raised. Sorry, I thought it was low. This kind of work takes a lot of time to get rid of that 1 inch difference, haha. It sure makes you feel good when it's done. Yeah, I needed to insulate so I figured I may as well do EVERYTHING at once... despite my wallets complaints. At least doing the work myself is much cheaper. Let me know how your house turns out!

[@tompenny9352]

@@Jay_Schmidt what is your present stage?

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I'm a few months behind my video. I've already got drywall up and a bathroom done! I'm finishing skim coats and about to move on to the kitchen.

[@MathewPuthiakunnel]

"Just be thankful I didn't eat you" lol that made me laugh

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Welcome to the channel! That was a fun and strange encounter! So glad I got that on camera! 😂

[@cinaannie7338]

🤣🤣🤣 I'm about to say this out of LOVE so don't take me wrong, but a "MANLY MAN" helping a bird and then hearing that sound escape your mouth was priceless! That bird is still soaking up what happened. This is the FIRST video I came across of yours searching out pier and beam leveling and I HAVE TO SAY, it is one I will remember for awhile... Because of you and the bird! 😁😉 God bless you for having a heart for God's creatures! Oh. And by the way- the flicking of his/her tail was a "thank you" at 5:22 in your video.

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Glad you got some entertainment from it 😁 I thought that sequence was far too enjoyable to leave out!

[@xd541]

Ty bruh

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Yw bruh

[@mms16mms16]

A few things- It looked like the sag was between piers in the crawlspace. Once a sag has occurred you can’t simply lift the existing beam at the two adjacent piers without causing issues in other spots (think see saw with each pier being a pivot point). What you need to do is: Get some 2x6 (or whatever height that beam is) which span at least the distance between the two piers Then lift in the middle of the sag when level (use laser level or a 6 foot level) attach your 2x6s to the original beam (the easiest way to do this is with some Spax power lags- just point and pull the trigger). Use many lags (at least 8 ) Ideally - you can create a permanent support where the sag was (to do this you need to either dig and fill a Sonotube or dig less, fill with gravel and top with a steel plate or large 16”+ cement block. These would provide a spot that will keep your support from sinking when the ground gets wet. Either way- sistering the original beam (adding 2x pieces to the side of it) must be done because the original beam has failed.

[@700singer]

Same problem that I surmised after the hvac people installed a water heater and new heating furnace in the small utility room closet in the kitchen after install as there had been a sagging floor directly at the point of these 2 heavy items...installers never acknowedged any of this prior to install.....its obvious to me also happened on the flat roof sagging after 8 thousand cover with epdm rubber cover glued down....this is seventy year old house....the proper way was not done so it looks like this is called a bandaid fix...in both cases never getting to the bottom underneath both the sagging floor in kitchen as well as sagging flat roof over den.....at least plywood under layment would have solved the sagging and no tapers for pitch or bitumen instead of rubber....wow!

[@lilianaescobar3911]

Did you end up fixing it?

[@Mrdealornodeal618]

Strangely, I enjoyed your video. I think it's your personality and me feeling your pain and frustration. Hopefully, you figure it out..

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Thanks, haha. I did get it figured out; I added support to the beam in a later video.

[@laprepper]

Been there done that, minus the jack 😁

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I was so mad after I saw the jack. How dumb can you be.

[@singhA1968]

sparrow in the house means its lucy house for you. later on must make some bird house outside.

[@Jay_Schmidt]

That's not a bad idea. Maybe I will!

[@singhA1968]

@@Jay_Schmidt keep your wife next to you to explain what you doing Will give you more strength

[@phillipmorales5229]

Bro. Knee pads or a mechanics kneeling pad when kneeling on the deck/ground. They help so much. Save those knees bubba.

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I've since gotten a good pair of knee pads 👍🏻

[@c956rubber]

Hello sir I have a quick question I have a pier and beam home that needs leveling...I don't know if I made a mistake...because I remodeled all the inside with new sheetrock on walls...my question is, if I level my home will my house crack in the inside? I'm holding off in remodeling the siding in the outside because I don't know if it'll crack new siding.

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Do you know how far out of level it is? Ours had significant issues, and once I leveled it a few cracks appeared near the door frames. Door frames are naturally weaker than other parts of the wall. If you only need to shim a little bit, it may not crack. It is hard to say for sure, but having some small sections is possible.

[@c956rubber]

@@Jay_Schmidt house was built in 1928 and I don't think leveling was ever done to it...Im currently renting it out because I'm done with the inside...the living room floor is sorta raised...I think its in real need of leveling...didnt find out about the whole leveling, till researching pier and beam homes and the required maintenance...I would've known, I would've done that first...but I would like to know if extensive damage could be done to the inside after leveling

[@Jay_Schmidt]

@@c956rubber I haven't seen your home, but if you have minimal settling and you're not trying to level around floors with tile you may be fine. If you're worried about the interior it may not hurt to ask a foundation service in your area. If you have bigger problems under the house they will be able tell you the risk level of damage.

[@c956rubber]

@@Jay_Schmidt thank you so much for your input...godbless

[@atrian300]

Yes if you level the house up but if you support under for sagging I don't think so but it's possible depending how much lifting as to be up

[@laprepper]

My kitchen is about 1.75" lower...what do you do about the foundation wall at the perimeter being sagged?

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Oh my, I'm sorry I missed your comment! Can you help me understand the scenario in your kitchen a bit better? Are you saying your foundation itself is sagging at the perimeter or that the kitchen is sagging and is uneven from the foundation?

[@kevinjk27]

I hope you got it all level. I'm not sure if another video covered it. I went through a 2.5 year renovation (nights and weekends) and we had a beam that we added 2X's on each side, with construction adhesive and drilled through and added tons of lag screws and bolts to tighten it all up.

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I got it much closer to level through the entire house. The majority of the beams only had nails on the butted joints, so I leveled out the beams and stage nailed them once they were even. That helped a ton.

[@scotttownsend3041]

Hello darkness my old friend. I'm sorry, but I laughed way more at your misery than I should have!

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I'm doing it so you don't have to, haha.

[@zcpoling]

Do you have any tips for doing this that weren't in the video? I need to do this same bullshit to my house and have been dreading it lmao

[@Jay_Schmidt]

Hey man, you've been commenting on all my sagging floor videos for a while. Do you want to do a discord call so we can talk about the process?

[@zcpoling]

@@Jay_Schmidt That'd be cool. I can't find much detailed info online and most videos on here aren't the best. I don't wanna pay a fuck ton to have someone else do it either lol

[@Jay_Schmidt]

@Zack [link removed] once you're in I'll disable the link. Let's talk tomorrow

[@brandonzidzik]

Imagine heating hot water

[@pjstayhigh]

Army crawl space lol

[@BobY-zc9ex]

Low of tam, 1/8 inch per week if leveling beams. Doing so maybe you wouldn't see any cracks on the walls and door frames. About crawlspace I have condo in Florida. Under the roof in the attic. Takes me one min to move 2 feet. Not only this, I was caring tools in the bag, wearing mask, coveralls, caring flash light, safety hat so I wouldn't hit the nail from the above. 2 inch spare between roof and trusses. Bad construction design. Sweat like a pig and when I reached another end I wonted pee. This was my the worst 4 hours in my entire life.

[@Jay_Schmidt]

I wasn't too concerned about cracking drywall since I had the place gutted, but normally I agree