We did jack this weekend.
It took most of Saturday to get the supports and bracing in place. I added diagonal bracing below, to try to stabilize everything as much as possible. When the back room is cut off the house, the only thing stopping it from toppling over will be these braces. I wore my hard hat so that I didn’t keep hitting my head. Looks more professional, too!
Using a reciprocating saw, I cut all the way round, through the nails that held the laundry room onto the house, completely separating it from the house. We also disconnected piping (well, most of it – see later) and other things that held the floor to the house.
Above left you can see the step (red) between the kitchen and the laundry room.
Once we started jacking, Janeen ran outside and took a photo (above right). You can see a gap under the framing that is going up with the floor, and the wall below.
Above left, there’s about six inches between the floor and the wall below. Above right, this is half way there.
While we were pumping the jack, there were all sorts of creaking noises. Sometimes there was the sound of splitting wood, or sudden cracks. After one noise, I went outside, and found that I’d forgotten to disconnect the sewer pipe from the wall, so it was being lifted up with the room and had separated at a joint. I had to disconnect it, and carefully slide it back down into place (while up on a ladder, leaning on the room sitting on temporary supports – above left).
Above right, you can see light shining through a gap between the house and the laundry room. The whole thing would tilt sideways as we jacked up one side. Then it would tilt back when we jacked the other side. I didn’t realize it would tilt around this much, and am really glad I put in the bracing. It’s quite scary being underneath all this with the jack.
Janeen kept calling it ‘reverse Jenga’. I have one 20-ton jack but have six support points to lift the room at. We put the jack onto one of the supports, and pumped it until it lifted that side about 1 1/2″. Then I slipped a couple of 2×4’s into the gap, and let the pressure off the jack. Then we moved it to the next location. It took all day.
Above right, here’s the gap after getting the floor to the right level.
Above left: Flush! There’s no more step down. Above right, the whole room was moving around while we jacked it up. At one point, I noticed that as I was jacking, the room was moving sideways. A piece of wood had got stuck, and was levering the whole room sideways about 1/4 inch before I stopped. To get it back into place, I screwed a block of wood to the floor joists of the laundry room, and a block to the side of the house. Then I tightened a clamp between the two pieces of wood to pull it over. It worked!
Above left, here’s a nice (scary) pile of wood supporting the laundry room. Above right, at this side of the room, it raised up about a foot, because the floor of the laundry room (in addition to the step), sloped away from the building.
It’s been a funny winter. Actually, I think there was none. It only rained two or three times. And now it’s spring. The daffodil, crocus and iris bulbs that we planted around the tree are popping up. And the peach tree is coming into blossom already. Janeen took a photo of a couple of sprigs we brought in and put into water.
