Name:   MAJ USA RET - Subject:   Need a civil engineer Date:   7/22/2012 10:16:44 AM

Walk some distance from your yard… such that you can see both the house and the water (or the bottom of the slope on which you live).  Do you see a hump in the land between you house and the bottom of the slope?  Does your house appear to be sitting in a “scooped out” place?  (If any of this is true, email me and/or Diver.)

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I once had a fridge end up next to a non-bearing wall (new house).  Over the years, the floor began to sag. I completely leveled the floor AND provided bearing for the fridge.

Don’t jack the floor until the slide problem it fixed.

You can buy floor jacks… of all different lengths and sizes… at Home Depot or Lowes or Moore’s Hdwe.  Some cautions:

a) build a LEVEL pad of concrete or treated 6x6 on which to place the base of the jack. Do NOT use bricks or concrete blocks.

b) Be sure to TIE (not nail or screw) a beam across and under several floor joists.  The jack will hold it in place. Do not drill, nail, or screw into the bottom of your floor joists.

c)  DO NOT try to level your floor all at once. Tighten the jack firmly between pad and beam. Every few days, give the jack ONE complete turn… the floor should be leveled over the course of a few weeks… or even months GO SLOW!  Once the jack is in place it will not get worse.

Email me if this is unclear… I’ll send you a sketch.