Structural sagging solutions for crawl spaces
Inadequate crawl space support leads to sinking floors, uneven floors, and damage to your structure.
Crawl space jack posts provide a fast, permanent, warrantied solution to this problem. They’re a great option for homeowners investing in home repairs.
We can fix your sagging crawl space! Call us for a free crawl space repair quote today! We serve Mansfield, Springfield, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and throughout southern Ohio.
Crawl spaces experience structural sagging for these three primary reasons:
- Support Columns Spaced Too Far Apart
When a crawl space is built, columns made of block, brick, and even wood are located throughout the crawl space. These columns are designed to support the weight of the home above.
If these columns are spaced too far apart from each other, the beams and girders may be overloaded with weight, causing them to sag between the columns. When the girder sags, so does the floor above it.
- Rot-Weakened Floor Joists/Girders
Because crawl spaces are often not sealed from the earth around them, excess moisture and humidity is a common problem. This moisture creates an environment where mold and rot can thrive, damaging the wood structure of your home.
The weakened girders and floor joists will be unable to continue to support the weight above. In time, the floor above the crawl space will become bouncy, soft, and will. In some extreme cases, the floor may even collapse.
- Columns Settling Due To Weak Soil
Often, the soils that the crawl space supports are installed on are not strong or solid enough to support the weight being transferred from the home. Weak supporting soils will allow your existing crawl space columns to sink or settle, often creating a gap between the top of the column and the bottom of the girder it supports.
Once the column has settled, the girder above will begin to sag as well.
Telltale Signs
- Tilting or sinking crawl space supports
- Too few supports in the crawl space
- Moist, rotting wood
- Sagging, sloping, or uneven floors upstairs
- Cracks in interior drywall
- Door & window frames skewed and/or unlevel
How to Fix It
Additional crawl space supports should be installed to ensure that your structure is properly stabilized. Mold and rot should also be addressed by installing a crawl space liner and removing excess moisture from the crawl space.
Advantages To Our System:
At Ohio Basement Authority, we recommend installing the IntelliJack™ System, which uses adjustable heavy duty steel crawl space jack posts. These posts install quickly in a home and provide the best solution for restoring stability to your structure.
The IntelliJack™ system can be installed in tight conditions, usually in less than a day. Made with galvanized steel for corrosion resistance, it can support vertical loads exceeding 60,000lbs.
The adjustable design of our crawl space jack system means that sagging floors can not only be stabilized; they can also be restored their original position in many cases.
To address the issue of poor supporting soils, each crawl space jack distributes the weight of the home through a precast concrete footing and a base of engineered fill material.
The IntelliJack™ is the only solution that addresses problem soils during crawl space restabilization!
Some homeowners and contractors will attempt to use concrete blocks to repair a sagging crawl space, with wooden “shims” wedged in at the top to fill in any empty space.
This kind of installation is a short-term solution that requires constant maintenance and reshimming. And because your concrete columns will continue to sink into the earth below, this solution will ultimately fail.
What NOT To Do
Here are three “fixes” that we at Ohio Basement Authority do NOT recommend:
- Concrete Columns
Crawl space girders or beams are sometimes supported by columns made from concrete blocks. The blocks are typically stacked on a concrete footing and held together with mortar.
Once the column has been built and the mortar has cured, the extra space between the uppermost block and the floor girder above is filled with wooden spacers or “shims“.
Because of the wait for the concrete footing and mortar to cure, this is a very slow, time-consuming process.
Since the completed column isn’t adjustable, additional shimming will be needed as the concrete column settles or the wood girder shrinks.
- Additional Shimming
This is a “cheap fix” solution for repairing a girder and floor that have sagged because of settled concrete columns. Temporary jacks are used to lift the girder, and wooden shims are pushed between the existing column and the floor girder. The jacks are then removed.
This is a short-term fix only – the concrete columns will continue to settle, requiring additional shimming and maintenance in the future.
- Light-Duty Jack Posts
Skinny, light-duty jack posts are available at many hardware stores and home centers. This type of adjustable steel post is often installed on top of a concrete block that rests on the ground in the crawl space.
Unfortunately, these posts hold very little weight, have poor stability and are difficult to adjust. Also, they won’t compensate for poor supporting soils in the crawl space. This is not the solution you need!
We’re YOUR Crawl Space Structural Support Contractors!
If you’d like a permanent solution for your crawl space issues or any other foundation problem, we’re ready to help you. We offer free crawl space structural repair quotes to homeowners in the Ohio area. To schedule your free, on-site visit and written estimate, call or e-mail us today!
Our service area includes Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Springfield and throughout southern Ohio.
