Fixing Your Concrete Driveway

Sinking Floors? Jack Up Your Crawl Space

by Gavin Jackson

If most of the floors in your home squeak, creak, or make other strange noises, contact a concrete contractor for services today. You may need to jack or lift up your crawl space. The dirt or ground inside your crawl space may be too weak to support your home's foundation. Learn more about the problems in your floors and why you may need to jack up your crawl space to solve them below.

What's Going on With Your Floors?

Some floors can squeak or creak over time. The boards in a floor can loosen up as they age, or the boards can weaken from everyday wear and tear. The noises should go away once you repair the boards in the floor. A home's crawl space can also cause major issues with its floors.

Your home's crawl space lies directly over the soil on your property. Most homeowners don't use or need to use their crawl spaces during the year. However, crawl spaces can cause tremendous problems for a home's foundation and floors if it becomes saturated with moisture.

Moisture can weaken various support structures inside a crawl space over time, including the wooden joists that hold up a home's floors. Damp floor joists can become brittle, weak, and even prone to insect damage. The floorboards connected to the joists can also become loose enough to creak, squeak, and even sag. 

You may need to jack up your crawl space to prevent or solve the issues above.

How Do You Jack Up Your Crawl Space?

First, contact a concrete contractor and ask them to inspect your crawl space for you. A contractor can see if the floor joists and other structures in your crawl space require repairs. A contractor can also see if the structures contain excessive levels of moisture. If the joists do require repairs, a contractor can complete them for you.

A contractor can also place special concrete support jacks in your crawl space for you. Concrete support jacks are large, cylinder-shaped columns that lift or raise weakened floor joists. The columns sit directly over the soil inside your crawl space. If the soil is too loose or wet to support the jacks properly, a contractor will place the jacks on concrete bases. The bases prevent the jacks from sinking into the soil after a contractor installs them.

A contractor may also use other methods to jack up your crawl space, such as house leveling jacks. House leveling jacks strengthen, support, and raise the footings around a home. The jacks not only prevent the floors in a home from sinking, they also keep the rest of a home's foundation from collapsing in the future.

You can learn more about concrete support jacks and how to use them for your crawl space by contacting a crawl space foundation repair contractor today.

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