Anyone know about floor joist support?
 

I live in VA. I have about 10 house (screw) jacks supporting the 1st floor
joists in the crawl space under my house.

Would anyone care to tell me this is not "code" in VA. or probably anywhere
else?! I didn't know they were not proper here. Or maybe they are OK, I'm
not sure, so if anyone knows I would appreciate the advice.

Does anyone know exactly what I need to do to bring this to code? Blocks?
Concrete footers? etc.?

--
Thomas Bryant - BSIT
"Tommy"


Lynchburg, VA

"THOMAS BRYANT" wrote in message
news:bhLzd.4245$Y57.167@trnddc08...
I live in VA. I have about 10 house (screw) jacks supporting the 1st floor
joists in the crawl space under my house.



The best place to address you question would be your local building
inspections office. What flys in your area could probably be ok elsewhere.
I see screw jacks in basements around here all the time!
Greg

THOMAS BRYANT wrote:
I live in VA. I have about 10 house (screw) jacks supporting the 1st floor
joists in the crawl space under my house.

Would anyone care to tell me this is not "code" in VA. or probably anywhere
else?! I didn't know they were not proper here. Or maybe they are OK, I'm
not sure, so if anyone knows I would appreciate the advice.

Does anyone know exactly what I need to do to bring this to code? Blocks?
Concrete footers? etc.?


You can't get a reliable answer here. You have to ask the
building department or authority for whatever city or county
at your location. Since you have only 10 jacks they can't
be the main support and are likely installed just to level
the floor.

And the cost of replacing them depends a lot on why they were put there
to begin with. For example, it could be anything from a foundation
settlement problem to rotted/termite infested beams. It's impossible
to get any estimate on cost without someone doing an inspection. I'd
get a structural engineer to take a look.

I think you have to replace them with more permanent supports on concrete
footers of a certain size.

Post cut to the right length on proper footers. On This Old House they
always called them lally (sp?) collumns.



"THOMAS BRYANT" wrote in message
news:bhLzd.4245$Y57.167@trnddc08...
I live in VA. I have about 10 house (screw) jacks supporting the 1st floor
joists in the crawl space under my house.

Would anyone care to tell me this is not "code" in VA. or probably
anywhere else?! I didn't know they were not proper here. Or maybe they are
OK, I'm not sure, so if anyone knows I would appreciate the advice.

Does anyone know exactly what I need to do to bring this to code? Blocks?
Concrete footers? etc.?

--
Thomas Bryant - BSIT
"Tommy"


Lynchburg, VA

Greetings,

I hear people talking about getting structural engineers involved. Are they
actually causing you a problem? What exactly is the issue here? Are you
afraid they will somehow cause a collapse or other major problem?

William

"THOMAS BRYANT" wrote in message
news:bhLzd.4245$Y57.167@trnddc08...
I live in VA. I have about 10 house (screw) jacks supporting the 1st floor
joists in the crawl space under my house.

Would anyone care to tell me this is not "code" in VA. or probably
anywhere
else?! I didn't know they were not proper here. Or maybe they are OK, I'm
not sure, so if anyone knows I would appreciate the advice.

Does anyone know exactly what I need to do to bring this to code? Blocks?
Concrete footers? etc.?

--
Thomas Bryant - BSIT
"Tommy"


Lynchburg, VA

IMO, anyone that has 10 screw jacks with unknown or non-existent
footings supporting their house, already has an issue and getting a
professional opinion before there is a potential major problem makes a
lot of sense.