Structural Damage under a House in Mauricetown, NJ

Thursday, December 19th, 2019 by Cindi Reyes Aragon

Challenge

This house was built around the 1840s while the kitchen was built in the late 1700s. It is now having structural problems under the kitchen since it was built only on cornerstones. This is causing the kitchen to get extremely cold in the winter and hot during summer. The homeowner is worried about the structural safety of the house because it seems it is not the only problem it has. There is also damage to the foundation walls around the house and the underpart of the old shed is completely exposed.

Solution

Understanding that the homeowner wanted to keep as much of the original house as possible, the team began by working on the foundation walls and proceeded to fix the masonry of the house. The old shed was the first part that was fixed. The crew had to dig up some of the ground in order to make a new block foundation wall. Once the foundation was secure, damaged wood in the old shed was replaced in order to secure the subfloor. They continued by accessing the crawlspace and installed 2 SmartJacks® under the kitchen which stabilized the west side of the dining room in order to match the level of the new foundation. By fixing the foundation walls of the house and using SmartJacks®, the house is now structurally sound.