I have a 28x56 double wide. By the front and back doors there is an area reaching about 2-3 feet into the house where the floor dips. The front door is particularly bad because the door is now barely able to open. I noticed another spot at the center of the house that is about 1/2" lower than the center flooring of that section. All problems are confined to the outer 2-3 ft. of each section of the house. The center area of each section is level.
Does this signal that the house needs to be releveled or is there another problem?
Thanks for the help!!
Neil
Mobile Home Releveling
Re: Mobile Home Releveling
It would appear that the set crew did not place any supports in that area, which has let the perimeter walls crown.
Re: Mobile Home Releveling
If funds are tight and you can’t afford the cost of hiring someone to come in and get your home back to level, you may be able to do it yourself (this, of course, after pitching a fit to the company from which you bought your house to fix their mistake—if you are not the original owner, though, or it’s a very old double-wide, all warranties, including on labor, are probably null and void, so you’re almost certainly left on your own).
My father bought an old house which had sagging ceilings. He jacked up the sagging parts of the ceiling, then went into the attic and added braces and cross-braces where needed in order to keep the ceiling level.
I think if he could jack up his living room ceiling, you could jack up a sagging section of your floor. You’d have to put a level down on one section of sagging floor, then go under the trailer to jack it up to level (having a helper upstairs to watch the level and call out to you or beat on the floor when you’re level is good). Mind you, if you have a terrible sag (some inches), don’t jack it up all in one day. A builder friend did this same repair to someone’s very old porch, and said that in order to lift a bad sag, you have to only jack it up a little at a time to give the house (or porch) a chance to adjust. 1/2” sag should be something doable in one day, but more than that, just give it one jack-lift every couple of days until it’s coming up level. Then, next to the jack, add concrete blocks until you get close to top, then add 2x4’s (and then thinner pieces) as shims until you get your new support wedged in under the floorboard (or, if you’re working on the outside edge, the metal frame). Look at your other supports under the house to see how the blocks were arranged and how the shims were installed and copy them. Then slowly lower your jack and let the weight settle on the support to make sure that everything’s stable. Repeat everywhere you have a sag. Since the new support is not on a concrete footer, as your other supports probably are (should be), then they will probably settle into the earth as time goes by, and you may need to jack it up again later and add another wood shim. If you have very sandy soil that you know will sink greatly, you may want to try putting down a little patch of Quickcrete before building your new support pillar.
If you get under you house and find you already have a support where you have a sag, then just jack the floor up to level (as above) and add some more shims to level it back out. Like I said, if the supports weren’t originally placed on concrete footers, they’ll sink into the ground over time and you’ll need to add supports every once in a while to accommodate the settling action.
I don't know if you have any dry-wall in your home, but please be aware that settling, or jacking the house up to correct settling, either one, can cause the drywall to crack, which means you will need to putty the crack, sand and repaint to fix that problem. But I think your doors not opening or shutting very well is a more important problem. If you have the standard wallboard with the strips that cover the cracks, however, you shouldn't have a problem, since a MF house--especially its wallboards--are meant to flex and take a certain amount of strain and movement. After all, your house once hurtled down the freeway at a good 50-55mph.
That’s the route I would take if I couldn’t afford to have this problem professionally fixed. Mind you, I’m no professional carpenter or builder in any way, but I am cheap and I come from very do-it-yourself parents, LOL. Come to think of it, my Dad fixed the sag in his back-porch-turned-laundry-room in a similar manner.
Keri
My father bought an old house which had sagging ceilings. He jacked up the sagging parts of the ceiling, then went into the attic and added braces and cross-braces where needed in order to keep the ceiling level.
I think if he could jack up his living room ceiling, you could jack up a sagging section of your floor. You’d have to put a level down on one section of sagging floor, then go under the trailer to jack it up to level (having a helper upstairs to watch the level and call out to you or beat on the floor when you’re level is good). Mind you, if you have a terrible sag (some inches), don’t jack it up all in one day. A builder friend did this same repair to someone’s very old porch, and said that in order to lift a bad sag, you have to only jack it up a little at a time to give the house (or porch) a chance to adjust. 1/2” sag should be something doable in one day, but more than that, just give it one jack-lift every couple of days until it’s coming up level. Then, next to the jack, add concrete blocks until you get close to top, then add 2x4’s (and then thinner pieces) as shims until you get your new support wedged in under the floorboard (or, if you’re working on the outside edge, the metal frame). Look at your other supports under the house to see how the blocks were arranged and how the shims were installed and copy them. Then slowly lower your jack and let the weight settle on the support to make sure that everything’s stable. Repeat everywhere you have a sag. Since the new support is not on a concrete footer, as your other supports probably are (should be), then they will probably settle into the earth as time goes by, and you may need to jack it up again later and add another wood shim. If you have very sandy soil that you know will sink greatly, you may want to try putting down a little patch of Quickcrete before building your new support pillar.
If you get under you house and find you already have a support where you have a sag, then just jack the floor up to level (as above) and add some more shims to level it back out. Like I said, if the supports weren’t originally placed on concrete footers, they’ll sink into the ground over time and you’ll need to add supports every once in a while to accommodate the settling action.
I don't know if you have any dry-wall in your home, but please be aware that settling, or jacking the house up to correct settling, either one, can cause the drywall to crack, which means you will need to putty the crack, sand and repaint to fix that problem. But I think your doors not opening or shutting very well is a more important problem. If you have the standard wallboard with the strips that cover the cracks, however, you shouldn't have a problem, since a MF house--especially its wallboards--are meant to flex and take a certain amount of strain and movement. After all, your house once hurtled down the freeway at a good 50-55mph.
That’s the route I would take if I couldn’t afford to have this problem professionally fixed. Mind you, I’m no professional carpenter or builder in any way, but I am cheap and I come from very do-it-yourself parents, LOL. Come to think of it, my Dad fixed the sag in his back-porch-turned-laundry-room in a similar manner.
Keri
Re: Mobile Home Releveling
You are right..glorymufc needs a pro and you are not it...Hope they take your get a pro advice...
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