Day 8 of the House Lift – Massive Footings

Gary from Northern House Raising, who is doing our Raise and Restump, called me to our house today to have a look at the footings for our house. From what he told me he has never seen anything like it before in Townsville. He even called out the engineer to have a look at it. The engineers advice was to leave it in place and bolt the stumps onto it as the thing was so solid that it would be a waste to remove it.

Below are some photos of the temporary supports for the house, plus some of the holes for the post. Tomorrow they should be finally sinking the posts into the ground.

The Support Bracing at the Back of the House
Temporary bracing for back of the house

More bracing and the holes for the stumps
Centre temporary bracing and the holes for the stumps

Previous Posts in the House Lifting Series:

Day 7 of the House Lift – Crikey That’s High!

I drove past the house today and was absolutely shocked by how high it was! At first I thought that it was only that high to accomodate installing the new stumps into the ground, but after talking to Gary it seems that it will only be coming down a couple of centimetres to sit on the posts. He’s assured me that it won’t look as high after he has poured the slab and then we have enclosed it, but right now it looks pretty high…

Right Side of House after lifting - Raise and Restump
Right side the now lifted house
Front of House after lifting - Raise and Restump
Front of the lifted house
Left Side of House after lifting - Raise and Restump
Right of the lifted house

I got in the house today to have a look and it was swaying with the wind, which was a bit disconcerting. It actually made me feel a bit sea sick while I was up there, even though it was only swaying a few centimetres. I was told that should settle down after it’s been lowered onto the stumps and the cross bracing is put in.

Previous Posts in the House Lifting Series:

Day 6 of the House Lift – Ready to Lift

Everything in place and ready to lift the house.

They are actually going to be lifting the house and then knocking out the rest of the block walls and some of them are load bearing, so they want to make sure that there in not any weight on the walls before knocking them out completely.

House Lifting Gear in Place and Ready to Raise it
All ready to lift…

Previous Posts in the House Lifting Series:

Day 4 of the House Lift – Woops, missed this one

Somehow I missed this photo that I had taken on about day 4 of the lift.

Crack in the Kitchen wall from the house lifting
Crack in the Kitchen – the first of many?

When they were putting in the horizontal beems in the house to give it more strength and level it we had this rather large crack appear on our kitchen wall above the pantry. This is on my nice newly painted wall, so I’m a bit disapointed, but it was one of those things that you expect, but hope doesn’t happen.

Previous Posts in the House Lifting Series: