House Lift

Now and again, when I wake up and find myself in a new house (having moved here in August), I say, "What happened?" I decided writing about the journey might tell the both of us... so that's what I did.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you'd like more stress, you must decide to sell your home and buy a new one. That will bring you more stress than you ever realized possible. I know because it's what I did.

My husband Pete and I had lived in our first-time buyer home longer than we ever thought we would, but we were happy there and our son was, too. When he left for college, we decided that instead of downsizing, we would look for a lateral move in a home with less need for maintenance.

Our home was built in 1914 and though old houses are beautiful, you need to maintain them; and like the rest of us, they get old and creaky and slanty and slopey, just like we do. When we found ourselves in a seller's market in the last year of the Obama presidency, I decided it might be our last best chance of selling well and getting the money we'd need for a great down payment.

Unfortunately, our house wasn't ready to sell, and I had to put it on the market to learn that. While it looked quite lovely after being cleaned out and painted, it was, as my realtor said, "crooked." You could see the slant quite well as you walked in and looked up at the living room archway.

I hadn't really been aware of the slant, because when you live in a house, you stop noticing. But people who were just arriving could notice quite well.

A friend came by with a level and figured out the foundation area was fine; but like most old houses, the tilt was happening toward the center. Further investigation downstairs showed that the wooden beam that held the house up in the center had been slowly sinking into the ground for years.

Before trying to sell the house, we had drain tile and a sump pump installed. While it was great for wet-proofing the basement, it did nothing for the beam. That meant there were two choices: give up on selling or get a new beam and straighten out the house.

We thought and thought about it for quite a while. My husband was ready to give up; and, because I am ridiculously stubborn (as artists must be), I decided to stop trying to sell our home and instead, try to find someone to straighten it.

I knew it wasn't the least expensive thing we could do, and that we might not make up the cost. But to me, our house had always been special. I wanted it to be as wonderful for the new owners as it had been for us. And that meant doing what we had to do to get it back to where it needed to be.

My journey brought me to two basement repair companies and several contractors. One, who apparently lifted the Mary Tyler Moore house, obviously knew what he was doing but stood me up when we made an appointment. When I received a call back from a local contractor named Brad with Brad Scott Construction, the sound of his voice was so reassuring I tugged at my husband's sleeve and put Brad on speaker phone.

"We see a lot of what you are describing in old houses," Brad said. "And we know how to fix them."

A few days later, Brad stopped by and looked through the house. He recommended first that we bring in the engineer he works with regularly; a sure sign that he wanted to be careful and methodical. The engineer came by a few weeks later and suggested that we consider a new steel beam instead of a wooden one.

The price was higher than wood, but the beam would be stronger, and the lifting would be easier. So on a wing and more than a few prayers, we went with the steel beam. It was huge, and I couldn't imagine how anyone but King Kong would get it into our small basement window. But one day I came home from work and instead of seeing the beam on our lawn, it was in our basement.

"My son and the other young guys I work with here are beasts," Brad said. I had to laugh as a sweeter bunch of beasts could not exist, but I knew what he meant, having a son of my own. Still, I had no clue as to what the rest of the journey would hold, or how long it would take us.

Holes had to be dug and cement and rebar put into the holes, along with God only knows what else? The idea was to get the beams and poles to be stable, since they're holding up your house. And once they were in place, the lifting/straightening could begin.

The trick with lifting, of course, is that you don't want to do it all at once; if you do, the walls on your house will crack like an egg. So week after week, for at least 8 weeks, Brad's son Kyle came by and slowly, slowly, turned knobs on the poles to lift the house a quarter of an inch a week (sometimes less than that).

Our house was close to three inches off, which is what made it so easy to see. The work began in October and went through March, including digging and putting posts in place. We did not make the entire three inches, but got close enough so you couldn't see the slant hardly at all any more, unless you were looking for it. Best of all, we knew the steel beams were going to keep the house standing proudly for many long years.

While we did have cracks, Brad filled them in and we repainted and washed the windows and were ready to go again. Watching him work for so many months had made me think of how little most of us know about houses, and how the work of keeping one together has really become a lost art.

What I learned from this is that even when things seem hopeless with a house, you can fix them, if you find the right person. Brad and his crew clearly loved old houses and knew how to work in them and with them. Their patience extended to the smallest things, including redoing the basement stairs when they had to remove the bottom step and recreating the beautiful old wooden door that led to the basement.

What I also learned, to my very great happiness, was that when we finally put the house on the market again in spring, it sold in one day AND helped pay for the work Brad did for us. Which tells me that even if you don't want to do work on your house, you should reconsider that (and be a little stubborn) if you really want to sell it.

The journey forward was still stressful--we had to move twice and it took a few months more to find a house we wanted and could afford to buy. But the one we found was built in 1957, and for people living in a home built 1914, it looked plenty modern to us. As they say in story books, reader, we married it, and have been quite happy with it since.

If you don't have enough stress in your life and are looking for more, I still say put your house on the market and then look for a new one. But if your house is very old and needs straightening, have courage.

It can be done.

Photos: J. Zark


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