Photo Album: Owner Was Scared Supports in Basement Would Fail, Peabody, MA

This homeowner in Peabody, Massachusetts, owns a home that was built in the late 1800s. They purchased the home 5 years ago and since time has gone on they have become worried about the supports in the basement. The supports were brick and some of them had begun to chip away causing concern for the homeowner. They decided to call EFS for a free inspection of the basement and the supports. Our Design Specialist Keith Soper met with the homeowners and inspected the entire basement. During his inspection, Keith took an in-depth look at each of the supports and recommended installing 4 SmartJacks into the basement. The SmartJacks will take the weight of the home off of the brick supports. Our Installation Team led by Eric Witham began by marking where each of the SmartJacks will be installed under the main beam. Once marked out, the team then chipped out small sections of concrete so we could install our SmartJack footings below the concrete slab. To make a solid footing the team dug down below the concrete about 24 inches and filled it about 18 inches with crushed stone and concrete. The team repeated this process 4 times to create a footing for each SmartJack. After the footings cured the team then began to install each SmartJack. We started by placing our steel footing over the new concrete footing and then cutting a section of galvanized steel to the correct length so it fit just under the main beam. This little gap will allow us to fit our top bracket over the galvanized steel and then secure it to the main beam. Once secured the adjusted the top bracket to start lifting and leveling the main beam of the home. After everything was in place the team then mixed up concrete and poured it over the base of each SmartJacks to lock them into place.