An Engineer's View on "House Raising" After Sandy

Posted by AA Richards House Lifting and Construction

“What goes up might come down”

Drew Leone P.E., from Fusion Engineering Company, LLC recently traveled around the New Jersey Shore while undertaking engineering home inspections to assess damages from the recent SUPER STORM SANDY.

A couple of things became apparent to Leone. One was the speed of some of the rebuilding that was underway and the second was an exponential increase in the number of home lifting inquiries, and piling design requests.

Prior to the storm Leone would get only a few calls a for that type of work, but since Sandy he has seen upwards of 10 calls a day in this regard, both from contractors as well as from home owners. Most calls were questions about existing foundations and the adding of additional blocks to increase the height of already standing foundations.

He also has been answering hundreds of questions about the different flood zones, and how the recently redrawn FEMA ( www.region2coastal.com) maps would affect them as homeowners. There were also questions such as “what is an “A” zone?” or “what is a “V” zone?” or “what different type of problems could a homeowner expect to encounter in the process of House Lifting and rebuilding in accordance with the requirement of what Town Building Officials in these zones might prescribe and require?”

As a Licensed Professional Engineer, and being an expert in the effects of wind shear and hurricane reinforcing, Leone thinks there might be some dangerous situations occurring that might not even be picked up by Housing sub-code, and Building Officials. Looking at the thirty or forty homes being lifted in Jersey Shore area, he has not found one home that was being secured by tie or hold downs and/or lateral bracing to ground as it was being lifted. With many new Contractors in the field, with no real house lifting experience, this could pose a danger not only to the workers, but with the close proximity of most shore homes to their neighbors, could also endanger both the neighbor’s property, and possibly the neighbors themselves. This may also endanger any fire or police emergency responders.

This last detail regarding the safety of First Responders has special meaning to the present Holmdel Fire Rescue # 2 Chief and former Chief of North Centerville Fire house in Hazlet, John Boyle, Sr.

Boyle, who also heads up one of New Jersey’s Preeminent House Lifting and Rebuilding companies, AA RICHARDS HOUSELIFTNG AND CONSTRUCTION, LLC, said,  “enough damage and heartache has been caused already by this natural disaster”….. “let’s try to avoid any more catastrophes that can be caused by sub-standard building lifting practices and companies”.

Leone then sought out, and spoke to, some experts in Home Lifting and Construction fields. John Boyle, from AA RICHARDS HOUSE LIFTING & CONSTRUCTION, and Joe Beote, who runs a family owned and operated 3rd generation company in the field of building raising and moving, and who is a member in good standing, of the INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STRUCTURAL MOVERS. After much research and conversation regarding the available anchoring systems, it was agreed that HELICAL PILES, designed and built by the PIER TECH COMPANY, (http://www.piertech.com/) would make for a great solution to with which to address this problem where it occurs. By torque installing these anchoring points either inside the house perimeter zone or outside the house perimeter, stability could be achieved pretty easily using some simple cable turn buckles to the desired engineering requirements.

The great benefit to using the PIER TECH HELICAL PILES, is that they can be removed by unscrewing them form the ground, and then reused over and over again thus having a very limited impact on the cost of any individual project.

Leone points out that there are many factors that can contribute to the catastrophic collapse of a house as it is being lifted, and that some homes might have more than one contributing factors working against a successful lift. These factors could include, but are not limited to disturbed soil conditions, undermined footings, high water tables, sandy soil, the height that structure has to be lifted, and improper placement of rigging, to name just a few. But, the biggest single contributing factor can be the windy conditions, and the freakish storm patterns that we have been faced with here in New Jersey.

The mixing of these conditions together could add up to “WHAT GOES UP, MIGHT COME DOWN” a lot faster than you had hoped for.

So in closing, New Jersey… build it strong and build it safe… and anchor it down, as needed…….don’t take any chances.

 “HOUSE LIFTING… BE SAFE… NOT SORRY!!”

AA Richards House Lifting and Construction

75 Manchester Ave

Keyport NJ 07735

732-239-9961