releveling dw project

[cajunla83]

hi guys. thanks for having me.


so tomorrow i will attempt to relevel my double wide.
here's the background
about 6 months ago i bought a used 2001 32x80 double wide and had it moved and set up by a licensed mover. had a bit of a falling out with the mover toward the end of the job as i wasn't pleased with the finishings. so callling him back will be impossible without some type of suit or legal force.
at the end of the installation all the major components seemed fine. all doors opened. nothing felt too crazy. well 3 weeks ago i started to feel a draft coming from between the marriage lines in a bedroom on the side wall of the house. i pulled the trim panel and found that i could see sunlight coming through a 1 inch gap between both halves of the house. luckily the vinyl siding was still providing somewhat of a barrier.
i did a little bit more investigating. loosened the siding on that side of the house. discovered that the floors are tight but moving up the gap opens up to about 2 inches at the top. the gasket is there but the gap is too wide for it to seal. i pulled the first foot of the roof cap and saw that there is a split there as well with the last lag bolt pulled away from the right side. i didn't have much time then to fool with it, so i sealed everything back up and used some sill insulation strips down the split to give it a temporary seal.
this afternoon i used my a 40ft clear tube to do some level measuring. found that compared to the center the right corner near split is about 1/4 inch low. the left corner is even. with only a 40 ft line i wasn't able to get much more of a gauge on it. i did start to go toward the far end of the hosue and found that the entire right side keep dipping lower and lower. with a solid inch low on the middle right edge.
tomorrow i'm going to buy 150 ft of tube and 2 jacks.
although i have never undertaken a project such as this and have just a basic understanding of mobile home, i am mechanically inclined and think i can make an attempt to correct the situation.

tomorrow i plan on measuring the entire structure. figuring out exactly how bad the problem is.
i'm going to pull up some of the roof cap to see if the top seam is sealed
my hope is that the roof is sealed and its only the side wall that has settled enough to split it. like i said everything else seems fine. doors opening etc. the pad is a straight dirt pad so some settling isn't out of the question.


from what i'm understand when they put these things together they seal the floor first then jack up the sides to make the roof meet trying to keep things level enough for the doors. is this correct?
i do understand that this is a 2001 model. so i by no means expect everything to be perfect, but know that i need to have an airtight seal to prevent problems down the line. i am wanting to get about 5 years out of this thing before i build.
i'm considering filling up the split with spray foam if i can't get it to seal up

any thoughts or tips?


if yall want tomorrow i can shoot some pics and draw up some diagrams to bring you all this journey.
thanks

[ponch37300]

That's a big gap. I've never leveled a double wide so not sure exactly what the process is to close that gap. If it is built plumb and level then if you level the floor that gap should be closed. But we all know nothing is perfect when it comes to MHs!

I bought my jacks from harbor freight, http://www.harborfreight.com/20-ton-hyd ... 66482.html. Get your water level set up and take all of your measurements first. Draw a "map" of all the piers on paper so you can write down which ones are high and which ones are low. Then figure out what the best way to make them all level is. Keep in mind things like plumbing and electrical and outside doors. These will tell you if you need to raise the lower piers or lower the higher piers.

Once you have your game plan then it's time to crawl under and get to jacking. Another forum member JD shared a good tip, buy a plastic cement mixing tray from home depot or lowes. They are under ten bucks and you can put a rope on it and fill it up with all your supplies and tools and drag it around easily. Make sure you use hardwood shims. I couldn't find any locally so you need to order them or pick them up at a mobile home store. The shims they sell at home depot won't work.

Hopefully your roof isn't too bad but if your side walls are split that much I would think your roof would also be.

[cajunla83]

would you buy 2 20's on 2 12's. most manuals i've found online say 12's are fine

[Greg]

Hi & welcome. Really a 40' line should be plenty, Start in the middle and work your way out to the ends.

Not sure of your location but since it is -6* here, I will assume you are down south where it should be warmer. A dirt pad WILL settle and if you get large amounts of rain you may have problems. Here in the cold we have to deal with frost heaving the ground.

It sounds like you have a good grasp of what you need to do. Go SLOW when jacking. Listen for any problems and always leave yourself an out. You can cut shims out of hardwood pallets if you need to.

Greg

[ponch37300]

The 12s would probably work but for the extra 10 bucks I went with the 20 tons. When it comes to laying under a home and jacking it up the bigger the better in my opinion.

[DaleM]

You mentioned the floor looked pretty good along the marriage line. I would run some additional blocking along the marriage line before starting, maybe even check the lag bolts along it as well. This is where the home will be "hinging" while you are leveling it out. We always set one half dead level along the I-beams then brought the other half over. You don't have that option in this case. I would remove as much other fasteners used along all other marriage lines so nothing hangs you up when releveling. Its a big job but if you want to close that gap be sure nothing is in the way.

[cajunla83]

so i measured everything out.
now its even more baffling. i figured i would have a definite low spot on one of the two corners where the gap is.
i didn't measure every single pillar but did most of it.

[cajunla83]

i'm going to open up some of the roof on both ends

i'm going to open up the top side wall. at this point i'm not sure what is going on with it

[cajunla83]

ok

so the top side wall roof split is tight an sealed.


the bottom side wall split is about 1 inch open on the top

leads me to believe that i need to jack up both bottom corner maybe an half an inch to close it up


having a second hand come over to assist.

[Greg]

It doesn't look too far off to me. If you can get it within 1/4" you should be fine.

It is possible that some twisted or bowed wall studs are to blame. It is hard to find good wood when YOU dig through the pile let alone have someone else do it.

It is always a good idea to have a second set of eyes on something like this.

Greg

[cajunla83]

here the side with the open seam

[cajunla83]

here a shot looking down into the seam

can see the gasket
kinda hard to see

[cajunla83]

got the bottom lower corner up about a 3/4 of an inch which shrunk the gap alot. i'm within a 3/4 inch of having the gasket touch the other wall.


but now with the corner up the front door is way off. will have to go down the line and make it into a full fledged relevel of the whole thing


if you notice in my diagram the top left side is down a solid 1inch +

i guess i'll go ahead and get all that out now

[cajunla83]

here is the top seam (on the opposite end of the house)

tight with top wall stud on top of each other

[cajunla83]

it took me a while to figure out how to lift

started off with cinder blocks only
cinder blocks started to dig in.
then put a board under then board started to dig in and i broke some blocks.
then i had a stump i used the stump with some boards and that was the trick.

then i realized that the tight straps were holding me back. so had to loosen them

took me a good 3 hours to figure out what i was doing. and then i ran out of daylight

luckily not going to rain tonight and its not a big deal if my front door stays open.

crank back up tomorrow