Difficulty Level Of Learning to Use a Water Level

[Doitmyselfer]

I have been calling for several days to get my double wide leveled. I am getting rediculous prices (In my opinion) of Over $850.00 to level. They won't guarantee thier work. We are in Texas with black land. They say it could rain the next day and the house would go out of level. I have owned this house for two years and this will be the 3rd time I have levelled it. I an wondering how hard it would be to try and level ourselves with a water level? Would it be feasable to try it. I'm a newbie here. Tired in Texas. My floors also squeak to no end. It stops sqeaking when I get it leveled.
Help Please!!
Sandy

[Jim from Canada]

It is not very hard. I went out and bought an electronic one. You set the unit up at the reference point, and when you get the other end at level, it beeps, go too far and it beeps repeatedly. I think it is made by Stanley.

[Jim from Canada]

Sorry, it is made by Zircon, here is a link to it
http://www.zircon.com/products/leveling_wl25.html

Jim

[Greg S]

Re-leveling will not be very effective unless proper footings are installed to prevent it from happening again.
Are your present footings different from the standard in your area?

[Yanita]

Hi,

As mentioned before if your home was properly set up or you live in extremely unstable soil your home should not need to be releveled yearly.

Do your doors and windows open/close properly? Any binding when trying to use them.

Floor squeaks can be common in MH. Look in our articles link and you will see how to tighten the lag bolts under your home to help tighten up the sub floors. Please do not get overly aggressive, just a few quarter or half turns should do the trick.

Yanita

[Greg]

Hi & welcome. Mark (the owner of this site) Has written a book avalable in the books & parts section covers this and other repairs. Greg

[DigitalDreams]

If your ground is extremely black it is very likely to be peet ground like I am setup on when it gets wet is it really spongey if so the only way you will get it not to shift 3 or 4 times a year is to do what I did when I put mine in and that is use piers down to at least the clay layer underneath,second option is to mount on whats called a floating slab which means the whole place heaves equally kinda like a boat riding the waves but this method makes decks and entrances never seem quite right.If your in texas I'll bet that if your on piers they just aren't down deep enough.My piers by law here had to be minimum of 48 inchs down but to keep my pole barns and house from shifting i had to put a larger pad at about 6 foot down and piers to ground level, then level off them with blocks I haven't had a heave problem in 15 years with this method.

[Linda]

Sandy,

To answer your question it will depend on what area of Texas you live in. There are some of us that don't have clay or sand in our soil at all and it has to be mixed in after digging up where you need it. In the last stick built house we had the cement swimming pool. After digging down 15' they hauled in sand and started mixing and then had to lay down 4' of sand to keep it from cracking or pushing up out of the ground. That was the only house we have ever lived in that didn't have foundation problems because we had also had the sand poured (2') before the foundation went down cost is a big problem so that is why it is not done to all houses. The mobile land is just leveled out and then setup. We bought it used already in place. So it is like playing rock and roll. My squeaks go away when it rains and of course we haven't had much of that lately. This is like having frost heave without having frost or snow or cold even. It changes every time it rains or if it's dry for so many days and yes you think it is time to level because the doors want close or they close by them self. You will come to know when the house really does need to be leveled. I would say if things don't go back in place after 3 months then start thinking about re level.

Linda