Anybody ever replaced their home foundation yourself?

Question

We bought a fixer upper that needs the foundation completely replaced. It is 80 yrs old and has buckled terribly. We are pretty handy people and planning on doing this ourselves. We cant decide if we should jack up the house and just pour new concrete walls, or jack it up and do one wall at a time with concrete block. The block seems more cost efficient. Any thoughts on which one to use? Also, we will have to tear off a front and back porch before digging. Anybody know if we can prop up the porch roofs so we dont have to rebuild the roofs?

And as far as drainage, should we go with french drains or drain tile?

Answer 1

My guess is that you can probably do it yourself if you can figure out how to do it a bit at a time.  Make really sure that the foundation is indeed at fault--there may simply be rotted sill plates (they're the boards at the bottom of your house's walls) and those can make things look truly scary.  

Think in terms of repair rather than replacement.  You can use jack screws to hold up as much of a wall as you need to, and then remove and replace the stone or blocks that seem defective.  

However: if the foundation has failed because you're on a sloping piece of earth that has begun to move, then you're in another league: you'll have to stabilize the earth around the house before you can do anything else.  But if the earth is stable, you ought to be able to buy a little concrete mixer and a load of blocks and get at it a bit at a time.

Answer 2

This is definitely not a do-it-your-self project for anyone inexperienced in the profession of foundation building.  You could waste a lot of time & money & not end up with a proper foundation or perhaps might need a lot of major repairs with it slips out of line or you might even lose your life.  

It might be money well spent to get an estimate from licenced tradsmen for this repair.  Ask them for alternative ways to fix if there are any.

Whatever you decide; BE SAFE.

Answer 3

even if you are pretty handy people it is not an easy task I have Helped in the jacking up of a house you need a lot of specialized knowledge to properly support the structure of your house you may be able to support the porch roof but I have always seen them removed. No matter what you do you need concret block that is what the wet comcrete gets poured into save yourself the time and maybe even your lives hire a pro. how are you going to pour the concrete floor do you have the ride on fan to properly smooth it it may be costly but the most cost effective way to save yourself money is to not do it by YOURSELF.

Answer 4

So your pretty handy, uh? I am too! And I don't do that type of work for a living, but I have done it for myself. So think of this...

Did you know that the footings have to be sized according to the load and according to the soil structure. You also need to know the depth of the frost line for your area, if you have one. Of course the drawings that you will be doing for a building permit will explain this. You do drawings too! Me too!  I do all of mine on the computer.

Re bar is required of course. Do you know the size re bar required? You can get away with number 5 for most foundations. Do you have a means of digging the trenches? Digging by hand is tedious enough. Digging under the house adds to tedium. Do you have a laser level or water level? Concrete tools? A saw to cut the block will be necessary too. Will you be using 3000lb concrete, or will it be greater? If the porches are small, I'd tear them off. If they are big and in good shape, I'd jack them.

In my area, french drains and drain tiles are synonymous.