Jack Shit

You ever have to jack up your house? Me either until yesterday, and not the whole thing just the part under the fridge. See it's a well built house, hardwood framed even, but that's just it. It's old enough they could still build from hardwood but fridges back then didn't weigh 400 pounds. So although the beams and joists are sound and stout, the fridge happens to sit perfectly centered between supports. I've been watching it sink for about a year. At first I hoped it was my imagination - trick of the light I said -, then I just pretended it was. But like a kitchen-centered black hole, dropped objects invariably began to roll toward the fridge and that crack in the plaster was getting undeniably bigger. I pictured getting up one morning to find only the top third of the fridge sticking through the floor. I considered suspending the fridge from the ceiling but decided no, better get under there with the jack.

Ok, so the plan is to get directly under the fridge, jack up the floor and drive wedges between the floor and bearers. Hydraulic car jack, stout post up to the floor, and we begin to jack. The jack is rated to lift 8 tons. There was some creaking as the jack began to take the load, the 30 year old timbers groaning like old...timbers and that's ok. A little more its ok a little more BANG and cripes that was just a glue joint popping and that's ok and a little more and man it's getting hard to BANGBANG crikey pump this jack and what's it rated to again KEEE-RACK. Shit. Stop. Let's... just... stop... one second.

The stout post used to transfer pressure from the jack up to the floor was vibrating from the strain. It was fair humming. A large crack ran it's length and that's a bad, bad thing and I'm a little afraid this vibrating-with-sheer-internal-tension hunk of wood is going to explode. Also bad. Pictures of me found, eventually, under the house with a large splinter of Tasmanian Oak through my eye...scuffs in the dirt where I struggled blindly for a few moments, more like spasms really. Anyway I decided I better let the jack down again. I ain't dumb.

Another go with an even stouter post and a little coaxing with a pry-bar and I was able to lift the floor about 12mm or half an inch which doesn't seem like much but it makes a big difference. The floor is now more or less level, the fridge is standing proud, and rolling objects are once again free to follow the natural laws of inertia and gravity. Just doing my little bit for the universe.