Photo Album: Smart Jacks needed to support sagging floor in East Windsor

This homeowner in East Windsor had a beautiful old home that was built in the early 1900s. He contacted Cowleys to inspect his crawl space. During our inspection, we observed that one side of the hallway flooring was sagging a good two-inches because the joists were not adequately being supported. The homeowner asked us if we could fix the problem. Because of the age of the house and the extent of sagging, we didn't want to risk causing any damage to these century-old building materials by directly jacking anything up to level out the flooring. Fortunately, we have a product that’s much safer — SmartJack support posts. These posts level out flooring and provide the needed supplemental support to prevent further sagging.    Sagging floors are not something to be ignored or tolerated, even in older homes. Over time, sagging floors will continue to worsen, and you’ll start seeing related damage like cracks in wallboard and beneath basement molding. What causes sagging floors? It’s the result of having inadequate floor support. Often, the underlying floor joists not “heavy-duty” enough to support the span and the weight of people and furniture demanded of them. Also, floor joists are sometimes only supported by the foundation walls and are missing the mid-span support beam, which just exacerbates the problem. Finally, there are homes that have a central beam, but the supporting piers have either sunk, rotted, or shifted. However, no matter what caused it, the result is the same — a sagging, bouncing floor that make you feel like you are walking in a carnival fun house!