Welcome back. One of the great questions that came in is Alex; can you lift or raise my house? House lifting or raising is a very common construction method anywhere in the Seattle area. More around the turn of the century to till about 1935, we saw a lot of post-and-beam built structures which have very low foundation walls. That means the basements were very low, anywhere from 6′ to 6′- 5″.
Unfortunately, that is not enough to code to designate to be a bathroom, a kitchen and or a bedroom. You have to be above the seven-foot mark to make this a legal bedroom including a means of egress. So one advantage of the house lifting process is raising the house to have a full height finished basement to accommodate the code requirement for a bedroom, a bathroom and a living room. The other advantage is the seismic retrofit. Whenever we raise a house; we have to modify the home to be seismically structurally repaired. That means that that foundation wall is attached to the cripple wall, and we have a seismic load that has been calculated and it’s up to code. That house is now conforming, and you get a huge advantage in discount on your insurance, which is another great reason to go through the house lifting process. One of the other advantages of house lifting, above and beyond having the full height finished basement, is you get a brand new foundation that’s structurally sound, and it’s conforming to current code.
A lot of the older homes have water problems or water infiltration issues. Flooding in the downstairs basement that’s caused by no capillary break between the slab and the old foundation wall. Typically the older walls don’t even have footings. So when we do a house lift or a house raise, we’re essentially building you a new foundation from the ground up. That guarantees no water infiltration, it’s a great new solid foundation that you’re building your house on for long term, and you’re getting the seismic retrofit with the insurance that we talked about earlier.
The 3rd and final advantage of the house lift is the reconfiguration of the downstairs. We can start from beginning, start from scratch and you can design it any way you want. Bedrooms, bathrooms, living rooms, play rooms, rec rooms, offices you can increase the equity in your home by doubling your square footage. This is the real true advantage more square footage. That’s where you’re going to see the ultimate return; that’s why we encourage the house . Please ask us any questions moving forward, we’re happy to help out.
