Replacement cost for Support Jacks intalled in the crawl space (Chicago: how much, houses)

[NewSellerthenBuyer]

After a house inspection I got this statement about the crawl space:

There are four vertical supports, jacks, which support two horizontal beams. There are no connections (bolts) between the vertical support posts and the footers, only bend over tabs, and they are not tightly connected to the beam. The four supports are NOT vertical. Each support has a concrete footer buried underground.

My question how much is an estimate cost range to remove this old jacks, and replace them for new ones code compliance?

Thank you for any advice or comments!

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by NewSellerthenBuyer

After a house inspection I got this statement about the crawl space:

There are four vertical supports, jacks, which support two horizontal beams. There are no connections (bolts) between the vertical support posts and the footers, only bend over tabs, and they are not tightly connected to the beam. The four supports are NOT vertical. Each support has a concrete footer buried underground.

My question how much is an estimate cost range to remove this old jacks, and replace them for new ones code compliance?

Thank you for any advice or comments!

So long as the verticals are not going anywhere (and in a crawlspace in a non-seismically active area that is almost certainly the case...) the horizontal beams will remain supported.

Now, there are lots of unanswered questions here -- for starters I am always suspicious whenever there is a screw jack. No builder every really does that. Was it some of temporary fix? Were there are other modifications? Why are there concrete pads? What is meant by "the four supports are not vertical"? A screw jack pretty much has to be plumb to be effective...

If you are in a seismically active area (darned near impossible in Chicago suburbs, though I can imagine if there was active blasting for Deep Tunnel or even some very improper foundation work for nearby structures) there are codes for tying together any kind of structural supports.

This is less an issue of "code compliance" than getting to understand the details of why there screw jacks in the first place.

Cost? Well, if the screw jacks have provisions to put a lag bolt into the beam that might be a grand total of maybe $2 X 2 per jack X 4 or $16. Not exactly a budget buster!

OTOH if the horizontal beam(s) are undersized or improperly drilled out for utilities or cracked you should sister up replacements. That will cost a few hundred bucks. If you want to get rid of the screw jacks and order custom steel Lalley columns sized to fit be prepared to pay a few grand. And know that those custom steel columns truly are no more functional in a crawl space than screw jacks...

[NewSellerthenBuyer]

Thank you for your insights about this issue. We did an inspection, and other structural issues came into the report. So, in order to have peace of mind, we decided not to go ahead with this house. it was a good learning experience, a bit costly!. Thanks!

[Lookout Kid]

Moderate foundation cracks in a 90 year old block or stone foundation? Most old houses have them, and they tend to be seepage problems more than anything else. But other structural issues are things that I would generally walk away from.