Updated 1-22-23
How to do a relevel on a double-wide mobile home. Phil shows what we had to do on this home. We always use 20-ton jacks. Never tiny jacks, you want the power behind you. When you are re-leveling a house you want to make sure the jacks and piers all stay level.
Here’s a link to the video How to make A Water Level to Relevel a House https://youtu.be/tiSVWJ5-m_k . They used to check their lasers with this type of water level.
Here’s the playlist for all our videos on Re-levels https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGWjbVLzVnjvwVLswcuhIx5IudYu2LUCT
⏱️⏱️Chapters⏱️⏱️
00:00 Under a 20″ frame
00:24 Have set up the water level
00:52 Use colored water inside a clear line
01:09 This house is rougher than most, the underpinning has been pulled down
01:35 House has been there for at least 20 years. Phil recommended putting insulation between the joists.
02:00 He tries to use ceiling type insulation for mobile home floor joists
03:00 Moisture on the ground and no vapor barrier causes that damage
04:00 First you want to take the water level and see where it’s out of level
05:15 You set up for the first area you want to jack up
05:30 You need to know what you’re doing before you start leveling a double-wide or any home
05:55 How we are using the jacks to get the first side level
06:40 You want a 20-ton welded bottom jack to level a house
07:30 The fun things you find under the house
07:48 This is us introducing you to what all goes on when you re level a house, look for a playlist for more complete instruction
08:10 A quick rundown of how many re levels he did in just 14 months, and he’s got over 30-years experience
09:08 Onto the other-side of the double wide
09:22 Things he wants to fix or should be
10:35 What you want to watch for when jacking on the frame
11:40 Be smart about the frame, check for wrinkles and if they have welded it
12:41 Shows you how the water level works against the frame
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Hey, guys. I don’t think you’re going to be able to see everything. I see. But we are underneath the house, which is, I don’t know, I’d say 20 inches. The frame is 20 inches off the ground. We’ve set up our water level, which is right here. Well, I’ll have to show you how I make a water level that’s more rugged than the ones that I started out with, which were for ceiling grids.
Very accurate. We used to check our lasers with them, set benchmarks, and then measure up from the benchmarks to do because the ceiling is, of course, this one is made out of schedule 40 pvc fittings and now I’ll do a video on how you do that and then there’s a colored water inside of a clear line. It’s 50, 60 foot long.
That way I can basically go a hundred foot radius from the reservoir, which I generally put near the center. This particular house is rougher than some because all of the underpinning is pulled down, as you can tell. It’s kind of a paper covered and the moisture eventually pulls down, the animals pulled it down. Also, if you see right here, where would have been straps on the metal, they’re not there anymore.
They this probably second or third move for this house. And it’s been sitting here for quite a while. I worked on it something like 15 or 20 years ago and told them they needed to put insulation in the house in the in the floor and then cover it up. And generally what I would do is put insulation in between the floor joists.
There’s a place where I get it. Instead of getting the stuff at Lowe’s, which is more expensive, I get it. A drywall supply place where they put it in ceiling tile. So a two foot would be exactly two foot. So it would sit on top of the ceiling and you could insulate to ceiling that way. Whereas the stuff you buy at Lowe’s is 14 and a half, 15 and a half something like that cut down to fit in between the, the floor joists.
Well, a lot of times the floor joists are not dead on or it’s just difficult to get stay so you end up buying these wires to hold in between the rafters to hold that up and if you go with the ceiling tile type insulation you shove it in there and it just wedges in and it’s, it’s bigger than the opening and it’s the same and it’s actually cheaper because you’re buying it as from a place it generally sells wholesale but moisture on the ground because a vapor barrier is not there ends up causing things like you see right there where the moisture is getting to the floorboards and more that you can also see where they have replaced the floor.
So we are moving. What we have done is set this water level to that frame and then went around and checked. Actually, I am not going to take credit for my skinny, number one is not that I can’t do it and haven’t done it many, many times. I’ve been doing this for 30 plus years. If you count multiple states, but in 26 years in this area crawl all through these places.
So he’s crawled through and we give him credit for that. The thing we do first is we go and take the other end of that water level, which again, I’ll show you how that operates and how to adjust it and very simple. And he checked it. We, you know, with this area and we determine that one whole side on the side we came in on is an inch and basically an inch and a half to an inch too low.
And then the frame, this frame here which we are level two is pretty good all the way through. And then the one that’s on the second half, which is this is double wide, it’s pretty good except for just a little ways down that way. It’s about a half inch off and will probably take that up and then the the final frame way over here is toward the ravine side, which is a pretty big ol’ ravine behind us is about an inch and a half an inch slowly.
Well, fairly quickly, actually, it goes up and then it starts leveling out about halfway through. So we’re going to take that side over there up first. And that’s what he’s setting up for.
This is not me instructing you on how to do this. Be a much lengthier video because there’s a lot of things that you need to know before you and you don’t want to make a mistake because what happens is and I’ve not done it, so I’m not speaking from experience. I’m expecting speaking from other people’s experience and me come along fix.
But if you don’t stay level it will push. I don’t care if you have three jacks, it will push everything, all your jacks out of a level. So every jack has to be level. In this case, we’re using one and he’s we’re going to go up over there first and then we’re going to come over to the middle and we’ll go up that half inch.
And that way we will have more than half of the house level. Then we’ll move to the other side and we’ll go up an inch and a half over there. Now, not so he’s over there going up. Generally, he’s tells everybody, hey, we’re going up way. Everybody knows to keep an eye on their peers and keep leveling and putting wood in so you don’t lose what you might have if, say, the something crunches and settles down fast.
We’re using a 20 ton hydraulic jack, no bottle and tiny bottle jack the one I have is a it’s well over 20 years old it’s welded bottom not threaded in. I know that sounds like a picky thing but if you get one under a lot of stress not up and down but say, if you’re not, you’re having to jack a house sideways and I know that’s not something the general public going to do. It will break the bottom This one is showing its old age because it’s leaking oil and we’ll eventually have to get another one instead of paying as much as a new one.
For a rebuild. So anyway, this is what we have to deal with. We’ve already crawled over a dead carcass or two either brought in or just crawled in here to die. And it can be unnerving the size of the spiders, especially when Tim like he’s doesn’t like spiders.
And he says that’s an understatement. So keep in mind, this is not my telling you to go and tackle something like this. I want to show you guys a little bit as I go along and then maybe there’ll be a compilation if you pay attention to all this stuff. But there’s years and years of experience, and one year alone we did 44 double wides.
We did four triple wides, and then another. No is 150 double wides, 44 single wides. And then three or four triple wides, all in one in like a year and two months. So I had a crash course that sped up my skill level. I can pass on to you all these different tips, but I really would rather you turn it over to somebody that has the experience and the tools.
But anyway, I will show you what I know as I go along. And of course you can’t pick up everything I know in a camera. I can show you as much as I can. So we’re going to turn you loose from this video and we’re going to disappear for a little bit.
Here we are on another end of the same house. It’s it’s been quite a few repairs in here and not really my style for instance, the or the joints are that are not getting wood underneath them. Multiple boards to support over here where the board is not really connected right there.
I would have made sure there was something there to support that. Not so much for the pipe but for the that little bit area right there above is not strong enough to support much weight. And it’s a good idea to have a little that covers this joint so that there’s no movement right here between these two. So if you step on this side, it squishes down that side and and then make an increase in the flooring up above.
So generally, I would always put a 2by over here and tie the two of them together. So they move together but they did use plywood for the most part. And there’s this frame right here which you can see a little bit more whenever you’re jacking on it. You want to sit in the center right underneath this frame here.
So your jacket would be right in the center of the head of that. Jack would be right in the center. So it would jack up there. And you want to make sure that down here where you dig in your level you’re not tilted to push that frame and literally been the lip. If you try to set about here, it’ll bend the lip up and pop the jack out, a lot of bad things happen.
So as you can tell, oh, let’s see, right here, you see that bend? Most likely that’s caused by somebody jacking other than in the center over here on this edge sometimes you have to be conscious of the fact that they may have bent the frame or even welded the frame. So you’ve got to be smart about the frame. Look for wrinkles.
They’ll end up being wrinkles right here. You don’t want to set up in the same place. Encourage it to be in same place. So now we’re this area here we’ve determined it has got to go up an inch and a half, but we’re still check it as we go the water level is kind of a little more of a nuisance to deal with because of the lack of lack of underpinning to hold it.
Usually what we do is tuck it right above the well right above the frame and the friction of the, the underpinning holds it to the frame. Then it drapes down here and you can see the bottom where the water is and where we get to go up or down. And so what he’s doing is is taking a look and kind of holding it which is more of a nuisance.
Uh, and we’ll set up the jack to go up, see if you, I don’t know, see if you can see as we get closer. If you notice the water is showing, that’s where the bottom or the top of that ledge of the frame should be. And we’re going to take it up that much so that’s what we’re going to do when I’m jacked up. And then we’ll add to the block, the pier there. The pier and here. And that’s what we’re doing next.
