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Can You Move a House on a Slab? (Read This First!)

Sometimes homeowners can be a little melodramatic and state that they never would want to stay anywhere else apart from the home they handcrafted.

There is sometimes an emotional attachment to the things we create. Those are the moments where they stick by their emotions and make logic irrelevant.

However, it is not something out of the ordinary as one might think. This is a feeling that like the homeowner above, other homeowners can have the same feeling among themselves. They can understand the pain of leaving their homes.

Therefore, there are multiple contractors and home moving companies that solve this pain and make every one of these homeowners happy.

People out there are moving people’s entire houses from one location to another. Let us discuss the types of houses they can move to, matter or not below.

Can you move a house on a slab?

In theory, moving a house can be simple. If it is a house on a slab of concrete, it is possible to move a house like that. Although the process might be expensive. As well as other areas of the building will need fixing. Regardless of the ordeals, we can say that we can move a house on a slab.

If a house is on a slab and there is ample capacity for soil. There should be safe bearing capacity as well as it can be done without any sort of hardship. Homes like these have a low risk of flooding or leakage of gas.

Therefore, these homes have a healthy environment than the other homes that are susceptible to inconveniences and mold. Let us take a look at two different slabs and how they function.

Cement Slab:

Cement and concrete are used interchangeably but in reality, cement is just an ingredient of concrete.

Thus, the properties of these two materials are quite similar. In reality, concrete gets much stronger the older it gets.

Therefore, in the same way, we can lift houses that are on concrete slabs we can do the same thing for the houses that are on cement slabs.

However, the process of completely moving the entire slab floor along with the house is expensive.

Concrete Slab:

Usually when a house is built directly on a concrete slab floor, there are a few ways of moving it.

We can either lift and move the entire sab floor along with the house or we can install steel through the walls and attach the walls. That way we can lift the house off the slab.

Therefore, we understand that even if a house was built on a slab, be it concrete or cement, it can be moved with the ingenuity of the house moving contractors.

Can you move a brick house on a slab?

Brick houses used to be a common sight in the 18th century. They gained popularity back at that time. This is because they are relatively somewhat better than other construction materials.

Brick structures can absorb humidity better than any other building materials. They can also minimize the chance of mold, dust mites, and mildew. Brick as a material is compact.

Moreover, there are ways to repurpose it for other projects. This is why sometimes choosing a brick house for our perfect home is not a misguided dream.

However, if the location of the house is not suitable for us, we can consider moving it to a better neighborhood.

This is where the house movers come in, they can help move our dream brick house on a slab and make it reach a destination of our choosing.

Can you jack up a house on a slab?

If you want to handle a house that is built on a slab of concrete, there are multiple methods that home lifting companies and structural movers or contractors use.

They use these methods to lift your house and there are multiple methods where they would separate the slab.

A slab separation lift can be a good option, but only when you want to just raise the height of the home and still use the original concrete slab.

Moreover, there is a method called mud jacking. In this method, the concrete slab can be lifted by pumping grout through the concrete and pushing it up from below.

Furthermore, this process is sometimes called, Pressure grouting or Slab jacking. Thus, we can say that it is possible to jack up a house on a slab.

2 reasons why you can move a house on a slab

Some of the pros of having a house on a slab are the fact of less expenditure going for the house as it is cost-effective.

Here are some reasons as to why it is a good decision to buy a house on a slab and how you can move such a house too.

Flooding & Gas leaks:

Having a house on a slab of concrete lowers the risk of getting floods or any kind of leaking gas.

Slab Raft:

If there is a slab under your house, the moving procedure becomes so much easier that even if you are on the top ground level you can easily lay the slab.

You can erect a building without the hassle and the slab will casually act as a raft.

How much does it cost to move a house on a slab?

Moving a house is simple in theory and people tend to make a big deal out of them for no reason. It is possible to move the framed wall as well as the roof structure of a house. This house in question while moving can be in a concrete slab.

However, all things sound too good to be true. Well, it is kind of too good, because this process can be very expensive. There will be more repairs that will be needed to fix certain elements of the building, such as lining or cladding.

If you come to the numbers, the cost for moving a house on a slab will cost us $35 per square foot. This is double or triple the amount for the cost of moving to a different structure house.

How far can you move a house on a slab?

We already know how expensive it can be for moving homes on slabs. The standard cost for a long-distance move for a household with a 3,000-sq-feet size can range variedly and that is because the location and the road condition also matter.

Therefore, the price can fluctuate a lot and depend on different variables.

However, the standard pricing for the same size of the house can be $4000 for just a 100-mile move. Moreover, if the move is cross-country then the cost can be as high as $18000.

There are few reports of houses moving more than a cross-country trip, so we can presume that is the farthest they will move a house that is on a slab.

How to move a house on a slab?

When your home is on a concrete slab that it completely sits on, that slab of concrete will act as the subfloor for your entire home. There will be no floor joists, no posts, and no beams either. Therefore, we would need to raise the slab along with the home and make a way to support both.

Below we will discuss the step-by-step guide to doing such a monumental thing as moving a house on a slab. Keep reading below to know more about the process.

Excavate around:

Start by excavating all around the house and knocking holes in the foundation for the lifting steel of the company in question.

Install the jacks:

Once, the lifting steel platform is placed, the movers will install the unified hydraulic jacking system. This allows us to lift the house off the existing foundation.

Place dollies:

At this stage, we put the Buckingham power dollies system is put in place under the house.

Start to move:

This is the final stage where after all the above steps we start to move the house slowly but surely to the desired destination.

Final Thoughts

You can move a house on a slab. The location and the roadmap depend, to be honest. This is because the movers cannot take the house anywhere you would want. Moreover, the process is very lengthy and so is the paycheck for the job. However, the process is not difficult ironically.