Did you ever get that sinking feeling?

I noticed that the floor in the gathering room (livingroom) was not quite level, so I got out my carpenter's level and got down on my hands and knees and checked it out. The level showed the floor to be off about a half a bubble. That equates to three or four inches, Yikes, that is not good news. I found a carpenter working on another house and had him come by and look it over and sure enough he confirmed my suspicions. When we checked the rest of the house it was found that the second floor had sagged down about four inches because the folks that built the house used a steel cable to hold the second floor joists in place. Welllll, folks its like this...ahem ... steel cable streches over time when weight is applied to it and this was what was happening to the house it was sagging into its self.

The cure was to put cement pads in the cellar(the old posts were sitting on flat rocks) and new posts and jack the floor back into place and then put posts in the gathering room holding up a beam that crosses the room at the most sag to shore up the second floor. This is after jacking up the house untill the second floor was mostly level. This has been done and it has been an experience for both the carpenter and me.

The pictures show most of the story .... I must admit it was 'interesting to hear the house pop and groan from the jacks pushing it back into place. The second floor doesn't lean to the southwest anymore the first floor is level. I am not saying everything is perfectly level and plumb, it wasn't the day it was built-it was (is) an old Amish farm house and still has that character, plain, functional, no frills. I feel better that the old house is under better supports now, maybe I can sleep better ? Just hope we haven't caused some other problem when the house was jacked up.