The more I jacked it, the deeper the blocks under the jack were driven into the ground.
It sounds like you might need a gravel pad under your jack.
Sounds like a good idea from someone who has had to deal with similar situations (at much larger scale).
After digging down 1.5ft the last time, I hit gravely glacial till type material and it seemed quite hard and compact. Apparently was not.
Maybe a bag of river rock from Lowes would do it? Make a 4"-6 thick"pad slightly larger than the base of the wood blocks supporting the jack? That might be more convenient for me, gravel has a lot of fines in it, the amount of rock varies unless I can get a small quantity of State highway grade gravel somewhere.
I think the riverrock would work, but at scale it will be pricey. Do you only have one jack?
Do you only have one jack?
Yes, a 20 ton bottle jack, am planning to buy a 50 ton bottle jack before doing this again. I could use both simultaneously (if necessary) if I dig another spot to set up the base. The two problematic pillars are adjacent, so I should be able to dig out the same spot between them that I dug 13 years ago to lift the building. I was thinking one bag of river rock would do it, convenience made me think of using rock and one or two bags is cheap enough.
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