Mobile Houses

Could really use the opinion of someone who is familiar with building and renovating houses & mobile homes.?

I live in a single-wide mobile home (mid 80's model if that counts), and part of the front wall is beginning to rot. The front part of the house is beginning to sink, and I can't get the front door completely. My mother has mentioned "jacking the house up" in the front. What does she mean by this, and how would I go about having it done? What kind of tools do I need? also what will it take to replace the entire front wall?

Public Comments

1. I'm in a mobile too. If I had the issues you describe, I'd look in the phone book or ask around and find someone who works on mobiles, who's familiar with them, get them in to assess what's going on, what needs to be done and how much it will cost, how fast you need to do it. The front wall rotting probably isn't a really big deal, that can probably be fixed by removing the siding and replacing what's rotted, and figuring out why it rotted and fixing that too. Most carpenters could do that no problem, but the door not closing properly would worry me a lot, along with the front of the house sinking. The door not closing sounds like something is really out of whack, and unless you know what you're doing it's better not to fool around with jacking up a mobile. They sell house jacks, which are basically like car jacks only bigger, and in regular houses you can put one under a corner and slowly jack the house back into position if it has sagged. If your mobile doesn't have a solid perimeter foundation, you could make a dreadful mistake jacking up your house and I wouldn't try it myself even though I'm quite handy. If it does have a foundation, there might be issues there, and that isn't really DIY work unless you have a fair amount of experience. You need someone with expertise to figure out what's going on and suggest solutions.