Now THAT’S moving up in the world!
By Harry Mount After floods devastated his house, how one determined homeowner lifted the whole building nearly 5ft up in the air ... furniture and all
When the worst floods in a generation hit the banks of the Thames in January, most people got out their mops and buckets. however, Yaron Ivry had a more ambitious idea.
The 58-year-old and his family live on an island between the River Thames and an artificial water channel, which means they are vulnerable to flooding, and they, too, suffered the heartbreak of their home being inundated.
And so, determined not to go through the agonising misery and financial expense again, the telecoms consultant decided to raise his five-bedroom house 4½ft up in the air — and fill in the resulting gap with breeze blocks.
Over the course of just ten days, the 80-ton building, having been placed on a steel cradle, was raised by 28 computerised jacks, moving upwards at three inches an hour. now, after three months, the job is almost complete.
The lifting has been finished, but the front and back doors are still suspended nearly 5ft up in mid-air — accessible only by climbing a pile of teetering breeze blocks. And the old ground floor of the house in Wraysbury, Berkshire, is a newly created basement.
Today, Yaron, a dynamo of a man, is busy overseeing every last detail of his grand dream. It’s a family affair as his son Ben, a medical student on his summer holiday, carts building materials around the site in a wheelbarrow.
By the end of next month, the house will be as good as new, except for the insertion of a huge floodable basement on which the house will rest. And it will enjoy even more dramatic views across the Thames to Runnymede, where Magna Carta was signed in 1215.
not only will the house be safe from future floods, the family will have benefited financially. Before the flood, which caused £125,000 in damage, the house was worth £1 million. After the flood, though, its value had, understandably, dropped to £750,000. now, after the Ivrys spent £70,000 on the lifting project, it’s worth between £1.5 million and £2 million.
Such a turnaround seemed a near impossibility just a few months ago. When the flood waters arrived, the family’s ground floor was wrecked — the hardwood floor, walls and electrics all damaged beyond repair.
‘After the flood, we had to think of a way to protect the property,’ says Mr Ivry, who has lived in the house with his wife and two sons for 15 years. Being self- employed, he was unable to work after the floods hit.
‘It’s taken months of my life, plus all the cost of renovation, so I made a decision that we couldn’t allow it to happen again.’
First, he considered sealing the house with a barrier fitted all around with waterproof doors and powerful pumps that would get rid of any ground water and leakage.
‘But then I realised that wouldn’t be enough,’ he says. ‘Water will find its way in through the tiniest crack. And all you need is one leak.’
Mr Ivry then considered a demolition and rebuild job, but it would have cost £500,000.
And so he devised a radical plan: to lift the house in one great piece above the flood area altogether, for a fraction of the price. Planning permission was surprisingly easy to get. At first, Mr Ivry sought only to raise the house by 3ft — but the environment Agency objected, saying it should be raised by 4½ft to be sure of avoiding flood damage. Council officials were sympathetic, too.
As for the neighbours, they have been supportive and full of admiration because they might now follow this example. And so specialist builders — more used to lifting 6,000-ton bridges than family homes — set to work.
First, a cat’s cradle of steel beams was created underneath the house. This web of metal — 250 beams altogether and weighing 14 tons — would bear the weight of the house when it began to move.
Beams were erected within the building, just under the concrete ground floor (the carpet and floorboards had been destroyed by water and had already been ripped out).
Through holes punched in the brick walls, the beams within connected to more beams ringing the house’s exterior — a design that stabilised the metal framework.
Then, 28 super-strong jacks — each capable of supporting 50 tons — were placed underneath the steel cradle. A diamond-edged saw then sliced horizontally through all the brick walls below the level of the concrete floors, severing the building from its foundations.
The idea was that, with the perimeter ring of steel steadying the structure and pressure spread evenly over the jacks, no one part of the building would be exposed to particular stress as it was raised. If all went to plan, this would keep it in one piece.
Finally, all the windows and walls were braced with timber beams to help ease any internal strains. So now the house was ready to be lifted heavenwards.
But putting engineering theory into practice was a nerve-racking experience. With each click of the hydraulic jacks, the building started to move up by millimetres, as the Ivrys (who are living in rented accommodation while the project is completed) looked on. The family’s possessions remained inside the house.
Slowly and silently, their home climbed into the air — but dramatically enough that you could see the tiny little jumps it made with each click of the jacks.
‘I was terrified,’ says Mrs Ivry. ‘It wasn’t just the house we were lifting, but everything we had inside. It moved very slowly and quietly — just like the flood.’
As the jacks pushed the house higher, they were wrapped in metal reinforcement jackets of increasing height to help to support the weight.
And as those jacks clicked away — raising the house a few inches every hour — computers tracked how high they were climbing.
‘It was crucial that all the jacks raised the house at the same rate,’ says Mr Ivry.
‘Just a 10mm discrepancy between one side of the house and the other would have meant the whole thing would have cracked, causing irreparable structural damage.’
Once the house had been raised the full 4½ feet, this house on stilts resembled something more likely to be seen in the hurricane vulnerable areas of America’s Gulf Coast, where such solutions are commonplace.
Over the past week, however, the newly formed gap at the bottom of this Berkshire house has been filled with breeze blocks.
The spaces in the brickwork, where the steel beams poke out, will soon be filled with a dry mix of sand and cement. Once this has set, the jacks will be removed and the steel cradle will be dismantled and taken away.
The new breeze block basement will be wrapped in bricks and part concealed by decking on the house’s riverside front.
UndeR environment Agency rules, the new basement cannot be used for residential purposes. Mr Ivry jokes that he will store a Ferrari there but, in fact, it will have to be left empty.
Thinking back to the start of the project, Mr Ivry says: ‘It was very sad. It didn’t feel like a home any more, and it was terrible taking it all apart. What was a family home had become a project. But it will become a family home again.’
his wife agrees. ‘It makes sense,’ she says. ‘It’s easy to forget how terrible the flooding was. My husband was very stressed. The flooding was so bad that some of our neighbours never returned to their homes.’
Building plots nearby have become worthless. Insurance firms won’t cover new houses in the area.
Mr Ivry received £ 125,000 in compensation for the flood damage very quickly — but could see that he would have difficulty getting a new policy.
‘I was very happy with the insurers,’ he says. ‘ But they wouldn’t insure me once my policy runs out, and I can see why. At the moment, my insurance is £50 or £60 a month. After the floods, it would be £10,000 a year.’
And so what will happen to houses on flood plains across the country if, as some are predicting, flooding gets worse in years to come?
Some houses will be abandoned by those who can’t afford the higher insurance premiums. Other owners, after the Ivrys’ example, will surely consider lifting their homes towards the clouds.
‘If my idea spreads, then many other houses will be saved,’ says Mr Ivry, the man who took on the forces of nature — and won.