130 | Relevelling skills still in demand Heritage House Relevellers was founded as a family-owned-and- operated business just prior to the Christchurch earthquakes. Heritage House Relevellers T T Richard Loader BUILDING Managing director of Christchurchbased Heritage House Relevellers, Lindsay Smith, thought the earthquake repair work might have come to an end by now, but says there are still many houses requiring the expertise his company can provide. “We still get the occasional wooden church to lift and level, but most of our projects are houses of all different ages. We’re currently levelling a two-storey timber house, which was built by Edward Prebbleton in 1863, and I understand was the first house built in Prebbleton. “That’s a full lift and pile foundation replacement. When that house was built, there were no bracing elements and the house wasn’t tied to the floor – obviously they weren’t expecting the house to be lifted into the air, right? So, we’re spending two days putting bracing elements in it, bolting beams to walls and tying the floors to the walls, before we can do the lift and replace the piles.” Heritage House Relevellers was founded as a family-owned-and- operated business just prior to the Christchurch earthquakes. Lindsay had 30 years’ experience, predominantly in the house-lifting and transportation sector, and saw an opportunity to provide a higher level of service to clients requiring house-lifting, levelling and transportation services in Christchurch. Initially driven by heritage building projects, when the earthquakes struck the company broadened its scope to include new concrete-floor houses that were damaged, and developed the technology and skill set to undertake projects never before attempted in New Zealand. “Most new homes these days are built on a concrete slab, and a lot of those were damaged in the earthquake,” says Lindsay. “That required lifting houses complete with slab, then pumping grout under them to relevel them, and we had to develop systems to achieve that. Pre-earthquake, you lifted the house off the slab and replaced it, but postquake we started lifting the house and slab, so that we could lift the entire house including brickwork. They are very heavy lifts.” When the Kaikoura earthquakes struck in 2016, Heritage House Relevellers broadened in geographic reach, taking its valuable skill set to assist in that region. “We lifted and levelled some very big old homesteads there. We did a complete pile foundation replacement for the Highfield Woolshed in Waiau, the oldest surviving woolshed in the Hurunui district, and one of the largest and best preserved. We ended up winning some awards for that project.” Today, Lindsay and his team take their expertise throughout the wider Canterbury region, Kaikoura and over to the West Coast, with some projects also in Blenheim. Projects predominantly include house lifting, levelling/relevelling, concrete and driven pile foundation replacements. Rolling houses from one location on a section to allow for another house to be built is also a major source of work. Lindsay acknowledges that the work his team does is a skill learned over many years of experience. “You’re not just dealing with old houses; you’re also dealing with hydraulics and jacking plant. You have to get the weights of your buildings to determine how many jacks are put around it. There’s quite a bit of engineering involved. The success of our business has really come down to hard work, determination and quite a lot of Kiwi can-do attitude.” • House Relevelling • House Lifting & Foundation Replacement • House Rolling • Concrete & Foundation Repairs • Repiling • Earthquake Repairs • On-Sold Repairs 021 868 338 | lindsay@heritagehouse.co.nz | www.heritagerelevellers.co.nz · Domestic Plumbing · Commercial Plumbing · Renovations · Water Filters Contact Glen 021 524 352 glen@plumbfast.co.nz
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