John J Chando Jr Inc. - Design/Build Blog

We are currently undergoing construction in Normandy Beach using some innovative construction techniques. We’re calling this type of construction “Hurricane Proof”, for good reason.  This particular home is being constructed to the strict FEMA V-Zone flood construction requirements and is extremely strong.

FEMA has finally issued revised flood maps for the Jersey Shore receding some of the dramatic expansion of V-Zones, it’s time to get down to business elevating your homes with confidence.

Look up your property’'s Base Flood Elevation on “the website, "What is my BFE”".

Homeowners should be very excited about this. Potential wave action requires V-Zone houses to be set on pilings and have “break away” wall construction. In A-Zones however, traditional perimeter wall foundations are acceptable. While the easing of V-Zone restrictions are good in regards to the ease of construction, we don’t agree with some of the new base flood elevation (BFE) heights that in many cases went back down to their pre-Sandy levels. In some cases, homes that conformed to the old flood elevation before the storm still got flooded in Sandy. We don’t think this makes sense, even if you justify Superstorm Sandy as a “500-year” storm - we now know that homes at these elevations can be flooded, which means there is still risk involved with restoring your house and maintaining your elevation. If you need to go through the expense of lifting your home, we think you need to go at least one foot above Sandy flood elevations regardless of what your FEMA issued BFE says.

We have been hard at work putting the Ortley Beach, NJ landmark Barnacle Bills Amusements back together after it was severely damaged from Hurricane Sandy. We were tasked to design and build an entirely new restaurant, Mini Golf course, and arcade for this legacy jersey shore business. Anyone who has been down on the jersey shore has seen Barnacle Bill’s face, so we took it really seriously when we took on the project, so that we could make the entire site better without losing any of its original “shore” charm. After Sandy, Barnacle Bills was left in disarray with all of the famous classic arcade games being thrown out to the curb. The JJC Inc. team took on the commercial project and we’re working towards a re-opening this summer.

We have just broke ground on a new home located in Normandy Beach, NJ. The previous house had a very low elevation and had 6ft of water inside after Hurricane Sandy. So, we are extremely excited to be rebuilding this house. The property restoration design concept was created with the new FEMA flood zone maps that told us this location is located inside the V-zone, which means we needed to be at elevation 14 ft and have breakaway walls underneath the structure in order to be compliant. With this house, the design is set to have lots of storage area and a full four-car garage underneath the first floor. We actually like this design in that we can make lots of use of this “unlivable space”.

Raising a house can be tricky business. Especially when the existing crawl space is very shallow, as was the case in this Point Pleasant home. The start of the process required some excavation in front of the house to allocate room for the steel I-Beams to get under the first floor joists. The team moved in with their equipment, 60’ long steel beams, and slowly added wood “cribbing”. Cribbing is usually accomplished with blocks of wood, often 4"x4" or 6"x6" and 18"-24" long. Soft woods, like spruce and pine are often preferred because they crack slowly and make loud noises before completely failing, whereas stiffer woods may fail explosively and without warning. We wouldn’t want any of these blocks failing without warning when holding up a house! The steel I-Beams sit on top of the cribbing in order to support the structure. These beams will support the load of the entire house until we rebuild the new foundation at the new flood elevation. In this case the house weighed 60 tons (as measured by the hydraulic jacking system)!

Hello everyone. Welcome to our new Blog. We're so excited to be writing all about our rebuilding projects after Hurricane Sandy.  We are looking to tell you all about our efforts in rebuilding the Jersey Shore. In this blog we will explain some of our design methodology and unique construction techniques to build sustainable homes in our post-Sandy world.  Follow us here as we will be constantly updating our blog with project updates from up and down the island, as well as informative posts to help answer some common questions.