Akron vs Vestil House Jacks Which is Better!

As many of you know, I'm a homeowner and like many of you, I find it tough to swing the mortgage from month to month. 

I’m sure that I'm not the only guy with an old house too. An old house that needs repairs and lots of them. 

Well, I certainly can’t afford to pay people to make those repairs for me. 

Does this sound like you?

Luckily for me, I work in the trades as a pipe fitter. Working with my hands, with a wide range of tools, for over 15 years at the time of this writing, has given me the confidence I need to tackle big repair jobs at my house, myself! 

And now you’re going to benefit from my experiences! 

One long term repair 

One thing that I immediately noticed about my house, even when I was first looking at it with the realtor, is that the center beam in the basement sagged horribly. 

I never took any photos of it or measured it, but trust me. The beam, even at the current moment over a year after beginning the repair project, still droops pretty much as soon as it leaves the basement wall with one point in the center having at one time sagged a solid three inches below the rest of it.

A little over a year ago I decided to begin the process of fixing it. I jack hammered several spots in the basement floor so I could pour footers at various points under the beam. 

After the concrete footers dried I put jacks on them and began the slow, arduous process of raising the beam back to level, something that I still have a ways to go on over a year later.

The Equipment 

I used two types of jacks, the AKRON PRODUCTS C-79 Floor Jack and the Vestil FJB-100 Basement Floor Jack. These jacks are both affordable options that you can get on Amazon. After using them for the length of time that I have, I’ve become familiar with the pros and cons of each and feel very confident in announcing a winner. And those of you who saw the earlier review that I did on Youtube may be surprised by the results! 

Vestil Floor Jack

This is one of the jacks that I’ll be reviewing in this blog. I have used it to lift the center beam in my house.

Akron Floor Jack

This is the other jack that I have used to lift my house and will be discussing in this blog post

The similarities 

Both jacks do the same thing and operate the same way. They have a plate on the top and bottom. One plate, in my case, will be attached to the concrete footer with some concrete fasteners and the other end gets attached to the center beam with some wood screws. 

You can then adjust the height of the jack by removing the two bolts that hold the tubes together and then collapsing or expanding the tubes until the proper height is reached, then simply put the bolts back in. Finally you can start jacking the house up by turning an adjustment screw.

Pretty simple and straightforward, so how is one better than the other?

The differences 

So can one lift more than the other? Is one more durable? The answer is probably. But I’m not concerned with that. Both jacks have been able to lift my house for a long period of time without failing and that’s all I care about in terms of their capabilities.

So what is better about one than the other?

There are a few subtle differences that make all the difference in the end.

The Vestil jacks, initially, are easier to use, because the plates are permanently attached to the bottom and top tube of the jack, whereas with the Akron jacks the tubes and plates are separate parts.

This can make lining up the tubes and the plates difficult.

Not that it’s critically important but it can be tough to get the tubes at the exact center of the plate and if you're a perfectionist like me, then you’re gonna spend a lot of time trying to get it just right. 

It can also be tough to position the plates so that the jack is level when it sits between them. And having the jack perfectly level, when lifting heavy loads like a house, IS critically important. 

With the Vestil, since the plates are attached, you can simply put a magnetic level on the jack as you're moving the plates around. Once it's level, put some screws in the plate and you're all set.

With the Akron jack this is tough because when you slide the jack over to make it level you may find that the plate doesn’t move with it. So the jack may be level but the plates aren’t necessarily lined up properly with the jack.

I found the easiest way to remedy this problem was by attaching the plates to the center beam and the floor before even attempting to put the jack in place.

I simply attached the top plate to the center beam and then put a laser level across all four edges of the plate one at a time. The laser level would cast the same line on the floor. I drew the lines that the laser level cast onto the floor with a marker, and then I knew exactly where the other plate had to go in order for it to be directly under the top one. 

Now to get the jack itself level I just simply had to place it between the plates. 

So for the initial setup the Vestl won, because it was easier. But the hardest part of getting the Akron level was thinking of the method described above. Actually doing the work of placing the plates on their targets is not difficult. 

The plates themselves are also different

This was another problem that I had with the Akron jacks. The Plates are made of a much thinner metal than those of the Vestil. They are a lot more flimsy. 

At first, I attached the plates directly to the center beam, and since my center beam is three pieces of wood screwed together, the Akron jacks would lift the center piece of wood, because the jack itself was under it, but since the jack is not actually under the other two pieces, the plate had to do the lifting for the two outer pieces of wood and it wasn’t able to. The plates were bending under the stress.

This was a huge problem for the Akron jacks so I decided to use the vestils instead. 

Upon replacing the Akron jacks with the Vestils all was well. The plates did not appear to be bending. It was lifting all three of them!

But this was very short lived, for soon into the process I noticed that the plates of the Vestil jacks were indeed bending too. So the extra beafiness of the Vestil plates ended up not making a difference.

But luckily this problem was easy to solve. I simply cut a block of 6x6 lumber and placed it between the center beam and the plates, so now the plate rests on a single piece of wood. It does not have to lift three separate pieces anymore so there is no more uneven stress being placed on it, and the 6x6 lumber is able to lift all three pieces because it’s a solid piece of wood.

So in the end, the plates of the Vestil jacks being thicker didn’t matter. I had the same problem and the same solution with both of them!

One more big difference and this one matters!

There is one more big difference between the two jacks, other than price and we’ll get to that later. 

The method by which you turn the adjustment screw is completely different. 

With the Vestil jacks there is a hole in the adjustment screw that a rod goes through. You turn the screw by turning the rod. 

This method seems better at first, because the hardware that you need is included. This rod is also likely designed to make it so you can’t torque the jack too much and turn it with more force than it’s capable of handling. This is all good stuff until you actually try to use it.

I found that with where this rod is located, and the fact that it’s so short, that it’s hard to get leverage on it, and my knuckles also end up hitting the block of wood that’s on top of the plate. This rod is also very skinny. It’s not very comfortable in your hands. Something like a wrench would be better because the handle of a wrench is designed with ergonomics in mind..

Speaking of wrenches

The Akron jack, on the other hand, has a notch at the head of the adjustment screw, which, you guessed it, allows you to turn it by using an adjustable or a box wrench!

This is a much better method of turning the screw!

As mentioned above, wrenches are designed with ergonomics in mind. They fit into your hand much better than the short, skinny, rod used for the Vestil jacks. And since you can use as long a wrench as you want, you don’t have to worry about hitting your knuckles on whatever is above the plate or about getting enough leverage to turn the screw!

Announcing the much anticipated, overdue, awaited, answer to the question that has been plaguing those reading this blog for tens of minutes now, which jack is better?

Ok so for those of you that didn’t simply skip ahead to this part, congratulations, you’ve earned this!

I could just do what most bloggers do and lazily announce that there is no better jack. Better is in the eye of the beholder. Better depends on what you want the jacks to do.

Well screw that. There is a better jack. What do we want the jacks to do? We want them to lift heavy things and which one is better at that?

The problems with the Akron jacks, such as the plates being flimsier and not attached to the jack tubes, are easily overcome. Like I said earlier, thinking of a solution was the hardest part, and I did that part for you! Actually implementing the solution was easy.

The Akron jacks are easier to use though since you can turn the screw with an adjustable wrench and for this reason, the Akrons are the better jacks!

It also doesn’ hurt that the Akron jacks cost less too!

There you have it. The Akron jacks are better than the Vestils.

I put a lot of time into this blog. I hope that you found it helpful!

Please click the Amazon affiliate link for either the Vestil or the Akron jack if you would like to purchase one. This will help me to earn a few bucks off this blog. 

Just click the link, add it to your cart and complete the checkout process on Amazon. Thank you!

AKRON PRODUCTS C-79 Floor Jack

This is my favorite jack. It has served me well for the last year plus of lifting the center beam of my house.

Click here to buy it on Amazon

Vestil FJB-100 Basement Floor Jack

This is not the winner of the competition but it is still a good jack.

To buy it on Amazon just click here!