Automotive floor jacks are used to raise vehicles like SUVs, trucks and personal cars. You have to place it on the ground and push it under a car to use it. Different automotive floor jacks are tailored for raising different weights, ranging from 2 to 20 tons. All you have to do to easily lift your car is just pump a long arm which extends from the jack's body.

As usual, floor jacks are used when a mechanic needs to change tires, check the brake system or exhaust pipes, or look if there's an undercarriage damage there.

Surely, hydraulic lifts are used more often, so an automotive floor jack may be considered as a simple tool for quick changing tires or undercarriage damage check. Here's a video on how to use automotive floor jacks properly:

Foundation house or vehicle repair work is often carried out with use of bottle jacks. These jacks are good for temporary support of lightweight cars. They are also commonly used with trailers and beams, although you need to select a special type of a bottle jack for these purposes. Bottle jacks have only one weakness. They lack gauges and that’s why you have no idea what pressure you apply on them.

Bottle jacks usually come with a small head which presses very strong against the pressure point. Such pressure on the foundation or car undercarriage can cause damage. One way of solving this problem is increasing the surface of the contact area. It can be easily increased by several square inches. This will reduce the force that is applied. You may use steel blankets (they might be attached somewhere on the hydraulic cylinder) for this.

Considering the above, it’s obvious why bottle jacks are not used widely while repairing foundations in houses. If the repair worker uses a bottle jack to repair a house foundation, you have a decent reason to doubt his level of dedication to professional standards.