Dig out my basement

[ultrarunner]

I made a ramp and used my BX to haul material... worked well but I needed a fan to force fresh air in and I wore a good respirator...

 

[Ralco]

I have no idea, I assume there is just a 4' frost footing. This summer I had part of a chinese elm break apart in thunder storm pulling up some of the roots. I had a tree man topped off the 15' from the bottom. I dug the stomp out, top soil was black dirt a foot down, next 2' clay after that it was gravel and sand. The house is 24' x 30', the partial basement 24' wall is down 8' 1 30' wall in basement goes 12' and other wall goes 8' after that I don't know for sure. there is part of a wall by stairway that doesn't support anything I have to cut out before I dig I only plan to dig out 4' width. I have family that does carpentry construction I will ask them what I should do.

 

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

I know this isn't what your asking but it is on topic as another option. I've known 2 people who have rented skid steers to dig out their basement. Dug down from outside, cut through the wall, placed extra supports under the joists and sill in that area, and went on in. Sounds crazy I know. Ultimately saved a lot of work.

 

[square1]

Pay your grand-kids a quarter a day to play in the dirt then direct their activities. I'm only half joking, I know someone that did exactly that with their nieces & nephews. Not sure you could pull it off in today's society of protective services, instant messaging and video games though

 

[bluestem99]

I agree with Wild Bill, you should be able to rent a skid steer for a reasonable price for a few days, talk about saving your back!! My wife worked in excavating and they did this alot in southern Wisconsin.

 

[Everhard]

Most likely your footings won't be down 8' - so assuming that is the case I would support and then dig along each exterior foundation wall one at a time and remove/replace existing wall/footing down to the depth you need. do this for all sides but on one of the walls I'd do as suggested by Wild Bill and make a temporary ramp down and leave one section of the wall out so that you can go in and remove the remaining dirt on the inside. Then once that's removed you can fill in the remaining section of footing/wall.

My previous house before I bought it the basement walls were getting pushed in and the seller ended up having to fix them before I bought the house - that project was essentially that same process bar the digging out the basement bit of course. They had to dig down along the exterior wall as described above and remove and replace the existing wall down to the footings on 3 sides of the house, and then to make sure the same problem didn't happen again proper drainage was put in along the footings. No more wall movement after that. That job cost the previous owner $20,000. (Note that included digging around the whole foundation of the house and replacing 3/4's of it.)

Bottom line though is you have to have your foundation walls going down as far as you want your basement to go before you pull out all that material. otherwise you won't have anything supporting the foundation once you pull the dirt out.

Hope that helps, my 2 cents...
E.

 

[muddstopper]

I can only say how I did something similar for a guy with a half basement. The basement did have a 4ft access door for entry which made for a tight fit, but by removing the door caseing, I was able to take my little 430max stiener tractor inside the basement. The tractor had a scoop bucket on the front. I just drove in, dug out a scoop and drove out to dump. Those little tractors arenot know for tons of power, but they will fit into tight places. It took me a couple of days to do the job, but it got done. You might check out the rental places and see what kind of small equipment they have available, a Stiener, ventrac, Power trac, Dingo, or similar will get the job done and a couple of days rental would beat the heck out of a shovel and wheelbarrow.

 

[bcp]

I wonder if anyone makes a remote control model, so you don't have to stand behind it to operate it in tight spaces.

https://www.toro.com/en/professional-contractor/compact-utility-loaders

Bruce

 

[ray66v]

My family actually dug out a basement by hand, from a 4' crawl space, when I was a kid.

A flat, smooth belt conveyor belt does not do a good job, with big, solid, shovel sized lumps of clay. Much of the time, my brother, and I had to hold them down with our hands, as they went up the belt, to keep them from rolling back down.

It was a winter long, weekend project, and it was hard work. But, it can be done.

We did get about a quarter a day. Which was not a lot of money, even then. :laughing:

 

[Sprinklerman]

We dug a full basement with a tracked toro dingo . Borrowed some big steel beams and supported the entire house . We dug and laid new footers and walls all the way around . Took a week