Digging out the basement

[Egon]

You have done much hard productive work.

Congradulations are in order for a job well done.

Egon

 

[RobS]

Mark, that's an incredible amount of work! At least you have a big helper in that tractor. A friend of mine did the same thing using 5 gallon buckets up the stairs. He even brought a section of crawl space down to full basement depth. Then excavated around the perimeter and poured a new foundation wall. All by hand!

Great work and an honorable thing to do for your vintage house /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Slamfire]

Cement can be either too wet, or too dry, but it is always too heavy. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Libertine]

mako652:

Thank you for taking the time to post pics/text on the project. Never know when a tractor can come in handy!

JEH

 

[TimSullivan]

We owned a old house with a several modern additions. The area under the original structure was similar to your basement.. For the fourteen years we were there my wife and I were going to do the same thing.

We sold the house last year and never did get up the nerve to tackle the project. Of course then we did not have any equipment either.

You have a good project to improve your home I am just glad that it is not on my to do list anymore. Sure looks like you are doing it right.

 

[ikline]

Reminds me of 2 years ago. My brother in law has an old farm house and half of it (about 16 by 36) had no basement. Well he wanted one. the dirt was 4 inches from the floor joists. We dug down 8 feet, poured foundation, layed block, drain tile, poured floor and added a bilco door (All by hand). I feel your pain, but I am sure you will be happy when it is done. Keep the pics coming.

 

[mako652]

Ok here are a few more of the pics. Let me just first say thanks for the response, and if ANYBODY has any pointers or suggestions fire away!

Second, thanks for the words of encouragement from all.

Dummy, that sounds like an interesting contraption you built as a conveyer belt. I even considered modifying an old conveyer for this project, but figured the time and cost to do it just would not pan out.

Slamfire, you are soooooooooo right about cement. No matter how you mix it. IT IS HEAVY. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Last, IKLINE you must REALLY get along good with your brother in law to do a project like that!! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Ok here are the rest of the pics to date. This one is a shot of the funnel for brining the stone in.

 

[mako652]

Here is a load of stone coming in.

 

[mako652]

This is one of my jacking posts next to the support. It is 5" schedual 40 or 80 (not sure I'm not a pipefitter) and 1/4" steel plate on each end. I use a 20 ton bottle jack to do the work and tighten it up with the supports. These are very handy, but VERY heavy.

 

[mako652]

This is a new pad still curing for the next support. You can see how the drain system and digging is still ongoing in the background.