House built in 1922 with less than 6 ft ceilings. Dug out 100,000 lbs of material and hauled it off in buckets. Took me about 3 months. Now we have 8ft ceilings. Foundation work handled by professional with proper permits.
** progress pics in the replies.
64 Comments
RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip · 64 pts · 15d
that's a lot of dirt... need help eating it?
socsa@piefed.social · 7 pts · 15d
Sorry, we already fucked it all
RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 15d
icing š
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 15d
Zombies.
litchralee@sh.itjust.works · 27 pts · 15d
Help me understand what the starting condition was. This is a single story, freestanding home and that was constructed with <6 ft ceilings (<1.8 meters). So you ripped out the floor, then dug down through 2+ ft of dirt, so that without moving the ceiling, the new floor is be 8 ft (2.4 meters) from floor to ceiling. Do I have this right?
Does this mean all your windows are now 2 ft taller than they were? Being 1922, I presume the walls were supported by footings, but did they footings remain as-is and you dug around them? Are the footings still below the new floor level?
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 39 pts · 15d
It originally had a shelf foundation which took up a large amount of space as the shelf comes inward and eats useable space. The shelf was removed and we did foundation underpinning.
The windows are now two ft higher. It hasnāt been something we are bothered by.
ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip · 15 pts · 15d
Me starting to web search these new words "I don't have time for a new special interest I'm playing with fire on this one"
litchralee@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 15d
TIL shelf foundation. I've not seen these here in California, since we don't tend to have basement spaces in general.
But wow, you've moved literal tons of earth as a home improvement project. As the other comments remarked, this must have been quite the workout.
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 15d
After World War II a lot of the soldier came back looking for work and many of them dug out the crawl spaces in our area plus added the shelf foundation. This is according to my father in law. I trust him but I havenāt looked into it further to confirm.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 15d
I made a 400sqft patio by moving 2 tons of pea gravel and 4000lbs of patio tile one tile at a time. In July heat.
What gets you is the tendonitis. But fuck decks, patios rule.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 15d
How many trips is 2 tons of pea gravel one at a time?
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 15d
Many wheelbarrows.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 15d
Damn.
AmyAye@nord.pub · 2 pts · 15d
If I understand it right, its just the basement space. The actual house is not really touched. So any windows were probably up high anyway as the rest was underground anyway.
But now they have a taller usable basement space. Instead of what was essentially a "tall crawlspace".
I can't imagine they lowered the actual house floor to make the main house taller. Indon't think that is even really possible. Plus I doubt you could legeally sell a house with 6" ceilings on the main floor (in most places).
altphoto@lemmy.today · 22 pts · 15d
LOL, my dad and I did that to turn our crawl space into a 6ft tall basement. That was something. You're in my book for free beer if I had any.
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 14d
What a bonding experience lol. Very cool. Thatās a lot work going from a crawl space to a basement.
altphoto@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 14d
Don't ask me how's my back today. That was many years ago. Also I forgot the number of times I hit the top of the crawl space basement door hole.... Because I hit it pretty hard.
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · 18 pts · 15d
Very dull
ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 15 pts · 15d
I have to say, I'd have rigged up an auger or conveyor to carry the dirt outside.
You would have calves of steel after doing all that with buckets.
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 15d
They probably already had calves of steel. Now they have cows of brass.
Stegget@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 15d
Bulls of Iron, even.
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 15d
Heffers of Creamed Corn
Janx@piefed.social · 3 pts · 15d
Steers of steel
0ops@piefed.zip · 2 pts · 15d
Cattle of Cast Iron
toynbee@piefed.social · 5 pts · 15d
Have you every watched Colin Furze, out of curiosity?
JigglySackles@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 15d
Love his underground lair
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 15d
I had a family memeber that wanted me to do something similar. I ended up just getting started with the bucket thing and got into a groove. There are definitely smarter ways to do this.
Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 15d
How many spoons did you go through?
A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 15d
unitedwithme@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 15d
Your quads must be massive now with calves to match!
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 14d
I havenāt taken a better pic of the basement with floor poured. But you get the idea.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 15d
You're making a tunnel, right? Right? Make sure you wipe anything online that could let people figure out who you are and never show photos of the outside or people.
Last time the Great Work was interrupted by stupid inspectors and code enforcers and such. That can't happen again. The Great Work must be completed.
verity_kindle@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 15d
So much room for activities!
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 15d
Like...digging!
verity_kindle@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 15d
Yeah, we could dig to China! I'll get our toybox, I think there was a shovel in there!
Bluewing@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 15d
That is a LOT of Lowes pails.
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 7 pts · 15d
Not a single one failed me. 26 total.
Bluewing@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 15d
I would put it to you that Horrible Freight buckets are superior to Lowes pails. But I'm not sure I could win that argument thanks to your demonstraion of effort and tenacity.
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 15d
As someone who owns multiples of both, Harbor Freight buckets are definitely worse than Lowe's buckets. The Harbor Freight ones never have a flat bottom, which makes it super hard to scrape out all the thinset/hot mud/joint compound/cement/whatever else you're mixing in a bucket.
Bluewing@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 14d
That's a feature, not a bug. Like mixing bowls have a rounded bottom also so it's easier to mix things in.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 15d
He was sponsored. Shill!
Bluewing@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
I give him the benefit of the doubt. I suspect he was using what he had available to him in a time of great need.
Hikermick@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 15d
What, no basement? Seriously though, I'm still patting myself on the back for digging out 50 buckets from the crawlspace under my house. Hats off to you!
Q_the_misanthrope@startrek.website · 6 pts · 14d
This is incredible, what an insane and amazing project. The time, planning, expense and effort is incredible. Congrats on huge progress and making it to the end. Iām amazed.
I Just finished digging a 90ā trench 16ā deep for drainage by hand over the last month. I understand digging and effort. You are amazing.
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 14d
Thank you! I appreciate the kind words.
decolo@piefed.social · 5 pts · 15d
y'all got any more pictures of the work in progress?
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 15d
Yes. Iāll post them once I have a minute to find them.
rounding_error@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 15d
Are you worried about that dust ventilating into the house?
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 15d
I did wear a mask most of the time. But beyond that I didnāt give it much thought. I probably should have.
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 15d
Thatās quite the achievement. The only time Iāve been involved in work like this, the team made use of a slope beside the house (sloping away) and dug through it to get a small skid steer in. Still, was a massive amount of work because digging stable soil with a loader bucket essentially doesnāt work.
Did you get quotes on the labour? Must have saved a big pile of money!
combomeal@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 15d
I did get a couple quotes. One was 20k the other somewhere around 30k. I knew going in we didnāt have the funds for foundation work plus excavation. I ended up spending 2500 for a dumpster drop off/pick up. This was a weekly event.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 15d
Amazing how expensive dumpsters are.
Pieisawesome@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 15d
2500 for 50 tonnes of material? That isnāt bad at all.
flango@lemmy.eco.br · 3 pts · 15d
Keep digging m8! Some inspiration:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z8yiuJ9yFic
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 15d
Would love to dig a bunker in the garden, but the materials to support the walls/roof seem somewhat expensive for just a fun little project. Plus my garden is pretty small so there wouldn't even be much to it. Like 50mĀ² or so is the entire garden and should probably keep away from the walls of it to avoid undermining someones foundations, that would probably annoy someone.
BigDiction@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
Damn 50 or so metric fuck tons of work. Glad youāre happy with the finished space!
nullspace@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 15d
It's a wasted opportunity if you don't hide at least one body there.
tamal3@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 14d
I think they would have found the bodies that other people had hid....
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online · -15 pts · 15d
You expect me to believe you moved 1,800 full buckets? Sir, I doubt you've got that much square footage.
rainwall@piefed.social · 20 pts · 15d
Dirt and rock be heavy. I just did a 30x3ft path 3in deep in gravel by hand, and it was over 2000lbs of stone, and I'm still not quite done.
Based on a guess of 1200sqft (a reasonable sized house by 1922 standards) and the stated 2 feet deep, that means he moved 44.44 cubic yards of dirt. Soil looks pretty sandy/rocky, so based on some googling, I'm seeing 2500lbs/cubic yard. 44 * 2500lbs works out to 110,000lbs, or just over what OP stated.
Seems like his estimates are right to me.
pahlimur@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 15d
I've done about 1000 sq ft of patio and path recently. Just the bricks are around 25k lbs. Ive moved about 30 yards of dirt and I'm expecting to put in around 50k lbs of gravel. My soil is mostly silt clay and its still heavy as fuck.
SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 15d
Yeah moving earth gets heavy fast.
Q_the_misanthrope@startrek.website · 2 pts · 14d
Exactly. I have a small trailer and it holds 1600lbs. Thatās a half yard of crashed stone. A baby-bucket on their front loader and he had to be gentle dumping it in. Earth and rock is heavy in the same way space is big. Itās hard to grasp how much it weighs and how much there is.
actionjbone@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 15d
But how big were the buckets?