Crawlspace work area.

[Phillip]

Some one wanted some more workspace in the walk in crawlspace.

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[Erby]

If he doesn't reinforce that dirt, he's going to end up with less work space.

[Jim Baird]

Philip I've seen a lot worse undercutting and have seen some that was really old, but have never seen signs of soil failure at those undercuts. Maybe it's the stability and strength of Ga red clay. At one undercut job, that was accomplished with equipment, the worst erosion of soil base was occuring on the outside of the foundation wall, where wrong-way site sloping was carving out beside the footing every time it rained. The house was under foreclosure, and the buyer who hired me found it on an internet list of "distressed properties". I don't think he bought it, but he seemed to be a trouble magnet. I followed him to his dwelling to get paid, and there he showed me burglar damage that his landlord wouldn't fix, and then he showed me the pistol he kept in his pocket due to the unsavory 'hood he lived in. Got my check and never seen him since.

Erby, I have scratched my head a lot to figure out how one might "reinforce" or support that kind of mistake, and decided the only practical correction would be to start at the new level of cut, install spot piers with posts and beams to pick up whatever loads there are.

[Jim Baird]

Couldn't stand it. See below.

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[Jim Baird]

Cpl more.

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[hausdok]

Hi,

I see that sometimes around here. I also see a lot of old bungalows where they did that to create basements. Those typically have a block or placed concrete retaining wall inboard of the footing a couple of feet and then they backfill them with soil and pour a "rat wall" layer of concrete on top to create a nice wide storage shelf around the basement. They work but they also leak if the owners didn't think to install drainage beneath/behind them to pick up the water that passes by the original footing drains and continues into the "basement."

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Chris Bernhardt]

Mike is what you're describing any different then a dutch basement?

I see those a lot around these parts but had thought thats how they had built them from day one.

Chris, Oregon

[hausdok]

Huh?

You've got me; I'd never heard the term Dutch basement before so I goggled it. I'm still not sure what you mean.

A lot of these old houses began post on pier and later on some owners filled in between posts with concrete and left the posts in place. However, most of them replaced the posts on piers with short concrete stemwalls to form crawlspaces and then still later someone decided that the space under the house was being wasted so they went underneath and dug out as much as they thought they could without undermining the footings. Those are sometimes easy to spot when they've been done wrong because they've got crowned floors, big 8 by 8 mud sills on top of the concrete stemwall, a rough surface along the base of the upper wall where the ears of the foundation have been broken off, and a sloping cracked rat wall between the inner retaining wall and the base of the outer wall.

While googling, I found a fascinating set of powerpoint slides which I'm sure were part of someone's lecture and now I wish I could have the opportunity to hear the guy speak.

http://www.efficiencyvermont.com/pages/ ... ations.pdf

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[kurt]

It's sort of like a *Michigan bsmt.*.

What's really amazing is how they continue to stand up after folks work overtime trying to make them fall down.

[Tom Raymond]

Originally posted by Jim Baird

Erby, I have scratched my head a lot to figure out how one might "reinforce" or support that kind of mistake, and decided the only practical correction would be to start at the new level of cut, install spot piers with posts and beams to pick up whatever loads there are.

I know of a project that did exactly that. An 1860 brick 2 story row house style building with a rubble stone foundation and cinder footings, the 2 end units had the basements dug out. The footings were intentionally undermined in about 6' increments, temporary steel supports were used while new concrete footings were placed. The steel supports were moved to the new footings then the next section was done. Once one wall was "re-footed" the steel was incased in a concrete stem wall that extendeded inward and upward to include Mike O's "rat wall" in a single pour. The mortar on the rubble section of wall suffered a bit, but not a single brick was displaced. The entire project was done by two "old timer" carpenters, two "young bucks" with excavators, and the building owner in about 6 weeks.

Tom

I can't even begin to guess how many ton of brick were dangling over their heads[:-bigeyes

[Erby]

I've seen several "dug out" basements around here.

Stacked stone foundations reinforced.

Thought I had a picture of the interior of this one I looked at earlier this week. They even added a window or two.

House on the right. Dug out the about two thirds of the right half of the crawl space.

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See it back past the water heater.

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Yeah, it's cracked a bit but that's likely because of the downspout dumping water right at the rear corner.

Rest of the crawl space was like this.

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