The Big Dig

Begins. more to come..

Installing a basement?

I'm glad you asked that.

My guess is, indoor coal bin.

jpete wrote:Installing a basement?

Yep, Nine feet of it..

I'm On Fire wrote:My guess is, indoor coal bin.

And indoor shooting range.. well maybe..

That's a lot like work.

My grandmothers last husband did it decades ago and my karate instructor did it with his house, a 5 gallon pail at a time!

Several of the students helped. I'm just glad I wasn't around for it.

Closest I ever came was taking a half a ton of "coal"(mostly dirt) out of a basement. Learned my lesson well on that one!

Well see it was necessary, I needed a place for the #153...

A full basement??? Goof stuff, I want to do that to our house. How did you get started?
Keep us informed on the progress....

get a pile of cash and pay someone...
The proper tools make this almost like childs play...
Sure you can get the cut down skid steer, steels and blocking...
But the hydraulic pump, rams and load balancer...
That is the expensive part...
And if you make a boo boo...
your house is a pile of sticks...

Ok...
Dig a ramp, gets the steels, put the supports in the right spot...
Lift the house 2-3 feet higher than the top of your forms...
This is a poured foundation, right...
Start digging, watch your head...
Dig some more...
Place the forms....

And yes i watched as the owners 13 year old son jacked up his first house, mine...
you did remember to box out for those steels, right...
Drop it down on the cured walls, proper cure don't backfill till walls are braced...
Cut out concrete that you forgot about a coupla steels...
Bolt it down, waterproof, insulate the outside of that concrete, , drain to daylight, backfill, not with clay...
Put down a nice radient floor...
for when it turns into a shop or games room...

Did you consider insulated concrete forms?

I like them for a DIY project. Just stack them up and you eliminate having to strip forms and the insulation is taken care of.

CapeCoaler wrote:get a pile of cash and pay someone...
The proper tools make this almost like childs play...
.

So you get a moving company to raise it, block it in place, then did you dig your own? I feel once it is raised, the rest is easy.
I'd use the Quad-Lock forms when I do mine... http://www.quadlock.com/concrete_forms/benefits.htm

Yep - someday I might get motivated enough to do mine ... bucket by bucket. At least the previous owner was kind enough to blow out the foundation for me.

It is actually not that expensive to do...
If it is just a house with no brickwork like chimneys...
The chimney was an extra $1500...
Had two buildings jacked about 8ft...
full basements excavated and poured...
The house lifters here like to do their own digging...
Coupla guys have gotten killed hoggin' out the basements...
If you *censored* one of the supporting piers the house will come down on ya...
Lessons learned...
Ceiling height Minimum 8' clear; that includes any duct work and piping. 9' much better...
Didn't happem here because of groundwater and surrounding elevations...
ICF is the way to go if properly installed and drained...
While it is up in the air address the floor joists it is easy to to...
Mine were legal, in 1950...
14' of 2x8 leave a bit of bounce in the floor...
Sump with perimeter drain just in case...
Radient floors, insulated...
As much clearspan as you can afford; you will use that space poles suck...

They can jack and move 400 ton light houses with trucks steel and Ivory soap...
Your house can be jacked...
If ya like lighthouse history...
http://lighthouse.cc/highland/history.html

jpete wrote:.

My grandmothers last husband did it decades ago and my karate instructor did it with his house, a 5 gallon pail at a time!

It's not the carrying part, it's the scraping up against your leg part that sucks. If I ever had to do something like that again I'd have one of those poles that go over your shoulder with a bucket on each end.