BurleyMike
New Member
I have half a basement and half crawlspace. Many of the houses around here have basements that were once crawlspaces and they dug them out.
Since things are not going well these days I have more time than money. I have been toying with the idea of digging some of that crawlspace out to enlarge the basement.
The basement and crawlspace are poured concrete 8" thick. The top of the footing in the crawlspace is 41" from the top of the stem wall. I would need to go down about 4' to have the new basement as tall as the existing basement.
The soil here is very fine sand and clay mixed together. Some of the houses I have seen they dug right up to the edge of the footing and left it as is. Others they built a block wall up to the footing and some they build a block wall up to the floor joists.
I am concerned about going that close to the footing. I really don't want the soil to collapse and have the house fall in on me.
Some have said to stay 1' out from the footing per foot dug down.
If I dug all the way to the footing on all sides I would have a 25x30' room. I really don't need all that space so I would rather not go near the footings at all.
I don't know how important it is but I thought I better mention it, the water table is 2'-5' below the basement floor depending on the season. 4' below the basement floor it is solid sand and gravel.
Since things are not going well these days I have more time than money. I have been toying with the idea of digging some of that crawlspace out to enlarge the basement.
The basement and crawlspace are poured concrete 8" thick. The top of the footing in the crawlspace is 41" from the top of the stem wall. I would need to go down about 4' to have the new basement as tall as the existing basement.
The soil here is very fine sand and clay mixed together. Some of the houses I have seen they dug right up to the edge of the footing and left it as is. Others they built a block wall up to the footing and some they build a block wall up to the floor joists.
I am concerned about going that close to the footing. I really don't want the soil to collapse and have the house fall in on me.
Some have said to stay 1' out from the footing per foot dug down.
If I dug all the way to the footing on all sides I would have a 25x30' room. I really don't need all that space so I would rather not go near the footings at all.
I don't know how important it is but I thought I better mention it, the water table is 2'-5' below the basement floor depending on the season. 4' below the basement floor it is solid sand and gravel.