Is it possible to make a partial basement a full?
Question:We are looking at a house that currently has a partial basement. The entire back of the house is open. Where the poles run down the center of the basement breaks it up. The front half of the homes basement has a mound of dirt that stands about 5 feet tall. Is it even possible to dig that out (yes, we know it would be hard work) and put up a kind of retaining wall to create a larger basement? I would guess that behind the mound of dirt is more dirt. I don't think there is a wall back there. Is this just a crazy thought or could it be done? We would be doing the majority of labor ourselves and don't have alot of money to use.
Answers:
When I was a kid my grandfather's friend did it. You are going to first dig a trench large enough for you to work in around the interior of the basement in the 5 foot area. Try to leave at least a foot or so of dirt on the interior side of the original basement wall. You will have put in the cement footer to lay cement block. You are creating a new basement wall. Leave your old foundation where it is--don't dig under it--unless you want the house to move to the basement. Yes, you do have a partial wall behind the dirt mound. What you have is a crawl space for a basement. Sometimes in years gone by for a variety of reasons either the support walls were not as deep or the families could not afford finishing the basement. This seems particularly true of homes build before the Korean War. If you don't have a cement floor in the basement the odds are that it is the latter. You should also find out if you live in an area of expansive soil. If you do you might want to reconsider otherwise you will have to take this into account. You see a lot of it west of the Mississippi. By leaving the old wall in place it will remain your primary home support. The new basement walls will obviously add support and allow you to dig out the remainder of the dirt pile. I once saw someone use a kind of conveyor belt to transport the dirt out of the basement window to a truck. A lot better than trying to move it by hand up the stairs. Remember to leave the dirt between the new and old walls in place. Be careful and mindful that the drainage may change with all the disturbance. You might want to add a french drain or at least the old surface type where you dig a shallow trench around the house line it with plastic, fill it with pea gravel, and provide a drain away from the house (sometimes people drop a gravel filled fifty gallon drum into a hole deep enough for the water to flow through a pipe to the drum. The drum will disperse the water equally and not fill with dirt.
Hard HARD work. Yes it is possible. Dig out the dirt, stop about 2 ft from the present foundation . Pour the new concrete floor. Then put up new concrete block walls almost to the present 1 st floor rafters. Put in treated lumber to join the 1 st floor wood rafters. Hard HARD work and you may need building permits. You may also need professional help for the concrete work and the engineering. Good luck.
Look for another house. This will cost you a fortune. The city will require engineedered drawings and oversight in order to grant a permit. The engineering services alone could run 10K.
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