I recently had a major flood from a busted pipe that made me (the insurance company) gut the entire basement.
I have always had these odd “half walls” that go up about 4 feet from the basement floor and then run horizontal from there to the foundation bricks on the outside walls. (see pics) I never knew why they were there, but we had a structural engineer come out and tell me that basically, some previous owner along the way wanted to turn the crawl space into a basement and dug out the basement and then left these “half walls” to make the foundation still have some strength. Essentially it is just the earth that was originally there with CMR/Cinder Blocks around it to give it some strength. The engineer tells me they are still working just fine in holding up my house (a few minor drywall cracks aside) but I would love to get rid of them. This would allow me to have much more square footage and potentially have some bigger well windows etc.
So, he told me 3 different ways I could take these half walls out and still have the house have a solid foundation.
Option 1, which I know all about and is out of the budget, is to raise the house. This seems to have been explored on several forums so no need to do so here.
Option 2 he said would be to dig out ~3 ft sections of these earth “half walls” at a time, take out the existing foundation in this space and then build frames and pour concrete into the gap from the inside. Seems reasonable but would take many pourings and many trips of digging out the walls.
Option 3 would be to dig down to correct depth from the outside of the house in about 6-8 ft. sections. Take out the existing foundation and then pour each of these sections from the outside, forming new foundation walls that go to the basement floor depth. Then, when they are all dry, (about 5 sections) I could dig out the “half walls” inside all at once.
The entire basement is about half the house (the rest is a crawl space) and is about 15’x16′. The half walls are on the two outside walls that in included in this area. I have also attached a hard to read drawing of this for what it is worth…
Does anyone have any experience with Option 2 or 3? I would love to find out more about the feasibility of it. I will be doing the digging by myself (with plenty of friends as I am part of a 200 person bootcamp) but obviously I will hire a contractor to pour and build frames.
PS: I have no idea why the photos are upside down.
Replies
Tough job
I recently tackled about 20 feet of similar foundation wall in the house where I grew up. Because of the house's configuration, the only option was doing it by hand. I knew it would be a ton of work, and the only reason I did it was because what was there was so weird and so structurally inadequate that it would have made selling the house very difficult. Countless, and I mean countless, 5 gallon buckets of dirt went out the basement door and up the stairs to the back yard, where fortunately, fill could be lost. It was epic. It took long weekends over an entire summer. I lost 20 lbs, and I started to look like a body-builder. Well, OK, I did lose 20 lbs. Kidding aside, I would not wish the task on my worst enemy, and frankly, I usually love gritty work.
Accessing the foundation from the outside still would require a lot of hand work to remove the internal dirt banks. My suggestion is to live with what you've got.
The other issue is cost versus benefit. You aren't going to gain very much sq ft for the expense. Absent the need to do it to fix structural or water issue, I doubt it can be cost justified on the cost per sq ft.
Thanks for input
Thanks for the input guys. Both valid points. However...
I won't be doing too much of the digging because of the 100+ people I have that are happy to help out on active projects like this. Plus the neighbor has a back hoe so the outside won't be quite as much work either. But good advice none the less.
As for square footage, I'll gain about 90 square feet, but in a 400 square foot room, I feel like that could make a difference. Plus if all I am paying for is the concrete, I am still thinking about it. I am comfortable building the foundation frames (done it on a new build before, etc). Since the room was just gutted and insurance is paying to make it nice again, I figure now is the time if I am ever going to do it. (Don't want to lay carpet and put up drywall and then do it in 10 years and have all that go to waste.)
Great points though guys, thanks for the advice.
question
You have a hundred plus people ready to dig in and help?
What are you, a preacher of the warden of a small prison?
thanks.
Not a preacher or a warden. Just part of a bootcamp that lifts/runs/etc for 3 hours at a time, 3 days a week. (Goes by the name of If Burns Joe Fitness if you want to check it out) Needless to say, these people are super fit and very active and since I have been going for years, they are very good friends. I have no doubt I can get 50, hopefully closer to 100+. We have about 300 at each workout in the summer, so only 1/3 of them have to come. Haha.
I commend your organization
but admit, initially I thought it was the goofy'est thing I've heard of.
till I looked at some of the participants..........
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Best of luck on this-that I'm serious about.