How To Dig Your Own Underground Sandstone Tunnels! 

lol same

hahaha

Haha, wondered why this came up in my feed

im not complaining lol

😂

Haha, that's awesome. I saw he was finally getting on the tunnel bandwagon :-D

Yeah, I’ve been doing some work in My backyard in Sydney, Australia. The sandstone is like flint in some places. Sparking at the tip of the jackhammer. It’s just so hard.

There is probably a difference in what other minerals are mixed in. In Tennessee there is a lot of iron, and copper, mixed in.

@@rhondasisco-cleveland2665 Maybe, but they're playing with stuff that's literally like packed sand, not stone at all.

@@kleetus92 lucky them.

We have a pipe from the surface with an electric fan, it runs constantly when we're working. As we go deeper we plan on extending some air lines. The tunnel also "breathes" to some extent through temperature differences with the outside.

A ventilation hole on top, an air suctioning hole from below. Hot, used air goes out the top, clean air is sucked in from a lower level.

At 3:20 you can see a PVC pipe and fan.

Very cool! I've seen something similar in Naples Italy, they have hardened volcanic ash called Tufa. Lots of tunnels dating back to the Roam empire or even earlier.

So *that's* why this video is suddenly getting views, Furze stole our idea! ;-)

Do you answer questions about support structure of DIY tunnels?

I've heard about the Sydney sandstone, but never been there myself (went to Melbourne once and checked out some tunnels there :-) ). There's a guy who goes by "Paleas" on RU-vid digging tunnels under a building in Sydney.

These days we do wear helmets and respirators, some of the footage in this one is a little older. But usually nothing significant falls from the ceiling if you maintain that arched shape.

It's all volunteer, the owner doesn't have enough money to pay people. There are sandstone outcroppings in a few parts of the Midwest, especially along the rivers.

@@saveitforparts I figured it was volunteer. There is some sandstone carved out above the lower wisconsin river on hwy 60, between Sauk City and spring green. Private property but I somehow stumbled upon it a few years back and it peaked my interest and curiosity.

Granite would take a lot more effort for sure! There are plenty of hard-rock mines, but they used heavy equipment or dynamite, so not exactly a hobby project.

Give it a shot anyway 😎😁

Great remake of Home Alone. Better than the original.

Sounds awesome! Gypsum is a little less stable than Sandstone, or so I hear. Maybe easier to dig though.

@@saveitforparts I just need to start digging straight down and see what I hit. I know there is a former gypsum quarry half a mile from me so may be worth digging down.... be good when the nukes start flying.

Depending where you live, you might be able to find geological maps or well drilling records that tell you how deep the different layers are. Sometimes those are online. More cities/counties etc are also doing LIDAR surveys that show pretty accurate elevation data, if you can find a website for that you could check the elevation of the exposed gypsum at the quarry vs your place. If you dig straight down, make sure to have some ventilation and some way to deal with water! Sandstone can erode if it gets wet and I think gypsum does even faster. Air can get stale at the bottom of a hole if there's no other vent or cross flow.

@@saveitforparts I would love to see this tunnel sometime. Want to see how it's done so I can start one

I tried replying to this earlier but YT ate it. I'd suggest checking your local state geological survey, or USGS, or a major local university for geological maps. See if you can find out more details about what your hill is made of and how easy it might be to dig.

I have a map video here, although it's a year out of date! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-519XK9oMpms.html

200 kilometres? like 120 miles?

The owner's website is tunnelcity.com and has links to his Facebook and email if you want to contact him. He's usually looking for help!

There's no address or phone number would totally love to come volunteer.

@@gaberomo7156 You can email the owner at digsandland@gmail.com, that's probably the easiest way to get ahold of him. Or Facebook messages.

We have a short inclined railway made of wood to haul some of the sand out. We've discussed trying to do mine carts but the rubber-tired garden wagons seem to work well enough.

We don't really want combustion engines in the tunnel, even propane puts out CO2. I've been thinking of turning my electric mini tank into a mini skid steer...

We think it's awesome now! But hopefully people will still be visiting even when the midwest has all been paved over for Walmarts and condos!

@@saveitforparts yeh would love to see mountains get leveled and turned in to cities considering they would be ideal places for contraction if people don't mind leveling large mountain ranges but I think we need mountains over Walmart's and condos (i prefer independent owned and BANNING corporations form operation in the area cos they will steal the land from the founders eventually NEVER take investment for cooperate owned projects try keep things family owned and teach only trade skills to your kids which bennfit the town you build collage is a mugs game) maybe if architecture can intergrade without taking too much natural land away and having an decent monorail and undergrounds network for transport you might have an amazing place to live I mean would take a visionary to see it though but who knows maybe someone is already guiding that process as we speak.

No water issues, it's all above the water table and Sandstone is pretty porous, so any moisture just kind of soaks in and disappears. The freshly-mined sand is actually a little damp, which also helps keep the dust down!

That would be cool to see!

I've thought about coming in with a wire brush and smoothing things out :-)

We've tried some small vacuums, can't afford a big one!

You'd have to check your local geological maps for the exact elevation and thickness of the sandstone, 300ft might end up going through several different kinds of rock. Most counties have maps and info like that online in various formats. You might want something a little more industrial than our setup for a tunnel that far. If you have good water flow you could try hydraulic tunneling (blasting the sandstone with high pressure water). And of course you'd have to check local ordinances for hillside construction and sand disposal. Parts of Wisconsin are basically still in the 1800s and haven't invented building codes or the environment yet, but other parts have laws about erosion and sediment runoff. We store our sand in a DNR-approved containment area and have it hauled away once we have a big enough pile.

Hauling the sand out is the hardest/slowest part. It's actually kind of fun though!

@@saveitforparts Yes it looks very interesting .

Do all your geology research at bible college?

Yeah I was wondering why this vid had a jump...

Thinking the same thing. It will get eroded over continous usage. Might be dangerous.

Probably a pickaxe, that's how most of these were dug in the old days before power tools. I don't think the tunneling crews even bothered blasting, since the sandstone is so soft.

All the books I have are from the 1920s from my great-grandfather (a mining engineer). They're not super relevant today since they tell you how many donkeys to use for hauling :-) I'm not sure if there's a good book on small-scale sandstone tunneling.

Parts of the UK have sandstone, I think Nottingham is pretty hollow underneath!

Limestone is quite a bit harder, so not as easy to dig through. It tends to have fractures and cracks that you could try enlarging or use to pry out chunks, but you won't be able to carve through it like sandstone. On the plus side, limestone is more likely to have natural caves!

@@saveitforparts thank you for the reply! If I needed to tunnel through about 30 feet of limestone (enough for a human to crawl through), how would you recommend doing this?

@@maxl2994 I suppose tools like we're using could work, they would just be much slower on limestone. We currently use electric "demolition hammers", the cheapest ones are ~$100 and the name brand ones are more like $400+. We use wide spade bits, but something like a narrow chisel bit might work better for limestone. You'd likely need to re-sharpen your bit every few hours on a grinding wheel. Hope that helps!

I've experimented with that a bit: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JzRXCfmucCA.html