Massive DIY Basement Dig Out ~ Start to Finish Time Lapse 

And I can appreciate the work you are going through right now. Hat's off to you Sir.

I appreciate that you are here and thank you for the kind words.

Same thoughts, I've always wondered why some one doesn't use conveyor belts and an electric track how. You folks showed the most intelligence in how you went about doing this

Thank you very much!

I'll admit that Joe & I got a good workout, but that is one of the reasons we did the project. It was some work, some challenge, some fun, and a LOT of satisfaction. No regrets. Thank you for watching, and your fun comment.

You are very welcome, and I'm glad you found the information helpful. Thanks for watching. Please show us your progress when you can.

Thank you for the kind words, Charles. Especially from a man who has done an underpin. Glad you're here---

Thank you. It didn't feel so much like work. as it did a good workout. The added space has been a wonderful benefit to a house that should have had a basement to begin with. Thank you for watching.

Thank you, Scott. Glad you're here. Best wishes for success, and please remember to show us how it turns out for you.

Thanks. If you didn't know, we purpose built much of that equipment during the winter months with stuff dug out of scrap yards. Re: floor, yes it was far too big of a slab for just Joe & me to do. I don't know if your last line is clever, funny, or creepy. In any case, I blew my coffee. Thanks for watching

Thank you. Glad you're here.

Happy, then sad, then happy again Not planning a second level. Wife McGee would kill me.

It's a mess now. I'm building out back bathroom, utility room, & stairs where the down shaft was. Next update in a few weeks. CHANNEL HAS BEEN UPDATED SINCE.

We were told that a couple had this house built for their retirement home. The husband died after contract was signed & before the contractor built. Rumor is builder wouldn't let the widow out of the contract, and offered lots of stuff to "save her money." Knocking off $5k to get a crawl space. The lady moved in & lived as a recluse in an unfinished house for 10 years. We even found a dead cat in a furnace duct. We knocked off almost $70k because of the crawl space when we bought it. Our all-in costs Including new plus in-floor heat is about $48k. Doing it ourselves, we could stay in the house & there was almost no outward evidence of a big job in the neighborhood. It was also a fun retirement time burner for brother-in-law Joe & me, and the house/ site was an ideal candidate for an underpin. Estimates for a contractor to underpin was in the $120k range. To jack up & replace basement was in the $140k range. Both plus landscaping & moving, etc. Thank you for watching.

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201 Thank you for the Reply. Incredible, methodical work! Congratulations on your Retirement, I should be there soon myself..Although, just like you. I don't think I will be crafting wood bird houses as well. Maybe a nice pond project out back. Best regards!

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201 The whole thing looks like something I'd do... which terrifies my wife. So far I've only completely remodeled my existing walk-out basement into an apartment for my parents, replaced the siding on 3/4 of the house (last side gets done this summer) and had a 2nd floor added to the top of my detached garage plus other sundry things. I work slower than you, but I do still have that pesky full-time day job for another decade.

@@deanwoodward8026 My brother says It's too bad guys like us weren't born rich instead of so darn good looking.

Vielen dank. Ich bein froh, dass du heir bist

Our floor is a full 4" thick. When we drilled the foundation, we drilled 3/4" holes about 3" apart and drilled about 80% of concrete thickness . Demolition grout is available from Home Depot. The inside panel face is 4" in from the old wall. Panel is about 16" thick straight down. We did not need a separate footing, because the original footing still worked to distribute weight as it always did. The weight is bearing down on that 16" section, plus the portion of the old footing that was not excavated.

The costing basis - My partner Joe & I were both retired after careers in heavy industries and large commercial construction. Joe was paid wages, and I didn't take anything since it was our house. We spent $50k US on the project. The basement is a little over 2,200 sq. ft. Thank you for watching.

Thanks for watching - glad you're here

What i did, and what worked very well, is to dig the center out first so you have room to work. For every foot you go down, don't dig any closer than one foot from the wall - (if your cut is 4' deep, don't dig any closer than 4' from the wall.) You don't really need to pound it out. It'll keep. there are about 18 videos on the channel showing the whole underpin aspect.

Good reply Lee. In addition, a person should consider the material they are excavating and the moisture status. If the material is a sand or gravel with a binder such as around 5% clay that is fairly dry, you can get a lot closer to the wall than if it is a wet clay or silt, which will shear inward if it's not very stiff. Wet clay or silt I would recommend a 2:1 slope inward so it doesn't give much working room. Personal Safety is so important, and house foundations are next important.

No one around here Wisconsin, USA) uses rebar in basement slabs. When they poured the slab, they laid in a product called zip strip, to encourage cracks on outside corners and the post line. It worked great. Looks like a saw cut. Next time you need to break rock, research a product called Dexpan demolition grout. We used it to shear 12" thick footings stubs off. No dust, cheap, & easy. Thank you for watching.

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201 Interesting Lee, again great job. Wow, checked out that Dexpan, amazing stuff!!!

After we had the center excavated, we turned and dug a 5' wide socket under the middle of the wall. The wall works like a beam to span the socket. You can excavate an adjacent socket 5 days after you pour one. If you need faster, it's easy to jump around, but after a starting socket poured, I'd just keep going left & right of it with adjacent sockets from there. Suggest you take a little time and watch all the videos. You'll see stuff like demolition grout and keyways/ rebar to tie panels together. Glad you found the videos helpful.

Great question. We braced the first panel as you would expect & had no problems. We did the same on the adjacent panel and it pushed out. After that, I made some welded clips. Two of these were anchored to the wall above the panel being poured, and we put one more on the side, below where the floor would be in the adjacent panel recently poured. Then all we had to brace was one lower corner. The video has two great photos showing the brackets in use @ 7:41 and 8:13. They worked without fail and made for a straight wall. Also note that we poured the panel about 1/2 full, then took a 20 minute break to minimize pressure. Thank you for watching & participating.

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201 thank you for the reply. I watched it again and saw the metal brackets bolted to the original walls. Your project is a great example of using your knowledge, skills and problem solving techniques and enjoy it while doing it.

We power washed the rough underside of the footer which really helped the new wall panel hook up to the old work. The rebar is cheap insurance and really easy to do - drill 1/2" hole & pound a length of 1/2" rebar in. It only takes a few minutes.

re: The sloughing sand, there are soil stabilization techniques, like forcing in slurry from the top before you dig, but I have never used it. re: the reasons I didn't do flush walls; overfill covered the side of the original footing, prevented a horizontal path for moisture to follow, and allowed a space for the concrete to be dumped in. Our walls are a minimum of 10" - 12" under the old footing, plus 4" inside the plane of the wall. I suggest your walls go at least past the center of the old wall, or it could work like a pivot point. Thank you for watching

Cost was $50k US, plus another $5k for in-floor heat. We sold the equipment for a little more than we had in it. House appraisal went up $88k. It was a retirement project for brother-in-law Joe & me. It was either this or get fat.

Those are Perri MultiProp Shores. They are full thread aluminum adjustable, can be stacked, and can be used upside down. All kinds of lengths are available.They do not do a good job of jacking, but they are great shores. I think they are rated 5k# ea. Thanks for watching

We're in north central USA. There really aren't any regulations on underpins, probably because there are so few houses built without basements to begin with. The bottom of the original wall and footers are 1.5 meters below outside grade. Since the top of these panels are secured with rebar drilled into the bottom of the footer, the new panels are over-poured, the top of the panel is poured against the very rough and power washed underside of the original footer, the whole bottom of the panel is held in place when the floor is poured against it, and the weight of the house is holding it all in place, why would they require the underpin to extend another meter down? That would require excavation to almost 4 meters below the joist.

We considered that, but I didn't want any IC engines running under the house, I couldn't afford to lose the garage stall, and preferred to use the stairs rather than a ramp for pedestrian access (I have an after-market hip,) since the digging aspect was only about 40% of the overall project scope. I bought the stairs and conveyors for scrap, and sold them again for a little more than I paid for them. Overall I was at least cash-neutral. Thank you for watching, and for the discussion. It is sure to help the next guy understand the scope and process options better.

Andy DuFresne could hold his breath for a twenty minute crawl through a sewer pipe, though. I can't do that.

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201 In my best Morgan Freeman voice.."Given your fine skillset there is never a need to underestimate yourself!"

"Honey, this IS my hobby!"

Since this was DIY, the overall costs came in just under $50k all in, so the cost was comparable to what an addition would cost. Our basement added 2,200 usable sq. ft. Max allowed addition size would be 450 sq. ft. Re: lot size, we have a generous sized, high & dry lot with enormous oak trees & a lot of secondary growth. We would have lost some of that in the building of an addition. Next, the underpin project allowed me to take a surgical approach This is a manicured, quiet neighborhood, and few people ever realized there was a big project going on, because there were almost no outward visible signs of construction. Another next, an addition adds to the tax man & insurance man's perpetual costs. We had a very slight ping in taxes, and no change in insurance burden. Additionally, there is no extra ongoing costs to heat / AC the added space. Last, I had a lot of experience building automation equipment and buildings. This approach to underpin allowed me to leverage all that into a project with a terrific return on investment. Houses with crawl spaces do not sell around here. Example, this one was on the market for 16 months, and took a $70k ding because of the crawl space. Since we finished the project, we've had nine inquiries to sell. And one selfish reason; for me, this was a FUN and satisfying retirement project. Thank you for watching.

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201 Thank you for your detailed response. I guess I needed a little encouragement as I'm most likely doing the same to my house. The one major advantage I have is that my entire living space is above the garage and my crawl space is accessible through the garage via a full sized man door. I can easily open up the man door to allow more than enough room for a skid steer to drive in and out. from the garage. I loved your section by section approach. I was actually envisioning doing it that way my self, as it places the lest amount of stresses on the foundation. I have nothing but time so waiting for each section to set is fine with me. Thanks again!

Sorry, I don't know of anyone. I even offered to walk basement contractors here in Green Bay through the process, because there is an unanswered need for underpin projects, but not one was interested. Thank you for watching. Good luck.

There isn't any moisture in the sides or base. Substrate is mostly course sand. During construction, one 6' high sand bank stood vertically for two years. Our house is on a 20' high x 400'wide x 1/2 mile long sand & gravel ridge the glaciers left here. No sump pumps have ever run in this neighborhood. We poured wall panels during the wettest year on record, and never saw a drop in the basement. When we were pouring wall panels, we power washed equipment in the basement after the poor. Puddles disappeared in minutes.

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201how would ou have don it if ou'd had to? i am myself at that point now...

I would have dug out the socket, then knocked the dirt against the wall above down into the socket & cleaned the socket out again, then draped 6 mil vapor barrier down the bank. If you wanted outside tile, you could put a length in then, and a tile weep through the underpin panel. Then, pour the concrete in the socket. When the next strip of vapor barrier is placed, fold it twice & staple it together. After a few sockets, you could backfill that trench with a wheelbarrow and material from sequential sockets.

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201 sorry i dont understand this procedure... :-)

OK, broke down in sequence, rather than the run-on sentence I used. IF exterior vapor barrier had been required on my project, I would have done it like this: Step 1. Dig the underpin socket as normal. Mine were about 4'w x 5'H and dug horizontally under the footing at least 12" 2. Then, I'd go to the top side outside of the house. and with a bar or hand post hole digger I'd dig a maybe a 6" wide trench against the wall. I'd dig this by knocking the material down into the underpin socket I had dug below earlier. Then I would clean out that socket to finish shape. 3. I would next cut a piece of 6mil vapor barrier 9' long x maybe 6' wide. 4. I would lay that on the bank from the top finish grade outside the house, and down to the bottom of the new socket excavation. If drain tile is required, put it under the vapor barrier at the bottom of the socket. Use tile with filter fabric covering. Lay a stub of tile across the socket before you pour concrete so water can weep into the inside perimeter tile. 5. Fold the vertical ends of the vapor barrier along with the adjacent piece of vapor barrier. Fold at least twice & staple them together. 6. Form & pour the underpin panel in the new socket. 7. As you continue to dig future work, backfill the small trench you dug along side the original wall while holding the vapor barrier against it. If you wanted to add insulation against the old wall. now would be the time.

The bottom of the underpin wall panels are 5" below the top of the concrete floor. The top of the panel is poured against the power washed very rough underside of the original footing. Additionally each panel had a minimum of (4) 1/2" rebar pounded into 1/2"holes drilled on the underside of the original footing. During construction, the excavated walls stood with a vertical face for up to two years, which would indicate that there is very little moisture present, & almost no lateral pressure. The weight of the house helps all this stay in place as well.

I put it all through the shop to detail & service it. from there, it all sold over a few weeks (happily, for a little more than I had in it all.) It's all scattered throughout the upper Midwest, except for a few pieces that went to upstate New York.

Panels are about 18" - 19" thick. 4" of that shows inside the wall. The original concrete wall is 8" thick where there is siding, and 10" thick where there is brick. The outside of the old footers is about 4" from the outside of the wall.

Thankfully there are a lot of guys who would rather move than do an improvement project. You are probably in the majority. This project was funded 120% by the discount we got when we bought the house, and kept Joe & me active in our retirements. No headaches here, just challenges that were well-met and generously rewarded.

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201 Did you need any special permits and engineers to do this?

Before I retired, my career was in heavy commercial construction and automation machine building. Also, I tested/ received a general contractor's license in this city over 40 years ago, so I did my own engineering. I did detailed plans of the underpin project, and pulled permits for that aspect in addition to a fill permit for where we placed the 360 yards we excavated. There have been numerous city inspections along the way, and we never had any issues. Thank you for watching.

The excavator was a small JCB mini excavator that a company called "Crete Busters" converted to electric. I bought it in a retirement auction in Chicago. The machine operated on three phase electric, so I built a power cart/ tool carrier that converted my home's single phase to three phase. The conveyors were just random junk slider bed conveyors that I found on Craigslist (US) and modified them to accommodate what we needed. I sold all the equipment a few weeks after the excavation was completed. Thanks for watching.

Sorry to say, I don't know. I think there are only a very few guys around who do underpinning like this. Contractors seem to default to jacking up the house and putting a new basement under.

good eye - Weight is 1.2 US tons (or 1.1 metric tons) plus the bucket. Thank you for watching

Yup. Time was plentiful. I was recently retired, wanted to stay in shape, stay active/ add value, and this project aligned perfectly with my skill sets. I wouldn't describe money as "plentiful," but we got a $70k US discount when we bought the place because it had a crawl space, we invested just under $50 k to put a full basement in and increased the value of the home $86k. No regrets.

@@diycrawlspacedigoutunderpi4201 Good job Mr. Lee

It was a DIY with my brother-in-law Joe and me. Cost came in at $44k U.S. for the general construction, plus $9k U.S. for new some new plumbing, ejector, furnace/ AC, and in-floor heat w/ a new boiler, which also provides domestic hot water.

Yes, moving to a new house would be easier, but that's not how improvement projects work, or for that matter, how anything gets done anywhere.

I bought this place with this retirement project in mind, since it lined up so well with my skill sets. It was a challenge, good for body & brain, and will have a fantastic return on investment. No regrets.

Thanks. No one I know has a heated driveway - too expensive to put in and run. Moving snow is just a fact of life here, and it's actually a little bit fun. Ice does dam up in roof valleys not facing south or west. We just lay a heat tape in those areas and plug it in when temps get above freezing. Also, roofs are installed with a rubber sheet in the lowest 3' perimeter and up the valleys, so we accommodate the best we can. Thanks for watching.

Lifting this house 4' or more from neighborhood grade to achieve an 8' basement would look like a sore ass. In addition, we'd need to move out and re-landscape. Each one of those underpin panels are 16" thick minimum and tied to original and each other seven ways from Sunday. It is the same method we used to underpin paper mills. The original reinforced/ poured concrete wall and footings form a monolithic perimeter unit. The house sits on top of a 30' high, 1/2 mile long gravel ridge, and there has never been moisture present in this or any other neighborhood basement. Underpinning was absolutely the right method to correct the oversight of originally building a crawl space instead of a basement. The "work" aspect kept my partner Joe & me active in retirement on a project that lined perfectly with our skill sets. It was a good workout, challenging, satisfying, and fun, in addition to generating a fantastic return on investment and an awesome end result..

his method, if combined with outdoor waterproofing seal around entire foundation and outdoor stone trench and drain tile into a sump pit would mean bone dry even if the water table were a factor. You are never supposed to rely on the cement to keep water out on its own. Cement is just a giant sponge after all. That's why you seal the outside and have outdoor stone and drain tile feed into a sump pit to keep the water from ever touching your cement to start with.

I think when you say cement that you are referring to concrete. "As cement is the flour, concrete is the cake." Our house is on top of a 1/2 mile wide, 30' high gravel ridge. No one in the neighborhood ever had their sump pump run. There is no moisture present against the foundation.

It's clear that you don't know how home improvements and adding value works.