How To Dig Out A Basement

We just dug out the basement for our new house and you’ll never believe what we found.
First, my foundation contractor came by and staked out all of the corners of the basement.
Then I measured out three feet from the stakes and sprayed a white line the whole way around the perimeter- this is called an overdig.
We’re going to dig to the white line so there’s room to work on the outside of the foundation walls.
Next, I started stripping off all the topsoil and putting it in a pile- we’ll use all of this later when we grade up and put in a yard.
Topsoil is expensive so I don’t want to waste any.
At this point I pull up the foundation stakes and move them out to the corners of the white lines- I try to leave these in as long as possible so I can see where to dig.
I’m careful not to dig too deep so I don’t mix in clay with the topsoil.
Here you can see the difference between the two- the clay is more yellow.
Once the topsoil is gone, I set a benchmark for the bottom of the foundation. This will stay in place until the footings are poured.
I use it to set my laser level, so I know exactly how deep to dig.
This house has a walk-out basement, here you can see the slope of the land. I want to dig in horizontally and then go straight up at the front.
With this type of foundation only the front of the basement is all the way under the ground.
It wasn’t long at all till we ran into shale. I’ve had people say you’ll never know what you can find in shale and you should be on the lookout for fossils.
You’ll never believe it- only a couple of feet down and we ran into gold dust and below that we found some diamonds; then, at the very bottom we struck oil.
Ok so all that’s a joke, but we did find an old oven and a rusty load binder.
Seriously though, this shale is valuable to me. I’m going to use it to build up the driveway-this will save me thousands in gravel.
Here you can see on the right I have a pile of topsoil, shale in the middle, and then clay on the left.
I like to clean off any topsoil that’s hanging over the top of the dig-that way it doesn’t wash in when I rains.
Once I get close to final grade- I keep checking with my laser and spray paint on the ground how much deeper I need to go so I don’t accidentally over dig.
Here it is all finished up. Let me know in the comments what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever found while digging. @hausplans

#build #howto #dig #basement #excavate #construction #diy #contractor #tools

[anthonymalliris]

I found gold while digging a lake. It stopped operation for 2 years and ended up paying for all the work and building the log cabin and still had 22 ounces left over.

[XRakkgruntX]

I was digging a foxhole when I was a soldier, I had made it armpit deep and was working on widening it to about three feet. As I was digging on a wall, I dug into a snake pit, snakes started spilling into the foxhole and I set a land speed record for getting out of a foxhole.

[ROGER]

I live in rural Illinois, and the best thing I found while digging was a beach ball-sized red granite boulder. It originally came from northern Canada and got here during the last ice age, carried by a glacier more than 10, 000 years ago.

[garygingerich]

30+ years ago I was digging footings with a Ford backhoe for a cafeteria at Warner Brothers film studios in Burbank, California . About 3-4 feet deep I dug up a very old and rusty Deusenberg . It was kind of a big deal and Jay Leno came over with a bunch of " car guys", they are the ones that identified it.

[prinzga]

Rebuilding the wrap around porch of our house. I unearthed an old Prince Albert Can/tin. Inside was a non functioning 14k Elgin pocket watch and 7 Morgan Silver Dollars. I still have it all in my office on display.

[BrinnerDang]

I once moved a mobile home onto a lot which previously had an older and smaller home with a small mechanics garage. I needed to put in a new electrical service, including a larger pole which I managed to haul home by loading it through the split rear window of my old pickup truck (yeah, I wouldn't recommend this step with a newer model). I started digging with shovel, Pulaski, and spud bar first thing in the morning. I was about ten inches deep and working the spud bar when suddenly *WHOOSH* the bar nearly disappeared into the ground and I almost fell on my face. Once I regained my composure and my footing, I felt around in the hole and found the lid to a 50-gallon barrel that the previous owner had buried (probably full of discarded oil ): Once I hammered in the lid, I was looking at a steel-sleeved hole about seven feet deep, slightly deeper than I wanted. I threw some rocks into the bottom, found some fill dirt, and had my pole completely planted in about an hour. The missus came home later that evening an found me drinking a cold one on the porch and looking proud about having finished the job in record time and with hardly any mess or fuss. :D

[Cranemanw]

I was operating a Case 580 Super E backhoe for John Burns Construction Co. trenching for new utilities under the southbound lanes of Cicero Ave. in Chicago. About 200' south of Archer Ave under the middle, southbound lane, almost perfectly centered in front of a CTA bus turnaround we uncovered an old railroad tanker car laying on its side, the wheels toward the bus turnaround. The side was stoved in pretty good and it was OLD. The tank was riveted and the walkways on the top and along the sides were made of wood. The city came out for a look see and decided to leave it in place so we diverted several feet towards the curb side and continued on our way. After we passed, the crew patching the roadway covered it back up and paved over it. I know for a fact that the tankcar is still there. Nobody has dug the street up since we uncovered the car, this was around 1984.

[bobbyburch]

I used to be a home builder in a historically populated area and before waste management facilities they just used to bury trash wherever. I would constantly hit pockets of 100+ year old trash that would always produce wild finds. Guns, bottles, ww1 dog tags… all kinds of crazy stuff

[rossdtool]

This video has the most interesting comments of any YouTube video I’ve ever seen.

[leahpia]

My dad is a contractor and when digging in a small town he found a bunch of jars from early 1900s. When cleaned off discovered they were human specimens from an old doctors office.

[VaticanToo]

In the early 60’s, the house I was raised in was across the street from a field. It was originally the location of an old dump. I used to go there and dig a large hole down a couple feet and would dig up old glass bottles from the early 1900’s. Collectors came from around the state to dig for collectible bottles. I had bags full in my father’s storage shed. He threw them all away when I moved out.

[vigorousboredom]

When I was a small child in Arizona back in 1980, me and my 3 older siblings were playing in an area that was being excavated for a new housing development and we happened upon a lot of indian pottery (pottery from native Americans) just strewn out all over the ground. It most likely came from the Hohokam some 500-800 years ago or so. My older brother even found an indian bead. I think it might still be stored in my parents' attic to this day.

[SeanRittberg-rmsc]

We recently had an access path built for a project we were doing. When it was time to remove it, we rented a toro dingo. They are so much fun and it is easy to learn the controls. The ability to interchange attachments is a life changer. Anyways, we were removing all the rocks and I found 3 geodes. They probably aren’t worth much, but when they were washed off they looked cool.

[KeithOlson]

Some thoughts:

1. If you add 10% biochar by weight to your topsoil, you won't have to water _nearly_ as often. You can look up all kinds of videos on easily turning waste wood into biochar.

2. A 'rotary trommel' will make short work of sifting what you dug up into usable sizes. You can either DIY one or probably rent one locally. (Talk to local landscapers.)

3. If you end up with extra clay, look up 'clay from dirt' for easy methods to turn most of it into pottery clay that you can sell.

Cheers!

[kurtis]

i used to live in Germany. i was digging out for a new shed and i found an artillery shell back in like 2008

[americanangler]

Napa California, while digging down about 3 feet for a retaining wall footing in my backyard I found an obsidian spearhead. I took it to an expert in Sacramento and he told me it was between 5 to 7 thousand years old.

[MyLevelheaded]

dad and i built a camping facility while putting in the sewers we dug up crawfish... knew water table was high but never in a 1000 years did i envision it would be a living ecosystem....

[LauraPeregrine]

I found a row of bricks (not mortared together); I think they were making bricks there maybe in colonial times. The bricks were under a tree root of a 3’ diameter tree. Every spring new chunks of bricks have made their way to the surface. I have lived here 40 years.

[sylmarine]

I lived in Mexico part of my childhood and once on a visit to a farm near a city called Puebla we were walkiong along a rain drainage ditch and we found the remains of a fallen soldier of the Mexican revolution on one of the walls in the ditch. Scary and awasome experience.

[silverrose]

Husband was praying about letting go of past relationships. He was digging in back yard an found a glass Heart ❤he gained the courage to be ok now and to let things go .