Tag: dig out

Basement Dig Out – Part 3

June 3, 2015 / / 0 Comments
Sarah using the digger

Sarah using the digger

I’ll be honest; I’m not sure how many “parts” to the dig out there are, but this is Part 3. It kind of feels like it’ll go on forever. We filled our fifth heavy debris dumpster in a row and took back the mini-excavator. I’d like to say that means we’re done, but instead I’m saying that “principle excavation” is complete, which is just another way of saying that we’re not done. What remains to do is finish clearing the dirt from the footings, remove a few piles of loose dirt including the dirt ramp we used to get the digger out the back door, and level everything, probably by renting one of those heavy rollers you fill with water. The bottom line is there’s more than a few wheelbarrows of dirt yet to haul out, and a lot more work to do.

Digging for new back steps

Digging for new back steps

The last thing we used the digger for was to excavate a pit behind the house. This is where the new outside basement steps will go. Having the steps go up to the left makes more sense since it’s toward the sidewalk that runs along the side of the house and to the currently nonexistent garage, but it requires some reconfiguration, by which I mean busting out the existing concrete retaining walls and stairs and then putting in a new one. With the steps going to the left, we can eventually put a deck on the right side of the house.

In addition to the final clearing and leveling, we also need to clean up the inside edge of the footings so that it’s even enough to finish the walls down the road. Exactly how we do that “clean up” remains to be seen, but it’s stone, so probably hammer and chisel, concrete saw, and angle grinder. Of course after everything is nice  and clean and level we have to dig trenches for the plumbing and weeping system, so we’ll be busy for a while yet.

Because we have to take out the concrete walls and there’s undoubtedly more dirt to clear for the stairs, there’s a strong likelihood we’ll need yet another dumpster in the not-too-distant future. Also, just a heads up to anyone planning an extended rental from Home Depot: a “month” is four weeks, so if you bring it back in thirty days it costs extra.

Basement Dig Out – Part 1

May 4, 2015 / / 0 Comments
Loading dumpster

Loading dumpster

It’s time to start digging out the basement! We got the first heavy debris dumpster in and last week I took out the concrete back steps leading out of the basement with a sledge and the rotary hammer so we can make a ramp. I used the concrete saw to cut out a section of patio at the top of the stairs to make the ramp more gradual, then put in a section of shingled plywood from the garage roof so we could start bringing wheel barrows up.

Patio cut
Removing steps
Finished ramp (also Derek)

We got the leftover concrete that didn’t fit in the previous dumpster loaded, along with the pile of bricks and dirt that I’d pulled up by hand. Just that was enough to fill the dumpster to the point that we had to close the door. Then we started using the ramp and platform I built to dump full wheelbarrows into the dumpster.

Mini excavator

Mini excavator

Saturday I picked up the tool that will help make the dig out just a bit easier: a mini excavator. After a quick review of a Youtube video for a similar model, we got the excavator into the basement (I wound up having to take the door jam off) and started digging. The bottleneck is definitely the wheelbarrows. The excavator can fill a wheelbarrow in two buckets, so it took some practice before we worked out a solid system for working efficiently. About the time we’d worked it out, the first dumpster was full and we had to stop.

While we wait for the next dumpster I’ll start clearing out the footings along the wall and get our depth figured out. Up to this point we’ve been winging it, and we don’t want to go too deep! Using the excavator is fun, but I’m still sore from pushing all the wheel barrows of dirt up the ramp. We’re expecting to have three or four dumpsters all told, so this process will probably eat up the better part of a month.

Basement Plan

January 28, 2015 / / 0 Comments

We’ve worked out our plan for moving into the basement. Part of that is figuring out how we’ll lay out the space, given that eventually it will be an entertaining space, not an apartment. To that end we’ve come up with a way to integrate some temporary bedrooms into the plan without having to change around the walls we want in the finished product.

Basement Apartment Plan

Basement Apartment Plan

In the plan you can see some of the walls are white and some are green. The white walls represent the finished product. We’ll build these walls with the intention of leaving them there. The green walls will partition off some bedrooms and will be temporary (they won’t actually be green). We won’t anchor them to the floor and we’ll take them out as soon as we’re done living there. The top left is where we’ll have a kitchen and laundry space. We’ll put in a utility sink that will serve for the kitchen but we can leave it there for future use. The laundry is there now and it can stay there until we finish the second floor, since it can share the sink plumbing and vent out the back window. We’ll put a counter on top of the washer and dryer to use as a kitchen prep space.

The wall in the bottom right corner is to close off the gas meter, which is a little scary and we don’t want the kids to play around it, hang from it, break it, blow up the house, etc. Eventually, People’s Gas is supposed to move it to the outside, but for now it’s stuck where it is. We may try to come up with something simpler, but this also gives us some closet space, which is otherwise lacking. We’ll set up shelving where we can, but storage will definitely be at a premium.

To get to this point we need the electrical run, the windows replaced, the concrete floor dug up and the foot of dirt removed. Then we start putting stuff in: the interior weeping system, new plumbing (that’s when we have to move out), gravel, rigid foam, wire mesh, PEX tubing for radiant floor heat, and new concrete. With the floor in place we can build the permanent walls and finish the bathroom so we can move back in. Then we put in the sink, build the basement stairs and the temporary walls, and finally move into the basement!

There will be a lot of other projects along the way, some big and some small. Near term I need to install bracing between the first floor joists before the electrical is run, install new lintels over two of the front bay windows, and try to patch some leaks in the gutters to stop water from coming into the basement. We may take the concrete out through the front window to a dumpster on the street, but to remove all the dirt and bring in the new gravel and concrete we’ll tear down the back porch and the garage. We’re also changing the back basement steps including a new retaining wall, and after we lower the floor we need a new back door. Even with some chunks of this work being done by contractors, it’s safe to assume that this will take us most of the year.