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Posted by DanG on November 12, 2006, 8:23 pm
You certainly do have an unusual situation. Normal basement walls
would be sitting on a footing, hopefully with a French drain
system on the outside of damp proofed basement walls. It does not
appear that this is what you have.
Perhaps you could do 4' sections at a time. Work out a detail
that would accommodate your interior finish and allow you to
excavate and pour sections of footing in a leap frog fashion. I
am thinking you could perform this work and pour on the inside.
Plasticizer and/or expansive concrete with a vibrator would insure
good bearing for the walls. You would finally end up with a
footing and dirt seal that extended below your present floor. The
cold joints between pours will be natural avenues for water and I
see no good way to waterproof the exterior other than excavation,
but water has apparently no been a problem to date. I am
surprised you do not have any symptoms and I do somewhat agree
that if you have not had a problem, why worry now.
___________________________
Keep the whole world singing. . . .
DanG
> Hi,
>
> Half of our basement was dug down about 6 inches more than 30
> years
> ago. I just pulled down some wall panelling in the dug-out
> section, and
> discovered that there is about a 4 inch gap between the bottom
> of the
> foundation wall and the basement floor. I can clearly see earth
> fills
> this gap.
>
> Here are a couple of photos of the gap:
>
> http://jjlloyd.googlepages.com/basement
>
> The house was built in the 1920s, and the foundation is poured
> concrete. The basement floor is poured concrete. The earth is
> very
> sandy, and we do not have a problem with water via the gap.
> There are
> no cracks in the foundation wall, nor are there cracks in the
> exterior
> brick of the house to suggest bad settling. I have only
> uncovered a
> small section of the walls so far.
>
> I've had a couple of contractors in who suggest an expensive
> "proper"
> addition of footings. Another contractor suggested the earth be
> dug out
> several inches past the exterior of the foundation wall, and
> back-filled with concrete to make a sort of 1/2 footing. Or I
> was
> considering just filling in a few inches of concrete on the
> inside to
> prevent the earth from spilling inwards. But I don't believe
> that will
> add any structural support.
>
> Do I really need expensive several-feet deep footings with
> weeping
> tile, etc., to replace the earth that hasn't moved much in all
> this
> time?
>
> Any opinions are appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
> Jeff
>
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