that's a lot of dirt... need help eating it?
this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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Sorry, we already fucked it all
icing 😋
Zombies.
Help me understand what the starting condition was. This is a single story, freestanding home and that was constructed with <6 ft ceilings (<1.8 meters). So you ripped out the floor, then dug down through 2+ ft of dirt, so that without moving the ceiling, the new floor is be 8 ft (2.4 meters) from floor to ceiling. Do I have this right?
Does this mean all your windows are now 2 ft taller than they were? Being 1922, I presume the walls were supported by footings, but did they footings remain as-is and you dug around them? Are the footings still below the new floor level?
It originally had a shelf foundation which took up a large amount of space as the shelf comes inward and eats useable space. The shelf was removed and we did foundation underpinning.
The windows are now two ft higher. It hasn’t been something we are bothered by.
Me starting to web search these new words "I don't have time for a new special interest I'm playing with fire on this one"
TIL shelf foundation. I've not seen these here in California, since we don't tend to have basement spaces in general.
But wow, you've moved literal tons of earth as a home improvement project. As the other comments remarked, this must have been quite the workout.
After World War II a lot of the soldier came back looking for work and many of them dug out the crawl spaces in our area plus added the shelf foundation. This is according to my father in law. I trust him but I haven’t looked into it further to confirm.
I made a 400sqft patio by moving 2 tons of pea gravel and 4000lbs of patio tile one tile at a time. In July heat.
What gets you is the tendonitis. But fuck decks, patios rule.
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The shelf was removed and we did foundation underpinning.
Damn.
If I understand it right, its just the basement space. The actual house is not really touched. So any windows were probably up high anyway as the rest was underground anyway.
But now they have a taller usable basement space. Instead of what was essentially a "tall crawlspace".
I can't imagine they lowered the actual house floor to make the main house taller. Indon't think that is even really possible. Plus I doubt you could legeally sell a house with 6" ceilings on the main floor (in most places).
LOL, my dad and I did that to turn our crawl space into a 6ft tall basement. That was something. You're in my book for free beer if I had any.
What a bonding experience lol. Very cool. That’s a lot work going from a crawl space to a basement.
Don't ask me how's my back today. That was many years ago. Also I forgot the number of times I hit the top of the crawl space basement door hole.... Because I hit it pretty hard.
I have to say, I'd have rigged up an auger or conveyor to carry the dirt outside.
You would have calves of steel after doing all that with buckets.
They probably already had calves of steel. Now they have cows of brass.
Bulls of Iron, even.
Heffers of Creamed Corn
Steers of steel
Cattle of Cast Iron
Have you every watched Colin Furze, out of curiosity?
Love his underground lair
I had a family memeber that wanted me to do something similar. I ended up just getting started with the bucket thing and got into a groove. There are definitely smarter ways to do this.
I haven’t taken a better pic of the basement with floor poured. But you get the idea.
How many spoons did you go through?
Your quads must be massive now with calves to match!
You're making a tunnel, right? Right? Make sure you wipe anything online that could let people figure out who you are and never show photos of the outside or people.
Last time the Great Work was interrupted by stupid inspectors and code enforcers and such. That can't happen again. The Great Work must be completed.
That is a LOT of Lowes pails.
Not a single one failed me. 26 total.
I would put it to you that Horrible Freight buckets are superior to Lowes pails. But I'm not sure I could win that argument thanks to your demonstraion of effort and tenacity.
As someone who owns multiples of both, Harbor Freight buckets are definitely worse than Lowe's buckets. The Harbor Freight ones never have a flat bottom, which makes it super hard to scrape out all the thinset/hot mud/joint compound/cement/whatever else you're mixing in a bucket.
That's a feature, not a bug. Like mixing bowls have a rounded bottom also so it's easier to mix things in.
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This is incredible, what an insane and amazing project. The time, planning, expense and effort is incredible. Congrats on huge progress and making it to the end. I’m amazed.
I Just finished digging a 90’ trench 16” deep for drainage by hand over the last month. I understand digging and effort. You are amazing.
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What, no basement? Seriously though, I'm still patting myself on the back for digging out 50 buckets from the crawlspace under my house. Hats off to you!
y'all got any more pictures of the work in progress?
Yes. I’ll post them once I have a minute to find them.
Keep digging m8! Some inspiration:
Would love to dig a bunker in the garden, but the materials to support the walls/roof seem somewhat expensive for just a fun little project. Plus my garden is pretty small so there wouldn't even be much to it. Like 50m² or so is the entire garden and should probably keep away from the walls of it to avoid undermining someones foundations, that would probably annoy someone.
That’s quite the achievement. The only time I’ve been involved in work like this, the team made use of a slope beside the house (sloping away) and dug through it to get a small skid steer in. Still, was a massive amount of work because digging stable soil with a loader bucket essentially doesn’t work.
Did you get quotes on the labour? Must have saved a big pile of money!
I did get a couple quotes. One was 20k the other somewhere around 30k. I knew going in we didn’t have the funds for foundation work plus excavation. I ended up spending 2500 for a dumpster drop off/pick up. This was a weekly event.
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