OK construction buddies, need help and inspiration. My sons building a new home in our back pasture. Going to have a basement but no walk out. I know, I've tried to tell him he needs a walk out but it's not going to happen. Here's my question: I own a John Deere 555A Crawler/loader. I want to dig his basement to save him some money but I've never, ever did it before. The bucket is a yard & a quarter. All I've ever did is clean my fence rows. Where do I start? How do I do it? They are going to stake it tonight and I'm assuming they will over stake it for digging. I was going to scrape off top soil and push out of the way. Then I'm going to start digging the clay out and stock pile it out of the way for later back fill and leveling. I have a simple laser & pole but I've never used it either but I can figure it out. I'm assuming I'll need to go deep enough and wide enough. How much over dig on the sides is enough and how straight should my sides be? Stupid question but I'm going to do this and would really appreciate any help any one could give. Also, with a beginner like me how long do you think it would take? Thanks Jim B. from Missouri.
Overdig it about 3ft. 1/2 a bucket wide, or so. Ive never dug a foundation with a loader, but here it goes. NO the stake outs arent the walls, they are offsets, most likely at 10'. Just make sure you DONT undercut the hole, you will easily be paying in concrete what you saved by doing it yourself. So unless you can really make a grade with that loader, I would stay away. Youre not going to be able to make all the jogs (if there are any), so it will be a large square hole, more or less. Just shoot whatever stake you choose at one of the four corner steaks, compare to cut sheet and find your bottom elevation. You probably wont be able to make the step for the garage, so I would dig that out too, only there are going to be a few exrta courses of block there, again cutting into your savings. Maybe just have someone else do it
Another thought to consider is how solid of ground you are on. The track loader can make a mess of your footing grade if it's wet at all. I did a number of basements with a loader years ago, some worked out well others were a disaster. Could you move most of the earth with your loader and get an excavator or tractor backhoe to do the fine grading and the garage?
it would depend on how deep, large and how square you plan on making the hole. If the hole isn't real big and you have one side that is not as deep as the other ( house is built on a hill) than your machine could work. The bigger you make th hole past the footers the more back fill needed and if you plan on putting in foundation drains than that will require more stone (more money). If you do dig to deep than you have to fill back in with stone for the floor but the footings need to be with in a 1" of bottom or you will need more concrete. ( lost's more money). A simple square with one end open could work.
Make sure you take the time to have a conversation about how far you want the house out of the ground (Wall height - footing height - concrete reveal on exterior). If the walls are 9' the split between the bottom of basement footings and bottom of garage footings is typically 5'2" or so. You will want to talk to the concrete guy and see what he wants depending on the type of forms he has. Typically anytime a homeowner does their own digging it is not pretty and tends to cost more in concrete. I would at least get bids on getting done by an excavator in your area. You may find that it is not worth the time. My area you would pay about .75 cents a square foot for digging the hole only (you can backfill) on a 2K or larger home.
its fine but you will have to daylight the basement digging a basement with a loader is the only way we do it here but we day light all our basements. it is a very bad idea to just dig a hole it tends to turn from basement to pond in a hurry. with a loader it is almost a must to daylight it. i have dug probabbly around 200 basements and only two didn't daylight, they were the hardest thing i have ever done. to properly dig it you need to strip the top soil then start in at an elevation a bit above you final grade. dig the basement then go back and final grade it to the finish grade. you need to make you son under stand that a basement with no daylight will be a moldy leaking mess and is a good way to ruin a house.
he is talking about no walk out, not daylight with foundation drain, not the same thing.
Way back when, before excavators were as common as they are now, digging basements with a highlift was pretty much the standard way of doing it. There's no rocket science involved. If there is no "walk out" you'll need to make a ramp to get the machine in and out. Ideally, the ramp should be at the shallowest point, and/or closest point to where you'll be stockpiling the dirt. It's also a good idea to avoid putting it in a spot where you'll be undermining a future porch or patio etc. However it's staked out, the stakes should be far enough away that they won't be disturbed by the excavation work. 10' as mentioned above is usually ok. Working from the stakes, mark the corners of the house, and then move out from there to mark the overdig. 2 feet has always been the standard around here. If the house isn't a simple square or rectangle, that doesn't matter. Just go 2 feet wider than the shape of the house. If there's a chimney that sticks out on a side, don't forget about it either. What you need to do to keep good, straight sides, is to concentrate on digging along the sides first. With a machine that size, you probably want to cut no more than a foot or 18" at a time. Make a pass, cutting along one side of your proposed hole. In succeeding passes, rough out the other sides of the hole. Work from the center of each side, into the corners. Obviously, you'll have to work into one corner, and then turn the other direction to work into the other corner. If there's a spot that's too short to work at going lengthwise, you can use your teeth to backdrag, bringing the dirt down into the hole, and then scooping it up. Working in this way, you'll very soon have the hole roughly the size and shape it needs to be. When the perimeter of the hole has been defined, work at taking out whatever is left in the middle. Since you're only cutting a couple of feet at a time, you're going to repeat the whole process, as many times as it takes to reach the bottom. Expand your ramp as required, as you get deeper. Once you reach your finish grade, you need to be much more painstaking. What the other guys said above about getting the grade right to save on the cost of concrete is true. Try to keep from turning the machine anywhere near the edges of the hole, since that's what tears the floor up. As long as you keep the machine in the center of the hole, and just use the bucket out near where the footer is going to go, you should be ok. Again, I'll stress, do the sides first, before you do the middle. The reason for this is that, just as when trenching with a backhoe, the dirt on the opposite side of the bucket is what keeps the bucket cutting straight on the side that you want to keep straight. Having to press the side of the bucket against the side of your hole by steering the machine into it is very frustrating, and dosesn't give good results anyway. The last thing you want is to have the hole the right size up at the top, and too small by the time you get to the bottom. As far as the garage goes, that's always something we've done with a backhoe. Trench 2' wide where the footer goes, and be sure you're deep enough to be below the frost line in your part of the world. That's something that varies by location. If the foundation is going to be concrete block (which is what 99% of them are around here), be sure that your footer height works for some 8" increment. (48", 56", etc. bottom of basement hole to bottom of garage footer; of course, top of footer to top of footer will be the same.) I understand that in other places, block foundations are unheard of, and formed concrete is normal. Good luck, and let us know how things turn out!
Thanks to all who replied on how to dig my sons basement. My crawler, which has been doing some serious rock removal at my Brothers place will be returned this week. I need to check all fluids and vitals, replace one tooth and then get started. I think I've garnered enough information from this site to get started. I know it would most likely be better to have a professional do this but here's the rub. I'm not a operator. I just love dozer's and equipment. I purchased this 555A against my wife's wishes. She though I was nuts. Now that I have it, it would be a disappointment and a embarrassment to have the local dirt mover do the job with my equipment sitting there looking at him and his machine doing the work. Now does everybody understand where I'm coming from?
Wow. Now I'm not sure about this. Should somebody with that sort of wreckless attitude and terrible judgement be operating equipment at all? :cool2 (Just kidding of course, but you certainly have put a little extra pressure on yourself, haven't you? )
jboettcher - I understand the "if it's my baby I want to make it" thing. And that's fine it's not rocket surgery. You have all these experts at HEF to guide you along. I do have a suggestion for the son and this is a purely architectural/future marketing thing. I would highly advise a rear daylight/walkout basement . Now of course I have not seen the site so that is for you guys to decide if it it will work. The reason why I say this is the basement space is very cheap space that can be finished later to bump up the SF of the house for a better appraisal. Now you usually don't get the same $$$ per SF on your appraisal than your "above grade" living space but the cost to finish vs appraised value - you still come out ahead. If a daylight/walkout would work on your site, you can swap the $$ for the rear foundation wall and do any retainer walls needed to make it a walkout. You will have to pick up a wood frame wall for the rear basement wall but this is a small cost compared to what you get. I won't build a spec home (one for sale) without a daylight basement unless it is a slab. Even if you don't finish the opportunity of the future homeowner to finish and add living space is there. One example is a development I built that consisted of 61 TH with all but 7 having basements. The garage was a front entrance on the main level and the basement was daylight. (It was 3 stories) The basement finish was an option and we finished the one in the model. I believe I had 2 peolple choose for us to finish the basement - but I probably sold the other 52 units because the unit had a basement "they could finish later". Which to my knowledge only a handfull did - but we have been finished with this project for a couple years. The daylight, future finish basement is a huge marketing tool. I know most people tend to stay in the houses they build until they grow old but you never know what life will throw your way or an offer for the home that is to good to refuse. I view a home as an investment - get the best return for your money. Now this is probably the builder talking in me - just my $.02
I love the "way back when comment".... it's hard to believe I'm an old guy already... Digger242j has it absolutely correct; it's not a big deal - especially since you have a laser to check your grades with. I dug dozens of basements back in the 70's and 80's with JD 350 and 450 crawler-loaders; that's the way it was done... as soon as hydraulic excavators appeared on the scene around here, though, the crawler-loaders just disappeared... that doesn't mean you can't still dig a hole with one, though... JUst be prepared to spend a couple days doing it - it takes a while. You are all set to do anything that needs doing, though... a crawler loader with a detachable backhoe is just about an ideal machine for site work... the only disadvantage is SLOW. There are a lot of basements around here that are NOT walk-outs... as long as there are footing and underfloor drains that drain into a sump, or are "daylighted" out to a gravity drain, they are not a problem around here... and my area of Minnesota is far from being desert-like. I say go for it - you have the right machine for the job and by the time you're done you'll want to start another one. srs_mn
Half the basements here are still dug with Hi-Lifts, and only about a third of those are walk outs. I've never figured out how they get rid of the ramp, anyone care to enlighten me?
fill it in when the walls up ointhead
There are many, MANY houses, (mine included) in my area that dont have walk outs. Walkouts are usually only an option, and sometimes not even possible given the land to work on.
One way we have done it is to paint the dig lines on the ground & dig as deep as you need to go or as deep as you can straight down. This gives you nice smooth, straight walls which will not cave in as easy & helps give you an idea when you get below surface level where the edge of the dig should be. Just remember to not leave the trench open overnight or when you are not around. If someone or something falls into an 8 foot deep hole, you could be in serious trouble. We have built 90 + homes with basments & until the last few years, all were dug with a Case 450 & Case 455 track loaders with a removable hoe.
well i understand that some times it isn't an option so that is when we go for a crawl space or slab here. here if you build a new home you can not sell it with out a walk out. another fact is that you can't put a bedroom down there later because there would only be one way out in case of fire. a sump drain system is just something to fail down the road and cause problems. if you can't do a walk out the Right way is a crawl space/slab, if you can daylight it out in a manner that is reasonable than it should be considered mandatory. now this being said i know that some here will disagree, thats fine. i bet the guy that built the house i demoed today thought that laying a foundation out of one row of brick was a fine idea also. you can do alot of things but some times things are just a bad idea
deep ditches don't cave in?
Why not just put in a door and a set of stairs to the outside ground level?
Generally speaking it is the profile of the land that determines the type of home that the architect will design for a given lot.If it is level ground you can choose from a design with a full 8' basement that supports a level lot.If the ground is not level like on the side of a hill then the walkout becomes a choice.There are a lot of considerations when designing for a dwelling such as elevation to meet existing sewer lines or to insure that most of the material generated in the excavation can be used on site so you don't have to bear the cost of hauling it away.Other considerations might be filling a low area of the housing project with the spoils from the excavations to create more building lots. Anything is possible but building a walkout on flat ground unless you are building on a slab can create drainage problems that are best avoided and the result just does not "fit" the surroundings.Ron G
There are a few high-end homes I've seen around here where the achieved a walkout on a relatively level lot by creating a large sunken patio. They look pretty nice, but I'm sure they're not cheap since there's a lot of stone work. Joe
Walk outs here are done on flat lots all the time. Personally I think it looks better when the terrain flows with the walkout but people do them either way.
This would solve the problem fire/building code wise but would not be very marketable. If you are going to have living space in the basement it really needs daylight from windows and doors. The appraisal would reflect this in a lower per SF value for the basement finished space compared to the SF value of the rest of the home built "above grade". You really wouldn't get the most bang for your buck. It would be better to build living space "up" (say finishing an attic - if possible) than spend money finishing a non-daylight basement. I agree completely. This is done around my neck of the woods also and I do not like the results. And I have to admit I have built a few 1 level, split foyer homes over a "basement" which was a slab with wood framed walls - no backfill around the "basement". In essence they were 2 story homes but they stuck out like bumps on a toad. Not proud of it architecturally but they paid the bills at the time.
Diggen Well, we started last night. For those of you who have been following this my 555A Deere loader was at my brother's doing the worst job you could think of, digging rock. Hard rock. We finally finished and got it back. Last night we serviced the machien, replaced some teeth, ($100 a pop) and with what daylight we had left started digging the basement. That is my son started. I read everyones suggestions but my son did not so I was trying to supervise. Have you ever tried to supervise a 27 year old son who is anxious to get started? Finally I just sat on my tail gate and watched. I'm going to take pictures this week end and try to post them for all to see. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that the crawler makes it without a major brake down. He likes to take big chunks instead of small ones. This is their first new home and he is building it himself. His first home was a 100 plus old farm house which he remodeled himself. He has balls and I don't. I'll keep you posted. Jim From Missouri.
If you'd said 17 year old, I'd understand. At 27 he ought to be able to slow down enough to listen to advice. By now he's probably too big to spank though, isn't he? I take that to indicate that, rather than just being worn down, they were broken? It sounds like you're letting people abuse your machine. :cool2 As I described above, perhaps not adequately enough, a longer shallower pass will give better results. If he butchers the job, he'll have himself to blame. But if he breaks the machine...
When I got involved in construction initially it was 1969, there was one hydraulic excavator in the county, a Drott 40. There lots of TLBs but those were tiny by the standards of today and all were 2wd. Case TLBs were the "Construction King" series 430 and 530 IIRC. Deere and case 450 crawlers, if you wanted a "bulldozer" for heavy work there were a few TD14s and HD16s around. I think there was one concrete pump in the area, but not with the company I was with. A bunch of our mixers had auxiliary engines to run the drums, there was even a clutch and gearshift lever at the back to control drum rotation. Everything was poured off the truck and coal chutes were standard equipment, we wheeled a lot of footings. It was pretty common to double up crews where access was worse than normal and you would have half a dozen guys on the wall "pawing" concrete to get it around to grade. A lot of the holes we got were dug with a dozer. Square cuts on the long sides and a ramp on each of the short sides. As the cut got deeper the ramps got longer and steeper. I even dug a few in later years when I was running a Deere 450C. You moved a lot of extra material just making room to move what needed moving. You had to leave enough, or make enough, room for a mixer to be able to get along both long sides, or to all four corners, so you could pour the wall. It was absolutely cadillac when you could get to the whole length of the long walls and reach across the short ones far enough that there wasn't much pawing to be done. Ah for the good old days, NOT FLIPPIN' LIKELY!!!!!!!
Dayexco This gives you nice smooth, straight walls which will not cave in as easy
With an 8 foot deep hole you should bench it just for safety's sake. If you get a sand pocket or unstable material at the bottom the whole bank might sluff off. Or if it rains the whole side can erode and cave in. Also I've never had surveyor's stake offsets unless they were told to do so. They usually mark building corners and I offset them myself however wide I need it to be.
Thats a good idea
i would have just rented a 200 size hoe for a day to dig the hole and used the loader to backfill
why spend money on something else while you park one that is already paid for? seems like a backwards thing to do?
I'd like to see a picture of one .
I posted one on this site some time ago. Let me see if I can find it.
http://www.lawnsite.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=73900&stc=1&d=1172297136 I don't know if this link will work or not. The picture does not depict the walk out very well it is to the right of the picture. This house has ten foot walls. The lot is about 2 acres and varies by about 8" throughout. This type of set up is not at all unusual here. I am working out state for another couple weeks (laptop), when I get back home and on my home computer I can post some better pictures.
The job of a good excavator is to enlighten the builder or owner of what type of house suits the lot. If you have a level lot for instance and you want an attached garage and there's a high water table with no place for your footing drain to exit to daylite,a raised ranch is the way to go.Thus,if the NATURAL grade on the lot is sloping nicely to the rear,a walk-out basement is a real nice touch,NOT completely necessary,but convenient and a nice selling point in the future.Of course though,the stepped frost footing there has to be done with a backhoe or small excavator.
Garage footings Cool thread. I've never actually seen a track loader in use. I own one (Case 855c with hoe) with a bad motor. It belonged to an old timer who dug a lot of the houses in my town. I always wondered how it was done. Any way, about the 2' trench for garage footings. Our frost protection requirement is 36" and I was wondering how the masons get their forms set with only a 6" over dig on either side? A lot of times, we will dig the garage footings the same elevation as the house to save time. Very wasteful I know but half the time, there are people waiting to move in before the lot is even cleared.
It's 36" here as well. Froms? We don't need no steenking forms.... What we do, is to mark a line on the ground, where the face of the wall is going to be. Dig 6" outside of it, and the other 18" inside of it. If you get it accurate, you don't need forms. Just pour against the sides of the trench. You're making it 2' wide whether you do it that way, or set forms, right? It's a little more work to get the top of the concrete just right. To set grade, sometimes we drive a piece of rebar into the ground, and set the top of it exactly at the top of the concrete. Either that, or some 16 penny spikes, just stuck into the sides of the trench. Take some marking paint and mark above them, so you can find them. Either way, space them every four feet or so, and it's not hard to work from one to the next. When I was pouring a lot of them, I'd always put my rubber boots on and get right down in the concrete with a float, and make a nice smooth, even finish. Fortunately, I don't have to get into the concrete much these days. Most of the guys I'm working with these days will just stand at the top of the hole and smooth it down with a rake. I think that's a little too lazy. :cool2 Moreso than just garages, we've done entire developments of townhouses, (all with the ground floor right at grade), without ever having set any forms. The masons do whine a little, because it's tougher on them to lay block down in a ditch, but they've always managed somehow.
Ahhhh Haaa...so your the one that digs those stinkin narrow trenches and expects us to lay blocks in them!!!!
Pretty cool. We don't do much block. Only for fire walls. I don't know why. Probably time. I'm building a shop in my back yard and was thinking about doing stem walls. I was wondering who I was going to get to do the concrete if I did. If the building inspector is ok with it, I could do it myself. I could dig it perfect. I'm not a mason but I've seen enough block work to get the idea.
Next time we're doing one, and I remember to take the camera with me, I'll try to get some pictures. Yes, Squizzy, I'm the culprit. I didn't mention the few cases where we were substantially deeper than 3 feet. You probably heard them whining all the way down there....
Basically same thing here in NY where they still allow trench forming.Some building inspectors insist on formed footings which I think is a travesty since a trenched footing will always be tighter holding onto the ground and will not possibly shift sideways.On a typical 2' bucket,we simply go 1 tooth over the line.
Interesting how different things are done around the country. We over dig the garage footings by several feet. Everything is done by forming concrete no blocks except for elevators and such. There is almost always a split between garage and basement. Depending on depth of basement we are usually 1 foot to 2 feet in the ground on the garage footings. The backfill gets your coverage for frost.
I thought I'd go back a few posts and comment on something that was said: While a good excavator will certainly tell a builder what problems he's going to face in putting the wrong kind of house on a lot, in my experience, the excavator is always too late to make the difference. I've never been asked my opinion of whether a particular lot and house combination would work--I've only been stuck with trying to make them work. Any builder worth his salt already knows what house he's going to build on what lot. The excavator doesn't get a clue until he shows up and somebody hands him a print. On the whole, I don't think this is an issue with professional builders. If the builder/excavator relationship is such that the builder is consulting with the excavator ahead of time, that's something to be proud of. :notworthy Owner/builders, on the other hand... I don't think I've ever worked for one that had a nice, easy lot. They've all been, uh...challenging, to say the least. and, without exception, they chose a house package, and then went out and looked for a lot. One I worked on was supposed to have a two car attached garage, next to a "family room", on the right end of the house. The trouble was, that the street sloped downhill to the right, so that side of the lot was considerably higher. Somebody else actually dug that foundation (fortuantely), and convinced the owner that if the garage was at first floor level, both the front lawn and the driveway would be way too steep. The solution was to build the same house, but excavate the garage at the same level as the basement. Upstairs of the garage, they ended up with a family room big enough to play football in. A wonderful result, but not because of anything that even resembled a good match of house to lot.
basement digging a bit late but an interesting read
Most builders around me don't have a clue regarding earthwork.I will only work for ones that I can trust and will listen to what I have to say.If they try to match the lot to the house instead of the other way around,I won't be the excavator.
Do you have a bigger version of that? I can't read the text.
i will try a rescan when i have a bit of time
That is interesting, hope to see it larger. I think the same basic thing is printed by CAT in the operators manuel for my 953a. I remember reading it before i dug my first basement with that machine. Afterwards i thought, well thats swell and all but it didnt work out quite that way. I like the little pic of the guy on the wood ramp. Do you think anybody tried that one?
When the guys are wearing Fedoras, anything is possible. Seriously, why not put your ramp outside the basement excavation?:beatsme Backfill the ramp when the basement is backfilled, one and done. Old thread but interesting topic.