Advice on Foundation Excavation
- Thread starter JoelD
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dave1949
Super Star Member
I got this turned around. It should say lower than the bottom of your footer which is 33" below site grade level, not 33" lower ....
You do want the drain to be below the 4' frost line, but as long as it is running away and down with a 1/8" to 1/4" per foot slope, it doesn't matter how much deeper it is than the bottom of the footer, just so it runs downhill from the bottom of the footer. That's clear as mud
Dave.
OP
JoelD
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Goes to show why the pro's are in the know. Just spoke with excavator, he said no problem getting to daylight, lot is laid out perfect for it.
All treeing, stumping, digging, leveling, foundation, drains to daylight, finish grade, gravel driveway, through to grass for what I think is a reasonable price.
It's amazing the difference a bunch of experience makes, I'm looking at it one way and an expert sees it totally different.
Joel
All treeing, stumping, digging, leveling, foundation, drains to daylight, finish grade, gravel driveway, through to grass for what I think is a reasonable price.
It's amazing the difference a bunch of experience makes, I'm looking at it one way and an expert sees it totally different.
Joel
dave1949
Super Star Member
David Devuono
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The excavator guy is not the inspector. Even if you can't run it to daylight, if your lot is sloped, you should be able to run it to a dry well, basically a sump pump sized perferated basin which is filled with stone and burried away from the foundation and below the foundation level. Also please remember to install a six mil vapor barrier in the crawl space. You can put dry sand on top to protect the plastic. Tape all joints or you will forever have a musty smell in the house.
tlbuser
Veteran Member
A dry well is difficult to size without knowing more about the amount of water on site. What happens when your sump pump pit gets full?
mikefromnh
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I'd look into the cost difference for a full foundation. Around here crawlspaces are looked down upon when it comes time to sell. You would have extra space until you sell -- and then I bet you would get the money difference back and then some.
my .03 cents (inflation)
my .03 cents (inflation)
Hi Joel,
I have excavated a couple of foundations with my CK-20 and backhoe. Before I had my tractor I have built at least 50-70 house and garage foundations as a licensed contractor.
By all means get with the concrete man or mason before you start. If he was like our crew of block layers they will want the excavation to grade and set up for an accurate job and to save them selves. Lot's of hand digging. There is nothing worse than to get to a job site and find out it's not deep enough or maybe not dug square so you have to go to work by hand because the equipment is long gone.
We used to get to the site before the track hoes and dozers arrived and using a bright ground paint mark the outside dimensions. We painted the outline of every corner and then marked some dashs for walls. The operator for the track hoe we generally used then usually bailed the entire area out in the case of a crawl space and went 2-3 feet outside each corner for us.
We had the excavator take the whole grade down to either the top level of the footing or maybe the bottom level depending on the soil type. After that we saw to it there was enough sand to fill the floor level at least to the top of the footing. If you are going to provide for a perforated drain hose around the exterior and it's at footing grade make sure to provide a few drain holes through concrete footing to a sump so you can get it pumped out from an inside sump pit. Of course this does not pertain to sites where you can run the ground water to daylight unless you are tiling inside of footings also.
Just a few more thoughts. If you are going to only dig basically the footings with a small tractor You might do pretty good but if you bail the inside that I spoke of quite honestly it will take forever with the likes of your CK30.
good luck with your job.
rimshot
