Hi Ren, I thoroughly enjoy your show and respect your knowledge of home renovation. I'll try to be brief. I'm interested in lowering the floor in my basement about 6". The house is 80 years old and has no footings. I want to reinforce the walls before i dig out the dirt and skim coat of concrete flooring. I thought if I dug down 10" about 6" away from the supporting walls (5" of which would be below where the wall ends), and built forms in 4'increments and poured concrete about 2' up the wall, that should prevent the walls from coming down all around me when I dig out the rest of the basement. If there is a better way could you please tell me. To have the pro's come and redo this thing will cost me a mint. All I really want is a concrete floor and a few extra inches of headroom. If I have the right information I'm not afraid of the grunt work. I need some guidance. Keep up the great work and Thank you.
Answer:
I guess both your messages ended up coming in but I'm afraid I'm not going to be of much help because your project scares the daylights out of me. Particularly without footings, I can almost promise you that before you excavate more than a ten-foot length of any wall, you'll be wearing much of the superstructure. I'd far rather pour the floor with the proper gravel bed, drainage tile imbedded in the gravel and then a three or four-inch concrete pad. Now that we've taken away at least nine inches of ceiling height, we can rent beams and jacks that will raise the house as much as you want and then lower it again onto a concrete block foundation wall extension. This is safer, cleaner, less work, more efficient in space gained, etc. etc.
