We were hoping to drop the basement extension down a foot below the current level and have a step down into the in-law suite to accommodate a higher ceiling. The plumber OK'd this down to 11 inches, but we ran into a problem when they checked the depth of the current house's footing. It only went down 8 inches below the current level, so if we wanted to drop the basement slab the full 11 inches available to us, we would need to underpin the current basement by 5 or 6 additional inches. While that doesn't sound like much, it's a structural change and would need to be engineered, permitted and constructed. For around 5 grand and a couple of weeks work, we decided that the extra 4-5 inches wouldn't be worth it and moved ahead with the 7 inch drop.
Anyway, on to the pictures!
In removing the soil around the old stump of the cherry along the fence line, they ended up removing much more than they originally planned. No big deal and it got rid of the whole stump.
The view back up tot he kitchen window form the bottom of the pit.
This is the door in the laundry room on the basement level (now the first floor, I suppose).
The rock-hard clay soil makes for pretty solid walls of the pit. This has saved a lot of time by allowing the crew to dig without having to pause and shore up constantly.
On the right hand side of this picture, you can see the corner of the egress window hole that will be in the basement bedroom to comply with code.
Here you can see that the footing of the original house (partly buried under the soil) needs to be chipped away to abut the new pad to the existing foundation.
They started a huge pile of soil that they will need to back fill the basement walls and re-grade the back yard to slope away fromt eh new addition toward the garage.
The view of the pit from the stump of the cherry. Three days work!
Some in the family are still worried about how all this is going to get cleaned up.
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