Hand dug basement

[Robert Huffman]

I remember a story from my childhood that my grandfather bought a house and hand dug out the basement. This was up north so the foundation walls were plenty deep. I just inspected a house in Virginia and saw my first basement dug out by hand but it was originally a crawlspace so the footers were visible at eye height and there was a mound of dirt under the footer for the fireplace and support columns. Now water from the back yard was getting to the soil under the footer and the wall of dirt was beginning to crumble. WOW. Asked to be kept in the loop to see what the structural engineer recommends.

[Jerry Peck]

I had an inspector friend ("had" meaning now deceased) who found a similar hand dug basement under a slab on grade house in Miami.

The photos were phenomenal as they showed an 8 foot basement with soil pillars left in place from the dirt floor to the concrete slab above.

We presumed that it was dug during the drug running days of the late-1970s and early-1980s (Miami's drug heyday).

Totally scary to be in.

[Dom D'Agostino]

Robert,

That's an impressive amount of dirt to move from under a home.
It's a rather simple fix in that all it requires is someone writing a large check...