The crawlspace under my A-frame is confined by a rectangular 40’x20′ concrete block wall. Headroom under the joists at the 40′ “hillside wall is 24″ .Headroom under the opposite 40′ wall is 40″. The footer at this wall starts at 2 ‘ under the soil. I like to brakthru the middle of this wall and make a 36″ wide doorway to the outside. The block perimeter wall does not have a poored header. ThePT sill lies on top of the top block course. I understand that I need to support my joists with a temporary headerbeam on jacks. These are my questions: 1. After sufficient joist support can I remove all blocks spanning 36+” and remove (cut) the footer under these blocks? 2. Am I safe to dig deeper to my headroom level of 7’ under tyhe joists without disturbing the abutting cutoff footers on either end?(Soil here in the North Carolina Mountains are hard and clay) Do I have to poor risers from my new footer to the old cut footer and how?
Thanks for the Help