have to dig 6 – 8 holes 2′ dia by 4′ deep under deck that was converted to a sun room above . there is insufficient support for the weight above. there is 4′ of space between the ground and the floor above . soil appears to be clay . I was wondering if anyone knows of a better way than by hand . It is not possible to get machinery in to back yard .
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2 man auger....
right thru the floor...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Wasn't it Mr T that said most questions on BT can be easily answered with TNT?"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." - Mark Twain
C4... make it a shape charge...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
I'm butchering a movie quote:
very few problems can't be solved with a well placed charge of explosives.
jt8
Have you looked at an auger on a compact loader?
Those are the ones that you stand on the back or walk behind.
But with 4ft you are going to have a hard time with anyting because of the length of the auger it's self.
extensions.....
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
Is digging your only option? Can you beef up the grit to carry some of the load? What is holding this thing up?
currently on 6" concrete sonotubes 10' centres , they appear to have shifted . Trying to figure this one from pictures and buyers description as access not possible till buyer takes possession . Buyer reported problem to bldg insp, thus current owner not happy to allow access.
There is a training film on this subject, staring Steve McQueen, James Garner, et al. Called "The Great Escape." It can be done. Son, two grandsons & I did it that way in his crawl space in ILL. Not fun, but effective. That's why God invented the entrenching tool!
DonThe GlassMasterworks - If it scratches, I etch it!
Call Stan, the human mole.
Stan was an old mason that could dig a hole faster than any man we ever met. That old geezer was made of solid steel. He would've had two holes dug in the time it took to write this post.
blue
ps Now he'd had three done.
pps By the time your done reading this he would be pouring all the holes!
LOL, Stan must be my long lost cousin.
I crawled under a two hundred year old house once that had no more than 14" orf clearance under the joists. I dug a trench just to get to where I needed to place the piers, pasing out half filed five gallon buckets. Then I dug down four feet and passed in the mud.
The fun part is where the old wiring was hanging. It was knob abd tube. I saw that and figured, "Heck, there is no way in hell that stuff is still hot"
After I brushed it with a sweaty salty arm, I figured out the errors of assuming something like that.
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I was gonna reccomend a retired Spetnatz (sp.) Commando!
One of thier "training" tools is they put them in a frozen field and give them five minutes under live fire to dig in.
Then they roll across the field with heavy tanks.
Mr T
I can't afford to be affordable anymore
There is another approach to this. There is a technique which uses a high pressure hose, perhaps a blaster nozzle, and then a huge vacumm cleaner to suck up the water and silt.
There was an article on this in one of the Electrical magazines a couple of months ago. Perhaps you could Google of Ditchwitch. Some are truck sized units. They are especially useful in urban areas where there is a multitude of unrecorded underground utilities. The advantage, of course, is that the water blast will not harm PVC pipe.
If there is any rock involved, you might have to soften the situation up a little bit with your handy .59 caliber machine gun.
~Peter and Cat, the human cat
Free political prisoners like Martha Stewart.
Deck converted to a sun room?
What type of floor in the sun room now?
Could be easier and less labor intensive to remove parts of the floor and dig by hand or auger in the new piers. You are going to need to straighten up any sagging or shifting that has occurred anyway, so chances are there will a few cosmetic repairs to go along with the floor repair.
Or....C4
Dave
Foxfire,
I have a Dingo loader with an auger attachment that would do that quick. It will fit through a 42" opening. It will dig to 40" if you bury the head, and then you could do the last 8" by hand.
They can be rented.
Somehow, when confronted with this type of situation, I can always find a way to get her in there. My shoulders and back are pretty convincing.
Cole
Cole Dean
Dean Contracting
I don't think there's any EASY way to do it.
Maybe use short handled shovels and get 3 guys there. Two guys can dig, while the 3rd one takes a break to stand up straight and rest a spell.
And make sure you get paid well for doing it...
Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
Just pretend like there's some taters down there!Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel within us. - Eric Hoffer
A combination of all the replies seems to be your best bet. I've cut down spades to 2', screwed up UniStrut to the deck, hung buckets from the trolley wheels that go into the UniStrut and dug away filling and dumping the buckets.
But a 4' deep hole is going to be a problem for dirt removal. Around Denver there was a guy who built a portable auger. A trailer had the engine and it drove a hydraulic pump. He had lots of hydraulic hose. A frame held the first section of auger off the ground and had the hydraulic powered moter/jack on it. He started drilling, added sections of auger as needed and went 16' in my back yard. Haven't seen him in many years.
I think I would use "I" beams to hold everything up on jacks, cut or remove the deck floor and sagging beams (which will be right where you will need more support and be in the way). Use the handheld power auger mentioned with extensions. If you are lucky in that clay 2 guys can do it. Hit hard pan or rocks and the hand held won't do it.
Rebuild the floor as mentioned. Owner should have had it done right before building over it in the first place. Span tables? Why would anyone need a span table? Cheap then but now .......? Tyr
I was wondering if anyone knows of a better way than by hand . It is not possible to get machinery in to back yard ."
Foxfire,.
You need a "Pit Boss"
http://www.victorianpostman.com/
WSJ