Digging 'bunker' under existing foundation

[MelH]

How do you do this?  http://www.oneofakindhouse.com/

How do you dig under an existing foundation without de-stabilizing it? 

Existing house with a crawl or basement foundation, attached slab garage... guy digs out a 4 story(!) 'bunker' underneath... takes him 15 years and lots of bags of quickcrete...

Why doesn't the house fall on his head???





Inquiring minds...

MelH

[MountainDon]

How do you dig under an existing foundation without de-stabilizing it? 

Very carefully!!       Or he's extremely lucky.

Too bad the article didn't go into that detail.

I think because he did it slowly, one small section at a time he was able to keep the load of the house distributed evenly.

Back home I recall a couple houses in the old neighbor hood having new basement foundations installed, walls, footings, floors. Those though had large support beams temporarily installed like they do for moving a house. One of those was a full two story, brick veneer and never showed a crack. 

[MelH]

Too bad the article didn't go into that detail.

I found an article... "From MARCH, 1990 ISSUE of DIRECTIONS: A Magazine for the Survivalist"
http://dnausers.d-n-a.net/prepared/misc/0390.txt

I use a very simple engineering system involving six-inch concrete pilings which later become pillars inside the poured concrete walls.  Outer walls and ceilings are fourteen inches (or more) thick with an abundance of steel reinforcement.  Inner walls are also made of concrete and steel, thus giving the entire project a honeycombing strength.  All concrete is mixed in the Base Room of the project.  Each concrete pour is interlocked with a tongue & groove effect to the adjacent walls with a carry- though of the steel rebar.

Still reading the entire article...


MelH

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Man, that is truly amazing!