How hard to dig foundations?

lardlikesdogs

Gas pipes, Main water pipe (could be old lead pipe one false move and it breaks) electric supply, Main drains ........all of these you could encounter don't dive in with a digger if you have never done it before.
Groundworks are very important just because you cannot see it don't think it will be a easy job.
Unless you have dug footings before then I would leave it to the experts.

muckybutt

Piece of cake !

Dug mine last year for our two story extension, I was anticipating a 600mm deep foundation. I dug a test hole and got the building inspector around to have a look, we are on chalk where we live - he took one look at it and said way too deep ! providing its solid chalk then 400mm is sufficent he said. Carried on with the rest of the dig with a mini digger £40 a day self driving it.

Once all dug out he came back had a look and said ok and signed them off, took me all of two days !

neneromanova

It's a shame the extension plans that the previous owners gave us for the little extension that's there didn't have the depth on them.

cyclonebri1

neneromanova wrote: »

I can get a digger which i guess would help. So the person to go to would be a structual engineer and they could help? I guess that wouldn't be cheap though.

I guess the first thing to do is go for planning permission to see if we could actually build the extension first.

No, not a structural engineer:wall::wall::wall:

Apply for planning if needed, apply for building regs which are needed.

Dig down for 3 feet at 2 feet wide or further if still soft or unstable. Then invite the council building inspector to pass or otherwise, forget the SE

Furts

muckybutt wrote: »

Piece of cake !

Dug mine last year for our two story extension, I was anticipating a 600mm deep foundation. I dug a test hole and got the building inspector around to have a look, we are on chalk where we live - he took one look at it and said way too deep ! providing its solid chalk then 400mm is sufficent he said. Carried on with the rest of the dig with a mini digger £40 a day self driving it.

Once all dug out he came back had a look and said ok and signed them off, took me all of two days !

Fellow mse users treat this advice with caution. Good practice requires a foundation to be dug to 450 deep to prevent frost attack. It might be that OP is in a mild, or sheltered area - chalk suggests Southern England.

Regardless, 450 would be a minimum for a new house.

SailorSam

I dug the foundations by hand when we were building our garage, it took forever. The Council inspector came out a couple of times and said he wasn't happy and wanted me to go deeper. The relief when he finally said they were Ok i could have kissed him.
When next door were building their extention they got a guy with a mini digger and it was all done in a couple of days, i think in retrospect that might be money well spent.

Furts

SailorSam wrote: »

I dug the foundations by hand when we were building our garage, it took forever. The Council inspector came out a couple of times and said he wasn't happy and wanted me to go deeper. The relief when he finally said they were Ok i could have kissed him.
When next door were building their extention they got a guy with a mini digger and it was all done in a couple of days, i think in retrospect that might be money well spent.

The bottom of the foundation should be natural ground. Sometimes people think they can hand dig, a little one day, some more the following day and so on. Then when the inspection occurs it is condemned.

A mini digger would be quicker, and not need these rest breaks.

notanewuser

force_ten wrote: »

the depth of footings required will vary greatly by soil type and site conditions, footings of 1000mm deep by 600mm wide in perfect soil conditions would be hard work to dig, but in certain soil types footing may be required to go down 2000mm or six foot deep in old money now that would be some real hard work

2000mm is closer to 7ft.