Ot Basement ,,,,,wow

Working on back wall. House jacked and supported. Was just getting ready to knock block out and tear out section of footing when it decided to slide down on it's on . Pretty darn scary . I was on outside at the time . IT did a gracefull upright slide though , just more work tossing block out now. I was able to wrap cahin around footing and drag it out with skidloader in one piece rather than bust it up and haul out by hand . Productive day anyways .

Get ready for a ton of safety advice.

Lol ,,,oh yea! I know it's coming . Wouldn't even have posted it, other than to show what CAN happen even if you think you have all your bases covered .Ton of things I woulda coulda shoulda done different. But had planned around this somewhat in case it did happen.

what's keeping that other wall from doing the same thing,looks like sand.

I had not dug on the outside of other wall yet . This one was dug out down to footing level. Pretty much all hard pack creek sand . We did get lot of rain last week and side that let loose was low spot .

Well if'n the safety harassment team does lecture, pontificate, or otherwise speak, at least its after the fact, judging by the photos, did that section take a column ? You have made it so far though !

Demo is more dangerous than the actual construction, unpredictable.

With that space open, ought to leave you some working room now.

See you violated the rule, when going below an adjacent existing footing, with another footing, you're supposed to underpin existing footing first, prior to constructing the new footing, so what happened in the photo does not, well thats what the engineers and safety people will say LOL !!!

I have done the underpinning thing under civil war era brownstones in Manhattan, city code requires that existing footings, (well they did not use much of a footing in those days, rock and sand) to be underpinned in 4'-0" sections, no more than 12'-0" per day or at a time, in sequence of four, we label sections A,B,C,D, consecutively in layout, do "A" sections, no more than 4 one day, then "B" sections repeat and so on.

I can't wait to see it complete, your start to finish progress photos ought to be fun to look at at the same time.

A friend did this to an old farm house, used a 350 JD crawler loader to excavate it out, put piers in, house stood like that for years, he even lived in it, up in the mountains of eastern NY, they were taking bets in town as to when it would collapse, never did, though he never finished it, crazy what he did, nothing like you are doing,(which is a lot safer I might add).

Thanks for the input Billy . I always like expert advice ! I did bite off pretty big section at once. Yes it did take out one column,,I had plenty others up,,just in case. It is so much easier to work now with the extra room . Skidloader gets around lot better.
My dad said he dug basement under a house with his TD dozer, took muffler and seat off . cribbed up house and dug away . Maybe thats where I got it from ,lol. Gonna lose my weather here soon . Hope to get block up and backfilled before much longer. Seal everything up and finish last corner in the spring . Then get to start on garage addition an full story above that.

I have nothing to say, being at a loss for words.

Planned how? Did you make funeral arrangements? If you already knew it was dangerous, why didn"t you take more precautions? I know you"ve already done it, just sayin".

Planned as far as extra support poles I ment

When I did mine I never took out more than 15 to 25 feet of wall at a time and replaced it before taking out the next section. All went well that way.

Areo

To do what you are doing the entire structure needs to be supported on cribs. The other footings will fail even if only excavated on one side. Soil mechanics depend on even load distribution to retain shear strength, for example sides of banks sloughing in.

You've got a serious safety issue regarding the structural stability of the building. I am guessing there is not a building permit for the work.

You need some professional help.

The other footing are out , Beamed and cribbed . Yes there is a permit . Duely noted , thank you .

Only words that come to my mind are those of an old guy I used to fly with. "That scares me and I'm fearless."

Sounds like you have enough supports, just have to secure those sections before they move like that one did.

The forces imposed on the soil is dispersed in a 45 degree angle, so when undercut, like in the photos, no doubt in those soils, (sand or fine soils ?) could easily do what you have shown.

I see you have the others concerned about your methods, for a residential, home you have bent the rules a tad, but having extra columns, a decent size beam, worst case scenario already happened, no one was in the way and nothing compromised, though you are brave for posting here for unduly reminders of safe methods.