OTdigging a basement

I am preparing to build a new home. I am going to build it myself. I was planning on haveing the basement poured by a contractor. A friend of mine,with more money than sense, just bought a good used backhoe. He told me that I could use it to dig the basement. I am familiar with large farm equipment, but don"t have much experience on a backhoe. I am thinking this dig would be better left to someone with more experience due to possible cave in ect. What do you guys think. The hole will be about 10ft deep.

If this hoe has separate levers for each function it's about like learning to play the piano, IMHO. I've only tried it once, then let the owner take over.

Is it going to be a walk in type basement or a full 4 sided one. If 4 sided yes get it done if walk in type you can do it safely with that back hoe. BTDT and way back when as in 45 plus years ago my dad dug a basement with a simple loader tractor and a slip scoop pulled behind a tractor. Took a lot of work and a lot of hours but he got it done and safely at that
Hobby farm

Don't know what size house you are going to build but a 10ft deep hole is a lot of dirt to move. Would be cheaper to get someone with a track loader to do it for you. You could dig all the footers with the backhoe. My .02 DH

Back in the 50's when Schools were consolidated my dad bought an old one room school and the acre of ground it sat on.He wanted a basement so he jacked up one side of the rock foundation and with me and my brother ,one on each wooden arm of the slip scoop and his 47 chevy panel truck for power we dug a basement under that old school house.Lots of shovel work to get it square and concrete for the floor which we knew nothing about,but we got the job done,not really pretty but we thought it was great. I was 10 years old and my Brother was 9.He died with a Heart condition in 2004.Dad died in 1981,I'm the only one left to remember those days with my family.

if you have plenty of time on your hands or if it is a real large bucket ok but if you want a 10' high wall only dig 9'down or alot of cutting will need to be done afterwards to get below the top of the wall for water runoff. I just spent 6 years working for a wall company doing res. walls and foundations. With the const. slow down I was not one of the most important people there and was high paid so I got laid off. only 2 of his guys that were formen are still there the rest are laborers. Couldn't take enough of a paycut and still drive 50+ miles to work then back.If you have any questions I will try to help e-mail is open

Reminds me of digging a septic tank and field lines by hand. School was out the day after John F Kennedy was shot. My dad made me 11 years old and my brother almost 10 dig a hole for the septic tank and three hundred feet of field lines by hand. He marked them out and we would take a garden tiller and run out the lines. shovel out the loose dirt and do it again. It took a pretty good while to dig them but we got it done. Guess that would be considered child abuse now. We would dig and tamp every fence post hole by hand too. Life was good back than. DH

You never mentioned the cost of using the backhoe. However I can't imagine not doing it yourself if you ever drove a tractor. I would guess that within a half hr you could be doing a decent job. If nothing else dig it loose with the backhoe and use the front loader to move the dirt.

You also did not include what machine , size, FWA? Type of soil? That would also influance the output per hour.

Get a free estamate from a contractor and go from there. If nothing else you could use the practice before digging in your water and sewer, and backfilling.

What would be the action taken if you had a major breakdown with this machine? Lets assume you drove over a sharp rock or object and cut up a tire?

I'm a betting you should go for it if the hr meter hours is a cheap deal for you.

Nort East IA

i dig basements just about every week or should said did until the crash of the economy. dug with a Case 580 with a 32in. bucket NEVER again you have to handle the dirt twice in most cases because you can not pitch it back far enough get a excavator that can reach 20 + ft and spin 360 to dump dirt back as far as you can a tractor hoe the best you will do in getting it back is 10 to 12 ft. . and i must ask why 10 ft.?? you would need at least 11 ft of wall to get above ground level and then what will you do with all the back fill dirt. also at 10 ft. what about ground water table 99% of basements we dig are 5 to 6 foot deep with a 8 ft. wall so two to three feet are above ground so you get a taper away from wall and use up the diggings two back fill it. in 35 years i have never dug one 10 ft. but each to his own

A friend of mine dug his with an H and front end loader,started at day break and was done at sunset.(50 years ago)

I agree with getting an excavator. A good operator will leave it nice and flat so you don't have to go back and level it. This will also leave it nice and packed. Unless you have a lot of time and several hundred hours on a hoe, I think it's better to let an expert do it. Make sure to dig the hole oversize to allow for weeping tile and waterproofing the foundation, etc. Dave

I just got done having a basement dug. It was for a 1540 sq. ft. house plus a triple stall garage. Total cost was $810. The basement hole was an average of 6 ft. probably and the garage footings were 2-3 ft deep. That price included a laborer who ran the laser level and leveled the bottom of the hole as the other guy dug. He used a backhoe and moved the piles from the side of the basement hole also. He spent about a half hour stripping blackdirt before he started digging. So with the cost of fuel, do you have a laser level and someone to read it as you go, the time it will take to learn to operate it, and the type of job you have when your done, do you think it is all worth it?

Around here when I built my house 3 years ago it cost about $300 to have a excavator come out and do it. Actually I got about $1000 worth for the min. $300... good to know a few guys. Well worth the money spent. You do not want to have to back fill as your floor will settle and crack pretty badly. I won't tell you not to do it but becareful of a cave in when going that depth with a backhoe.

If your talking about a combination backhoe/loader, then forget it. It's too deep for anything but the largest of those. You have too much material to move and with that machine, You will move it all 3 or 4 times.

We built a house in 1998 and had an excavator come in and an experienced operator and laser operator. They were done in 4 hours. Before they were done water was running in at a measurable rate of speed and we had to keep a sump pump in there the whole 7 months the house was being built. We only went 6ft deep for an 8ft basement.

While you're doing the plumping put in a hook up for a bathroom in the basement that way it's there.

Just another quick note that has nothing to do with digging a basement but does with a new house. We split-wired our receptacles in all the bedrooms and living room. Meaning that half of each receptacle is wired to a switch and the other have is always hot. This way you walk into your bedroom flip the switch then when you get into bed you reach over and turn off the lamp. You never have to walk in the dark that way. When you get up you reach over and turn on the lamp when you exit the room you flip the switch off. the other half of the receptacle that's always hot is for our clock radio and the TV's.

Don't forget for every exit/entrance of a room have a switch for the lights.

We also put receptacles in the ceiling for emergency lighting. One is in the hall way by the bedrooms and the other is at the top of the basement stairs. Both will come on when the power goes out and light up the exits.

I will be putting in a seperate circuit for a couple of lights and receptacles and an outside hookup just for a generator. This will not be connected to my electrical service at all so I won't have to worry about a switch over box.

Can't hurt by trying except it may go quicker with a loader. Stake it out and get after it. Strip off the top soil with the loader and save it to put back on top. Then you may as well start by trying to dig your footings about 2' wide and a foot deep and keep them level on the bottom. Will be harder trying to dig them later when you get your hole all dug out if you haven't practiced. Don't park to close to the edge. As you dig from one side practice trying to get a straight up and down bank. Practice getting a level bottom. Dig it down a few feet at a time just to practice making a level bottom. You can't really leave any loose dirt in the hole so if you get too deep in places you may need to bring in some gravel or sand to level it. Put down plastic before pouring the floor.

Dig for a while, then use the loader to move the piles and dig again. If you figure out your hole is going to fit a ball and not a box, then quit before you get too big and hire an experienced operator for your hoe or hire something to finish.

Better yet, do everything except the footings with the loader.

Round here, they just use a loader to dig basements in this hard pack clay gumbo. Start cutting a ramp about 15 to 20' back from one edge around the center of a wall. The trick is not to put your ramp where something will go above it like a patio. They poured half of my patio over the old ramp and the settling has caused it to crack at the edge of the ramp. Once you get the hole cleaned out with the loader, use the hoe to dig out the notchouts where your escape windows will go and then do the footings and plumbing last.

Get it close and the concrete contractor can do the final finishing with a skid loader. He will line you out on the dimensions also.

A basement will be big enough that caveins won't be a problem(not like a trench). If your soil is sandy and soft enough that caving banks could be a problem, then you may have to go out 2 or 3' more in each direction.

best bet is hire your local excavator that has a large track hoe,..be done and done right while you"re trying to figger out where to start....

just my .02 worth, but in my area we have just about every type of soil from sand to clay to solid rock. That backhoe will be worthless if you run into rock. Great machines, but you have to be experienced to run a backhoe and get on grade. They simply aren't like trackloaders or trackhoes. Hire a man to come in with a 953 cat to do it and be done in a day on grade, topsoil separated, nice fill piles away from house and done right. Now if you want to run your own footers, Go for it. Check grade in your basement and the lowest point sets your trench grade. Its easier to run out extra dirt thats high than run formed footers. Be absolutely Certain though that you are 100% correct where you run your ditch. If your trench is not square your house walls wont fit. Practice Practice Practice and do the math check it then measure twice. Also Very Important: NEVER Fill your footers. If you go too deep, Order more concrete, use taller stakes. That is why you practice. Filling footers is generally not worth possible problems. Also be sure you add piers in the correct places for columns. If they are wrong, you are stuck hand digging. Keep the hoe till after footers are dry to run out excess dirt and also to sort of fine grade your basement. Run the loader right over the concrete, break out any excess spill etc. That will make it easier when doing basement floor concrete. After thats done dig out sump pit in corner about 4x4x4 or so. Much easier with hoe than by hand. Then run in about 4 inches of sixes or 57s whatever you want for basement floor prep.

As a sidenote: Most companies that do poured walls will do the footers too. The company we used did a pretty good job and used more rebar on one job than we ever did. Keep in mind it will be expensive $$$ but for ease and speed its hard to beat. If you hire out, dont be afraid to check numbers on everything to ensure accuracy. We always did the stakeouts for footers and houses because we knew we were accurate and had rechecked everything. The time it takes to check the math is worth it. Fixing one little problem through addition and division can save a lot of money and headaches later on down the road.

One more thing- CALL EVERYONE in the phone book for an estimate. Estimates should be free, never pay for one. If they send you a bill, don't pay it and never consider them again. Everyone is so hungry for work right now that you are bound to get a very good price on the job.


Sorry for the long post, but just some things to think about.

Used to do a lot of those when working for a site work company, most of the issues have been mentioned already, but I'll add my 2cents worth

If one was using a large rubber tire'd backhoe instead of an excavator, one that has enough reach for the intended depth, you really have to plan out where the spoil will be stockpiled, starting with the removal and stockpiling of topsoil. As you excavate, those piles will get large and close to the cut, making the sidewall of the cut potentially dangerous. Remember that when you excavate naturally compacted earth, it will fluff up 15%-20% in volume, increasing the space you need to stockpile.

You can quantify what will come out of the hole, and if you have an idea of the topography around the site, be it on your building plans site drawing or not, you may have areas that can be filled, don't fill any wetlands or similar.

A lot of things depend on your soil conditions, around here you can make cuts and or dig trenches without shoring or benching back for an angle of repose at 45 degrees, go a few miles or to some different areas, you can go from this to fine sand which can be very dangerous, a person was buried several weeks ago, in a trench and in those sand conditions, result was fatal. Here we have a mix of gravel, clay, loam etc. trench walls are stable, but you still need to use a trench box or shore it up to comply with safety requirements. I've been in a large trench collapse, 17'-0" deep and over 20 feet wide, in sand, back when I was in my early 20's and have also hand dug another person out in a different collapse, he was lucky, you can absolutely never trust the wall of any cut, more so within a trench type cut, even a shallow one.

Layout: It would be advisable to have your approved plans available to a surveyor and have the surveyor, layout the lot lines and building lines, providing you with offset stakes for your actual building lines, so you have good reference points to layout the foundation cut. You also have to remember that this cut must provide enough room to work on the footings, drainage and anything you need to install on the outside of the foundation wall, until inspected and approved for backfill, if you are subject to those requirements. In addition, the walls of the cut must be stable or you must bench down or cut at a 45 degree angle of repose from the bottom of the cut(basement). You need offset stakes, set back from the actual building line for reference until you have your foundation footing and wall are forms set, if they are too close to the building you lose them during excavation, reason why we call em offset stakes, this provides you a reference point to locate the building.

Elevations: Your approved building plans should contain a site plan with the topography, and building elevations. Your surveyor should provide an elevation or bench mark(s) for your reference, so that when excavating you can check grade with an optical level, which will make your foundation hole level, and also prevent you from over excavating, you need to check periodically, taking a reading while someone holds the stick, when you get close you take your time to grade the hole, once that hole is graded, the entire foundation hole excavated, you can move in and do the footing excavation, with soil conditions here you can trench pour those, other times you have to form them. If you dig to subgrade of basement slab, to natural undisturbed, you may also want to consider that the natural material will be suitable for subgrade, or you may want to excavate that out and replace with gravel, crusher run etc. something that is more stable and will compact. Top or basement slab - minus thickness of slab, - minuse thickness of subgrade material, can be bottom of the hole. This needs to coordinate with the footing detail, so you can excavate and or form that out, top of footing is usually even with the bottom of the hole, subgrade, and drainage materials above, then the slab, all this would be coordinated on your building plans, usually in section view of the foundation as detailed by your designer.


With an established layout, you as an operator need to look at the site and plan or map out exactly how you will perform the excavation work, know where the machine will be set and where it will reach so you do not excavate your way out of an area you still need to reach later. You cannot set the machine on air or too close to the cut. You work within the reach of the machine and complete areas as you move, which is why you need a benchmark and have the ability to check the depth of your hole from a level line to the elevation that matches the height dimension of your foundation walls, your top of foundation and finish floor elevations relative to the proposed or existing grades are most important, you want to make sure enough of the foundation is below grade, but enough revealed so that your finsish floor elevations for the building are above grade, to keep water out etc. All that should be coordinated on your site plan or within your approved drawings.

Utilizing a rubber tire'd backhoe certainly can do the job, with an experienced hand in the seat, I know I could do it if it was all that I had. However, I agree with the others, you will be double and triple casting the excavated material, (spoil) as well as making use of the front bucket to push or haul away the spoil to another fill or stockpile area away from the hole. If this is a tight site with little room, it will be even more of a headache, you may need to have trucks available for loading and hauling out if you can't get rid of the spoil on site.

If you can understand the above, can figure out the layout, both building lines and elevations, know how to work in the soil conditions you have, (this time of year sites can get real messy) and can safely work with the machine, it is possible to be done, but again you really have to keep enough distance from the cut and still be able to get the reach you need to finish areas before you move the machine, you might dig awhile, then have to move spoil, it will be a lot of work for the a rubber tire backhoe, it had best be in good working order and be able to take some hard hours.

If it were me, I'd want a medium or large excavator, larger if the site allows, I'd do the above and work my way around the hole, checking elevations, and casting the spoil far enough from the hole you don't have to deal with it until backfilling the foundation, using it elsewhere on site, or loading excess out onto trucks.

Another unforseen thing to deal with is water or rock, if you have water within the cut, at the elevations you need to excavate to, this changes things, you have to dewater until that foundation is complete, you may have to raise the elevation of your finish floor in the basement to avoid a pressurization under the slab and water seeping or forcing it's way in. Rock, depending on the type, you may need to use a breaker on the end of the hoe, use more agressive methods to excavate, or raise elevations so less rock has to be excavated. Both of these will drive site work costs up dramtically, unforseen conditions must always be considered when doing any site work.

If you can understand this work, it's not all that difficult to do on your own, better to have an excavator, large enough to do the job, say from a rental house, enough knowledge on what is described above, rent an optical level and know how to use it, and have the surveyor provide your layout, offset stakes, lot lines and benchmarks to work from. When doing the mass excavation you can learn to run the machine, but would be best to have an experienced operator if available, especially for grading out the hole, you can learn to load the bucket and do the main "hogging out" of the fill, but when you get to the finess work, close to the elevation you want, grading skills are necessary, if you don't have those skills, this is where things can get messy and you have to put back material, compact same to 95% so things don't settle, you want to excavate to an elevation, level across the foundation.

You can save a substantial amount of money in many situations when doing site work, by doing the job yourself, if you have the knowledge and ability, and can rent the right equipment, but this is real intimidating, time is of the essence, meaning your construction schedule is aggressive and have no time to waste, or you don't have enough time yourself, coupled with inexperience, it can become a costly mess.

Safety, you must be aware of all work safety aspects, of this work and make sure to call the one call center for ALL UNDERGROUND UTILITY location BEFORE any excavation work commences.

I too had a backhoe,
was a novice like you.
Bought it for the same thing,
a pond dig too.
After hundreds of gallons
and much great ado
I called me a contractor
to fix my boo-boo.

Hire it out. Hire it out. You'll likely make a mess of it and end up hiring it out. So, hire it out.

Besides, watching a pro do a basement is one of life's little pleasures. Be sure to watch. Then you'll know why I sing, Hire It Out.

Billy,

Thanks for taking the time to give such a complete answer. Most people think anyone can dig a hole, that it is a job that any dummy can do. But IT JUST AIN'T SO. Low bid inexperienced operators can cost a huge amount of money for the total project.

I have the experience of having been a residential construction forman, and most people can't believe the stuff we had to contend with because the hole and footings were poorly done. Every other trade just built on top of what was there, telegraphing the excavating errors right to the roof line. (I was not the first forman on that site, but was hired to straighten out a horrific mess). We had to jack up the house and then pour wedge shape mud sills beneath the rim joists to get the house level and straight. And also jack up the center of the basement and repour footing spacers to get the floors straight and level. Boy, was the general contractor ugly about that cost over-run. Served the SOB right for hiring low bid excavator, concrete, and framing sub contractors, and thinking he is going to pocket and extra thou or so.

I also have some digging experience, have my own 14 ft backhoe. But I've done enough to know that I am an amateur with it. My brother is a professional excavator with 2 track hoe machines and a pro series laser level that he can use with the hoes. He can grade a flat bottom without having a rod man available. Some lady drove up in my yard, seeing my backhoe, and wanted me to contract dig a swimming pool for her. I told her quite emphatically she needed a professional excavator. I wasn't even going to look at the job.

I must echo your advice in doing the legal thing with the "Gopher One call" as it is known in this state. I know of certain fields where it looks to be completely open land...horse pasture that has buried optical cable running diagonally through the property. Some guy was cleaning manure out of the loafing shed with a bobcat and severed the burried cable. Evidently the pole shed was built over the cable without hitting it. We never know where all this underground wire is!!

Good Day!

Paul in MN

Yes I agree on that, you don't want to screw up a foundation hole, nothing is perfect, but you do want to stay within tolerance.

The thing is, you can save money on a lot of construction activities like the site work, + others, if you can do them yourself. Some work items are not for everyone, so you pick and chose what you can do and you still save some money, but sacrifice some time. There are other times when it is best hired out, to a reputable contractor who will give you a competitive price, where they make a decent profit but don't rake you over the coals, and still do good work.

With site work, if you have an experienced person to help or guide you along the way, a few people and the right equipment can do a lot of work, key is you do need someone who knows what they are doing, if you don't have the experience, you can easily learn from that person. You just don't want to go in blind, that is where the trouble will start.

Smart move, owing a machine is one thing, but you start hiring it out, insurance, other risks, and being able to complete the work, must be considered, probably a good idea to walk away, unless you know for sure exactly what you are getting into, with earthwork, there are a lot of unforseen risks to consider.

At my friends farm, there is a major phone line under the ground, about 200 yds behind the old barns, you would never even know it is there, and they are in a semi rural area, always call the ONE CALL center, no matter what. Optics, you don't want to ever hit one of those, that's gonna hurt your bank account in a hurry.

I've seen the same thing, residential foundations that were way off, requiring corrective work, saw one that they just kept building, the house was misaligned with the foundation by several inches, rough openings for windows and doors way off, most carried through from a terrible foundation job, in construction, LAYOUT is one of the most important things to know, which is followed by staying within tolerance throughout the rest of the job, things go awry and before you know it, it's way off, then the corrective work is just costly, double, triple work, best to get it right the first time regardless of what it takes, on high rise buildings you cannot have these problems, 1-2 story residential units it is very common even today, I can still remember one we did the site work for in '90, concrete guys were just off the boat, USSR I think, they had good intentions, but royally screwed up half a dozen new homes, on a beautiful hillside site, nice designs, but real bad workmanship. Textbook case on how to not build a home.