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Comment by linsomniac | Hacker News Reader

I have a crawlspace under half my house, and made the mistake of watching a YouTube video about how to do "underpinning". Now I want to dig it out down to 10ft to use for some desperately needed storage space, maybe some gym space. Our local building office is amazingly supportive of DIYers, and I appreciate them double checking my work.

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You don’t need to dig it out to get more storage space: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU

I knew what video that was before clicking...

If you ever get a chance to visit him in Berkeley, I thoroughly recommend doing so. Not only can you stock up on Klein bottles and scarves, but the man's an absolute treasure and delight, and, depending on how old you were when _The Cuckoo's Egg_ was published, perhaps one of your childhood heroes. I have one of his bottles right here on my desk.

I read The Cuckoo's Egg only a few years ago (in my 30s) and it's an absolute delight. Easy to understand if you do any sort of linux administration, and really demonstrates how lax things were and how far we've come in terms of cyber security.

You got CliffRolled.

At the time that video came out, I highly considered something like that, but honestly I'm already using that space, I just need more of it. :-)

Unless I'm mistaken, we both read the same physical copy of Cliff's book back in '99. Talk about a small world, running across this comment was wild.

Oh man, don't send me down this rabbit hole! I've always been annoyed at the original builders of my house for the half basement/half crawlspace - I mean, how much could it have possibly added to the cost of construction to just dig that last 4 feet on the other half?!

My Grandfather’s house was like that when he bought it. It was built on a hill that sloped down from the street. The ground floor was actually several feet below the level of the street, with just enough crawl space at the front edge of the house. He jacked the whole house up to street level, dug out the basement, poured a concrete slab under the whole house, built concrete block walls around the whole thing, and built a staircase up to the main hall on the ground floor. Half of the new floor became a basement workshop, and the other half became four bedrooms and a bathroom for the children (there were only three bedrooms upstairs). Even then six of the children were still sharing a room.

Amazing productivity.

Yea, he knew how to get things done. Plus he had some children helping.

The 4 feet can make a big difference, think of the highest possible groundwater table.

I did that in a low basement once. I had to replace the crumbled concrete floor anyway, so I figured I’d dig it down a foot or two while I was at it… then I found out the house was sitting on a shale ledge.

Turns out excavating shale by hand or with a jack hammer is incredibly difficult! It breaks into tiny pieces, bit by bit. Then you have to shovel said pieces into buckets and haul them out. Really heavy buckets because rocks.

One of the few jobs I threw in the towel and hired out. It still took 3 people 2 days to dig out about 18 inches. Never again!

Build yourself an iceberg home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLJ0zZQb9x0

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