bucket by bucket

We started with no basement. One of our neighbors helped dig out most of the current basement with his back hoe. Unfortunately he couldn't get the whole basement dug, so we are left finishing it off bucket by bucket. It doesn't seem like we are making much progress at this point, but the basement work is just one small step forward at a time.

We start with a section of the basement that has too much sand still. I fill buckets and Martin hauls them up the basement stairs and empties them where we are raising the grade around the house. 

 Once we get enough sand removed to allow Martin to pour a footer, we need to build a temporary sandbag wall to hold back the sand that is still there.

 Then we (meaning Martin) dig out a trench and put in a form for the footer.

Then we mix up a bunch of concrete and fill the form.  Hauling the buckets of concrete down into the basement and bring sand back up to be mixed in the concrete.

Once the footer has set up, we lay 3 courses of block and put solid insulation in behind it.

Then the sandbags get rescued (to be used for the next section).  As we dig out the next section, we dump buckets of sand behind the new wall to back fill.

 Then the last 3 courses of block get laid and insulated with more sand to back fill behind the wall.

We are trying not to haul too much sand up and out of the basement. Not only is it a slow tedious and physically exhausting job, but we need to have enough sand to back fill behind all of the retaining walls. One of the benefits of having so much sand is that we can use it when we make concrete and mortar mix for laying block. The biggest disadvantage is that we frequently have cave-ins. Remember those golden childhood days on the beach making sand castles. Dry sand just doesn't work well for building.