Excavating Cellar

[gcthompson]

Hi,

I've recently bought an 1870s end-terrace and it has a narrow cellar underneath the stairs. There is a bricked up wall which leads onto another room though it's been mostly filled with rubble.

My question is this, is it worth removing the partially bricked-up wall and excavating the rubble. Extra space would be very handy.

I guess I'll have problems with damp, I am concerned about causing structural problems however.

Can anybody offer any advice?

Thanks

 

[SteNova]

pics?

 

[gcthompson]

Sorry, i'm new here, didn't realise you could include pictures

Untitled

• gcthompson
• 22 Jun 2010
• 1

This is a view over the wall, it's about 3/4 of a wall up to the ceiling

Untitled

• gcthompson
• 22 Jun 2010
• 1

This is the same view

Untitled

• gcthompson
• 22 Jun 2010
• 1

This is the view up the wall up towards the lounge floor

 

[SteNova]

someone has gone to great effort to put all that loose material down there and build a wall, i'd expect to find a body

 

[sotal]

We had a similar thing in a previous house, except ours was quite a big cellar under the living room then you could see over the wall just like that into what was under the dining room. I always wondered about excavating it but ended up thinking it was either a) done for a reason or b) too much effort!

If it helps all the houses in the street were identical and had the same pile of rubble under one room

 

[nickjb]

Are there any signs of subsidence?

I went to a talk by architect George Clark and he has put a new cellar under his entire house and half the garden. That was a Victorian terrace IIRC. Quite an impressive bit of digging and under-pinning.

 

[JohnD]

i have known old houses where part of the potential cellar was not excavated, and the unexcavated section had a retaining wall. So it might not have been filled in with rubble, it might just be an unfinished void with the usual builders rubbish left there.

maybe ask some of your neighbours what they have.

I'd be inclined to dig it out, but look for foundation depth on the walls round the unexcavated section. Might not be deep enough.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

What is the floor at the moment?

To add to JohnD's comments, if existing foundations are somewhat lacking a structural engineer may need to be appointed and a bit of underpinning/ground work may be required. Do not be alarmed too much at the prospect of appointing an engineer though, provided you find a good one they'll see you all right and won't leave you penniless! I doubt if there's anything that cannot be undertaken though. Same regards to the waterproofing, waterproofing basements needn't be that difficult and can be DIYed if necessary.

Is it your wish to just add a bit of extra storage space or use it as a habitable room?

 

[gcthompson]

Thanks for the all the advice. I had our family builder around last night and he thinks that it's all original and so hasn't been filled in/bricked up.

Looking at the neighbours they have the same setup with a gap which leads into a room which appears to be full of rubble. The builder is going to put an access hole into the wall to allow us to get into it and see what's what. The main reason I want access is so that I can insulate the lounge floor from below (it's got original floorboards which I really don't want to rip up). We'll make some attempts at removing some of the rubble and get somebody around to take a view as to whether it's feasible to extend into that room and use it.

Ideally we would like more space for storage and maybe as a den so it'll need to be damp-proofed (depending on how much it'll cost)

 

[cromarty]

Hey, did you ever go through with any of the excavation? We have an identical sounding (and looking) situation except middle terrace.

The whole street seems to have a rat problem at the moment, and I want to get in the gap over where the rubble is to plug any holes, but it's too shallow to get in, so was tempted to excavate maybe a foot or so. Very interested in anything you found if you tried excavating.