Old Barn foundation

[rockabillykat666]

Hello all, I started digging out the basement of the barn to convert it to a garage and came across a "little" problem that I'm hoping can be solved within a reasonable cost. Anyways pictures will help.

Here I removed old beams and installed new beams, barn used to have livestock but was full of dirt and straw

The plan was to dig down to foundation, rake, put down crushed stone, vapor barrier and 4-5 inches of concrete.

The problem I face is that the foundation is not consistent. The back wall foundation stops about 8 foot in

http://i1314.photobucket.com/albums/t567/johnnydevil55/CAM00029_zps1ebbca97.jpg

http://i1314.photobucket.com/albums/t567/johnnydevil55/CAM00013_zpsc18d0bee.jpg

If you look kind of above the cats head you can see where the stone stops and the foundation is just resting on earth.

My question is can I just remove sections of dirt at a time and pour a bench foundation in front of this to stop the compacted dirt from moving?

 

[Chaz]

Hello all, I started digging out the basement of the barn to convert it to a garage and came across a "little" problem that I'm hoping can be solved within a reasonable cost. Anyways pictures will help.

Here I removed old beams and installed new beams, barn used to have livestock but was full of dirt and straw

The plan was to dig down to foundation, rake, put down crushed stone, vapor barrier and 4-5 inches of concrete.

The problem I face is that the foundation is not consistent. The back wall foundation stops about 8 foot in

http://i1314.photobucket.com/albums/t567/johnnydevil55/CAM00029_zps1ebbca97.jpg

http://i1314.photobucket.com/albums/t567/johnnydevil55/CAM00013_zpsc18d0bee.jpg

If you look kind of above the cats head you can see where the stone stops and the foundation is just resting on earth.

My question is can I just remove sections of dirt at a time and pour a bench foundation in front of this to stop the compacted dirt from moving?

I had a similar situation in an old home I had. The engineer told me I could excavate about 8 feet at a time and pour new sections of "footings" . Horizontal and vertical rebar was required. Your situation may vary.

 

[rockabillykat666]

I was thinking 4 foot sections at a time, it's about 2 foot down to grade. How thick was your "footing"?

 

[willymakeit]

You can do more if you support the beams above with angled supports going to the ground. I've done this on porchs ect. and a historical barn in Roundup Mt. years ago.

 

[Lippyp]

Are you sure its on dirt and not on bedrock? Sometimes thats why theres no foundations under that sort of wall, for a barn, if you hot rock when digging out a foundation you just build on top of it. If it is just on dirt then it needs underpinning (well thats what we call it in the UK) We had theis done to two corners of our old house, the only foundations under a big two story stone hosue was one layer of 12" thick slabs of stone and there'd been some movement as it was on clay. They dug out alternate 3' sections under the wall to solid ground and then backfilled with concrete, then when that was solid dug out the dirt between and filled those bits, I'm assuming there was rebar between them.

 

[rockabillykat666]

The sides of the barn foundation has the bigger stone as it's foundation. That's where i started digging and figured it ran that way all around. But like i said when i got to the back wall and 8 foot in i noticed that the Stone stopped. I'm not sure if it runs that way to the other corner. I would pretty much be building a retaining wall in front of the foundation just to keep the earth that's under the block from moving. I would like to know how thick i need to make the bench? I would love to be able to pound rebar into the ground against the existing wall every foot or so, then another row of rebar about a foot out and rebar every foot across. so i would be building a form that is 2' High x 1' deep, and i would do this in 4' sections so i'm not disturbing too much earth at one time. I really need the space that's why i'm trying to keep it at 1' but if i have to i'll do 2'. i would then build a wall on top of my form, probably use 2x6's and tie it into the Floor joists above. any comments or opinions are greatly appreciated.

 

[rockabillykat666]

Here's what i started out with