Oh,yeah, I know all about no headroom. This is almost worse–so, near and yet so, fuck! low bridge!! I’m trying to put stairs in to replace the ones that were about 50 or 55 degrees of pitch, out of level and plumb and square and rotting from the bottom up. Problem is they built a coal scuttle right where the stairs need to go. So, I’m taking part of that wall down, stone, 20 inches thick.

So, Mack, what’s your service radius? I’m about 850 miles, give or take from where you are, are your vacation plans set? Will your tractor fit inside the camper?

It seemed to be just clay, packed quite well, but water did soften it up, if you stretch “soften” a lot.

Making holes was the only really hard work, now it’s just screwing the roofing down, although with help it might be more square and I might not have set the third row too far out. I had to swap some 8′ roofing for 10′ ones.

Democommie, that much headroom sounds like a mansion compared to our last house, we had slightly less than a yard. The water in the footings does sound familiar, though.

Second, I have a tractor and a borer. I also have an auger that I use to set posts.

Third, when did people decide it was unwise to ask for help? Two or three or four of us could have had that shed built in two days.

The house I’m currently renovating had no posts under the beams in the cellar (all of which had settled to varying degrees of camber.

I set out to dig six to seven holes for footings. The floor was a thin veneer of conretesorta over a mix of clay, gravel and rocks, ranging in size from golf ball to big ass watermelon. The holes needed to be 2′ square by about 24-30″ deep in order to provide support for the columns I was setting.

I dug the first hole in about EIGHT hours, mostly with a small hand pickaxe and a frikkin’ coffee can. I then retired to dine and rest. When I returned an hour later the excavation was filled, within three inches of the top, with water. Needless to say this development has alterred my original plan. I will now have 3 deep footings and 3 or 4, 2′x2′x2′ high concrete piers in my cellar. It has less than 6′ of headroom anyway, so it’s not like I was going to make it into anything like usable space.

Oh, I did find out one thing while digging. Y’know how they lay up stone foundations? They knock the edges of the rock into something that looks okay and then put it into the wall. All the stuff that’s knocked off? It goes into the cellar hole and is covered with some dirt and then a thin layer of concretesorta.