Hello Homesteading & Country Living

[viking]

Hi Y'all.

I am Ben and had been a contributor to MSP until it fell by the wayside.

I am a retired Software Architect and have been into preparing for disasters and a self sufficient life-style going back to when I saw the first episodes of James Burke's Connections series.

I have dreams of orchards, gardens, and a steam driven machine shop but those are hold until I finish off fixing up a wreck of a house I purchased to pad out my retirement income. That means I have been digging out a basement by hand and installing concrete walls.

Ben

Hello and welcome from S.W. Oregon. Digging out a basement and installing concrete walls is what my grandfather and foster dad did and I can tell you that from all the concrete form setting and pouring concrete for our stem walls and a 1,100 gallon cistern we did over the years, it's downright hard work, especially when you mix all the concrete by hand and in a mixer. I would have loved to built a basement but that would have been pretty tough considering I was also working on a job at the time but we did pour a wall for a semi-earth berm home we had planed out but never got around to because of the expense it would take to build.

 

[Neb]

Hello and welcome from S.W. Oregon. Digging out a basement and installing concrete walls is what my grandfather and foster dad did and I can tell you that from all the concrete form setting and pouring concrete for our stem walls and a 1,100 gallon cistern we did over the years, it's downright hard work, especially when you mix all the concrete by hand and in a mixer. I would have loved to built a basement but that would have been pretty tough considering I was also working on a job at the time but we did pour a wall for a semi-earth berm home we had planed out but never got around to because of the expense it would take to build.View attachment 49990

Thanks Viking! It is nice to converse with someone that "has been there done that".

Coining a common phrase "this is not my first rodeo". My Father, siblings and myself dug out basement under a large sun-room he had. We did not have jack-hammers back then so I resorted to running 100' of hose from the compressor in my garage to the work-site (across the street) to be able to use an air chisel to break-up the shale. (no wonder that hose broke this past winter!)

Ben

 

[kd4ulw]

Welcome from Indiana!

 

[Cnsper]

Thars nice I was south of the Appalachhian Mountains in the foot hills too. In Georgia now in Florida.

The Appalachians are foothills... lol

Welcome to the site @Neb grab ya some coffee, beer or water and there is an empty stump around here somewhere.

 

[Meerkat]

The Appalachians are foothills... lol

Welcome to the site @Neb grab ya some coffee, beer or water and there is an empty stump around here somewhere.

Well then Smarty Pants,the southern foothills make the northern FootHills look like 'Mountains'.