Basement and Conversion Excavation and Underpinning

Excavation and Underpinning

If your cellar does not have enough headroom to enable it to be made into a liveable space, or indeed you have no cellar space, Barrett Kent can lower the foundation through underpinning.

Underpinning is a method of extending the existing foundations in depth or width for a variety of reasons:

• To gain extra height in a shallow cellar room
• Create a cellar where no cellar currently exists
• To use sub floor voids to form extra rooms

Excavation

Barrett Kent will excavate short sections of soil from beneath the existing foundation in a planned sequence.

Underpinning

Concrete is then poured into the excavation to a level close to the underside of the existing foundation.Once initial cure and shrinkage has occurred, dry packing the gap with a mixture of sharp sand and cement transfers the load. The adjacent pins are then excavated and constructed in the same way until the complete length of wall is underpinned forming a new foundation.

In all cases a fully qualified structural engineer will visit the site and draw up a pin schedule following this, the structural engineer and local authority-building inspectors will periodically inspect the project as work commences with the final sign off at completion. Once the excavtion and underpinning has been completed, a full basement conversion can be undertaken.