If you’re planning on excavating the ground for a residential or commercial basement, there is a lot more to it than just digging a hole and building a basement in it. Lots of planning needs to go into excavation. You’ll need heavy-duty equipment, and you can’t just use any excavation technique. The right technique needs to be used to ensure that the foundation will be able to support your home or building. You want to make sure you consult an excavation company when you decide to excavate for your basement. When you do, they’ll probably recommend one of these four common basement excavation techniques.
1. Island Method
The island method is one of the safest basement excavation techniques. This method starts by building the center of your basement first, and as the basement is excavated, the dirt will be pushed onto the side of the walls to create slopes. This helps brace the walls while the basement is being excavated. Once the center of the basement is complete, then the outer walls are braced by the center instead, and excavation and construction can be completed on the rest.
2. Full Open-Cut Method
Your excavation company could go about the full open-cut method in two ways. This method can either be sloped or cantilever. Through the sloped method, as the basement is excavated, excess material is used to create a slope against the walls of the foundation, which offers them the support they need. The sloped method typically costs less than the cantilever method because using slopes doesn’t require extra support for the foundation. With the cantilever method, retaining walls are used to support the foundation during excavation, which can turn out to be more expensive.
3. Top-Down Method
If you’re excavating a building in a heavily congested urban area, the top-down method is a great technique to use, especially for commercial buildings. The method uses load-bearing walls to hold the ground-level floor. The ground level is installed directly above where the basement will go before the basement is even excavated. Some excavation companies will even finish construction on the building before they excavate the basement. While this is a great method for urban areas, you need to hire a professional excavation company for this technique because it takes careful skill to dig out the basement once the ground level or entire building is constructed.
4. Anchored Method
The anchored method uses anchors to hold up against the pressure from the earth during the excavation process. When the anchors are installed, they’ll use force in the bound part of the anchor that goes against the pressure from the earth. This pressure is then transferred to the head of the anchor. From there, the anchor will rely on the strength of the soil it is anchored in to hold up the walls of the excavation site.
When you decide to excavate for your basement, you may not know which of these methods is best for you. Talking to your excavation company about techniques will help you determine which is best for your basement and which is most affordable for your budget. If you’re looking for an excavation company in the St. George or Hurricane area, consider consulting Rock On Walls & Falls for your excavation services.
