Dig Out Foundation For Support Wall

At last, I have now finished digging out my driveway and garage area. This took me around 6 weeks and was back breaking work (see other posts). I would like to take this chance to thank my two friends, Tony Pelligrini and John Balmer for all there help and muscle power. This saved me lots of time and money.





Now you see the area has been dug out, but before I can even think about starting my garage, I will have to put a support wall round the whole area that I have dug out. This is a must to stop soil and rainwater etc from soaking into the garage walls, also when the soils moves (which it will) it could put a lot of pressure/force on to the walls which can cause cracking of the brickwork.


To start the support wall, I must first mark out the wall foundation and then dig out the soil to the required depth/width needed for the wall foundation. The size needed is calculated on the size of the wall being built and the load on the wall. If in any doubt, contact an engineer. My wall was only four feet high with very low load, the concrete foundation for this was 12" wide and 6" deep (overkill for a small wall).


The support wall was not only to go round garage area, but also one side of my driveway, which is part of my patio. So I lifted my patio slabs and will start the support wall from my house and take this along the driveway and round the area of my garage build. This will give me a defined area to construct my garage.


These are the photos of me digging the support wall foundation :









My next post will show the support wall being built. Any questions? Feel free to leave a comment and I will respond. Thanks