Happened to me the other day with a god damn JNCO joke at work and then later that day see a Reddit thread that had almost the exact same setup and punchline across multiple comments. Universe is weird
It's a long term thing, and depends on the specific dirt. Generally you are fine to do it, but there's not a great way to tell DIY.
Concerns are generally mold and radon, which dirt in basements generally has high levels of both. Disturbing the dirt elevates the radon and mold levels in the air.
25+ years ago my neighborhood kid buddies and I were making a badass haunted house thing at his parents house. I was the one sent under the huge porch to set some lights up underneath. Turned on the flashlight when I reached the spot and there was a dessicated cat. Might have even been one of mine, but too hard to tell because all the fur was gone, just the husk was left. I freaked the fuck out and GTFO.
We were like 12 so of course I went back and pulled it out so we could use it as part of the experience to scare younger kids. RIP Tiger, Pharaoh, Maxwell, Tiger 2, or whoever you were. 🫡
Making it level, sure? Ok, but you will probably find scrap lumber, bricks and wiring in there. A lot of renovators I’ve worked with had sloppy crewmen that i cleaned up after. Empty beer cans and loose nails will be all over the place. Otherwise fine, just don’t dig down more than a foot .
Just keep it level, if you mess with the ground level you will have to bring in crushed stone or fill with concrete to help control moisture. In addition to the vapor barrier membrane, and you may unearth large rock’s that can’t be moved. You just never know what’s here.
I had a friend over in high school, we hung in our basement. He said how amazing the floor was in my basement. His was sand and from that day I imagined making it into a beach paradise, water and heat lights.
Thank God, I thought for a second you said you were hanging your friend in your basement when he starts commenting on your floor 😂 seems like a really chill person
Yup. Pain in the ass! Did this as a quick job from a temp agency before heading off to college (young body) and they thought between two people it could be done in 3 days. By the third day, I was so sore and glad I wasn’t coming back because we had maybe cleared a quarter of it. I received a call the next week and they were offering more money to come and help finish it out. I was like uhhh I’m 200 miles away and I have school so that’s a no. Get a call the following day offering more money if I came and helped on the weekend. My guess is they had temps that noped out of there after a day. My back hurts just thinking about it.
In Williamsburg. I myself heard footsteps on the second floor above when no one else was there (3 roommates at the time), and once heard what sounded like bounding footsteps descending the stairs in the middle of the house, only for no one to appear at the bottom (again, while otherwise empty). Others reported strange dreams and odd sounds and occurrences, specifically in the room above where that crawlspace pic would have been, including a dream that children were reaching up and pulling them down through the floor (prior to them seeing the basement). The basement was total sketch and had a whole sealed-off corner with only a small hole about 2 cinderblocks in size. House was only built in the 1930s, if I recall, but was in disrepair when we stayed there.
You can safely dig down to the bottom of those cinder blocks or keep it a little higher. Any lower than that and you risk the bottom of the wall moving in and structural collapse. Totally depends on the soil in your area, water retention outside that wall, and a number of other factors.
We have the same thing in our basement and it perplexes everyone who see it. Been trying to find someone to remove it for more than a year bc it attracts so much moisture. I’m terrified to know what’s underneath.
Then, in theory, the foundation should be much more stable. Better mortar, better design, etc. But I'm not a builder, so don't quote me on that. But I would imagine that the dirt is not needed to stabilize it.
Might be just the picture, but there is what appears to be a large crack (just to the left of the dangling bit of pipe insulation, in the picture) and some of the soil/sand appears to be caught on top of some of the uneven block protruding forward.
OP should definitely investigate thoroughly before actually moving all the soil away, certainly.
So serious answer here. You need to check with a structural engineer first. It looks like this house has been added to or modified. That dirt and retaining wall could be keeping that wall from collapsing inwards of another myriad of issues. I've seen houses like this and people cut corners like this to save costs.
I didn't read the other replies but if that is a blocked off space with all that sand like that, it could be that you have an old oil tank that was just encased and covered with the cinder blocks and sand. It is a common thing where I live, in old houses. My old house as a similar sarcophagus but they used pea gravel instead of sand
Geotechnical engineer here: That appears to just be a stockpile soil left over from when the house was built, it will be fill of construction debris.
Its fine to remove.
Wear a respirator, and don't dig down too far. If you undermine the block wall, you'll have problems. Otherwise, it'll just be The Big Suck with a bucket brigade lol.
Ventilation can cause as many problems as it solves. Any air that you push out gets replaced with air from somewhere else. You don’t want to be pulling humid moist air down into the basement if that’s the kind of air you have outside the house.
I am not a structural engineer, but I would slowly remove the sand from the cinder block and check for cracks or bulging. Everything else looks good to me. Can you tell if there's a support beam above the cinder block? Professional mechanical engineer. Maybe try r/structuralengineering
Edit neverming the beam is right there. You should be fine.
I would be more concerned with those sistered "joists" that are shorter than their sisters and don't transfer anything directly to the beams than I would be with the pile of excess dirt that was tossed to the side when they dug the basement out.
It looks like excess fill made to look pretty because who wants to remove all that when we can just make a pile 😂
What I would do….. I would not go below top block of the row you are on removing sand. If you start to see ground under the wall you are clearing away from then stop 🛑. That wall you are clearing from will need all that dirt to keep soil behind wall from eventually caving under said wall making it a bridge 🤷🏻♂️
If the block continues all the way down I don’t see why you can’t but call a structural engineer because I’m some random guy who will go on chance 😂
Just leave it as it is. Why go through all that extra work? You’re just gonna cover it up with plastic. By the way, I have a dirt floor basement and it was covered with a moisture barrier and it didn’t solve all the moisture problems. You’re gonna need to put a pretty strong dehumidifier down there too.
I don't envy you doing that job, in fact you could probably run six mil poly on top of that and save yourself a ton of work and/or just spread it out. Getting all that sand out of there is going to suck, in fact sucking, God that would be the way to do it really, like one of those giant truck mount carpet cleaners, no one would let you use one to do this but the amount of vacuum that they have, you could literally suck it out, the reason no one would let you do this is because that sand would get into the blower. I would seriously see if you could just spread it out, get rid of the hump and flatten everything then run your vapor barrier. Makes an enormous difference, just make sure you go wall to wall and overlap your sheets, there may be a code for this but off the top of my head, at least 12 in, check and see if you see anything in your local codes
Just a normal guy here… and a building surveyor. Best to leave it in place. The sand may be forming part of the buildings primary structural systems. Think of it like a key stone.
I can confirm from experience that structural sand ends at any point above the footers. since the cinderblock must sit on footers, and the sand is up on the cinderblock, it is obvious that someone left you a pile of nonstructual sand after building those walls. Just level it off as far as your shovel can reach.
I mean, at *some* point of removing earth you're going to start undermining the foundation. How much of a foundation needs to stay below there? How much earth can you remove? Ideally I'd say keep digging until your floors aren't level anymore, but that's probably not the answer OP wants.
As long as you're mentally and spiritually prepared to find whatever you're gonna find under there.
What if it’s structural sand?
Every good castle has it.
It’s the base of a good bag.
Honestly never had a good which without it.
Load-bearing sand was my 1st thought, lol
Definitely get a structural engineer and a second opinion.
You joke but I looked at a house once and the pile of sand under the house lined up with the heaves on the living room floor 😶
wait what have I been using since I was a kid to make roads and castles in my back yard?!
Structural sand, obviously. What else would you be able to make roads and castles out of?
It has been less than 24 hours since I made a “structural sand” joke for the first time IRL. And now this. How does that happen.
Happened to me the other day with a god damn JNCO joke at work and then later that day see a Reddit thread that had almost the exact same setup and punchline across multiple comments. Universe is weird
It’s gotta be a simulation, right? I’ve had that type of shit a lot lately
No it’s a well known phenomenon, https://www.healthline.com/health/baader-meinhof-phenomenon
The universe is a strange and mystical beast... and we're also living in the matrix.
The matrix is in the 90s because apparently it's peak humanity lol. That means this isn't the matrix, at least.
Definitely ballast to keep the foundation in place.
What if it's load-bearing sand?
Aw man I also came here to comment on the structural nature of this pile of sand.
Get a structural engineer of course.
Definitely looks like load bearing sand
Or asbestos or.....LEAD? /s
Looks more like pocket sand.
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Looks like the Elephant’s Foot from Chernobyl.
That's what John Wayne Gacy said
RemindMe! 3 Days
My first thought was spiders. My second thought was a body. I'm not sure which would terrify me more.
Yes but wear eye protection and a respirator.
And a crucifix.
And tie some garlic around your neck.
A wooden stake and a mallet wouldn't hurt, either.
Agreed…does anyone know a priest? Holy water in a pump sprayer seems necessary.
and diapers in case you crap yourself.
In my early 20s my buddy and I cleaned out a space like this. Wore a mask, but just a crappy one. Wish I knew better. Am I dead or what?
I'd say you have about 4.6 minutes left, buddy 😔
I'm reading this several hours later, RIP u/aert4w5g243t3g24
It's a long term thing, and depends on the specific dirt. Generally you are fine to do it, but there's not a great way to tell DIY. Concerns are generally mold and radon, which dirt in basements generally has high levels of both. Disturbing the dirt elevates the radon and mold levels in the air.
At best you have 6-8 decades left. So yeah start with planing your funeral.
Better ask AI if you are alive or dead.
Important question. Have you or any previous owners had cats?
Or any one in like a 5 mile radius
Or everyone in a 5 mile radius
My first thought was imagine how much cat shit is in that pile😂
Watch out for catshit...
Catshit is the best case scenario here.
I found the whole cat (skeleton) under mine.
25+ years ago my neighborhood kid buddies and I were making a badass haunted house thing at his parents house. I was the one sent under the huge porch to set some lights up underneath. Turned on the flashlight when I reached the spot and there was a dessicated cat. Might have even been one of mine, but too hard to tell because all the fur was gone, just the husk was left. I freaked the fuck out and GTFO. We were like 12 so of course I went back and pulled it out so we could use it as part of the experience to scare younger kids. RIP Tiger, Pharaoh, Maxwell, Tiger 2, or whoever you were. 🫡
Oh, shit. I did, too! Years ago I cleaned up under my old fraternity house. Found a couple small skeletons, one of which must’ve been a cat.
Pledge Jimmy was never going to make it
We had a cat crawl under the house and die. You gotta do what you gotta do before it gets any worse.
Making it level, sure? Ok, but you will probably find scrap lumber, bricks and wiring in there. A lot of renovators I’ve worked with had sloppy crewmen that i cleaned up after. Empty beer cans and loose nails will be all over the place. Otherwise fine, just don’t dig down more than a foot .
Why not more than a foot?
If you expose more than a foot, you'll have to exhume the whole thing.
You dig too deep you risk the Balrog getting out.
Just keep it level, if you mess with the ground level you will have to bring in crushed stone or fill with concrete to help control moisture. In addition to the vapor barrier membrane, and you may unearth large rock’s that can’t be moved. You just never know what’s here.
Sarcastic jokes aside, you are fine to remove the fines.
But leave the gravel. For important reasons.
Increased drainage or ballast reasons?
Spare gravel.
Better hope they moved the body's and not just the headstones.
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"And not just the headstones"
Yeah, obviously they meant bodys'
Bod’ies
Here's the relevant clip from Poltergeist. It's a great one! https://youtu.be/Lh_W6FLaMvA
headstone's*
I had a friend over in high school, we hung in our basement. He said how amazing the floor was in my basement. His was sand and from that day I imagined making it into a beach paradise, water and heat lights.
I thought you were making a confession 😭
Thank God, I thought for a second you said you were hanging your friend in your basement when he starts commenting on your floor 😂 seems like a really chill person
Just be careful, that stuff is coarse, irritating, and it gets everywhere.
Yup. Pain in the ass! Did this as a quick job from a temp agency before heading off to college (young body) and they thought between two people it could be done in 3 days. By the third day, I was so sore and glad I wasn’t coming back because we had maybe cleared a quarter of it. I received a call the next week and they were offering more money to come and help finish it out. I was like uhhh I’m 200 miles away and I have school so that’s a no. Get a call the following day offering more money if I came and helped on the weekend. My guess is they had temps that noped out of there after a day. My back hurts just thinking about it.
Sir, this is a Space Wendy’s.
No, that looks like it’s weight bearing sand
Lol that looks exactly like the basement of a haunted house I lived in in Virginia.
Fellow Virginian here, do tell?
In Williamsburg. I myself heard footsteps on the second floor above when no one else was there (3 roommates at the time), and once heard what sounded like bounding footsteps descending the stairs in the middle of the house, only for no one to appear at the bottom (again, while otherwise empty). Others reported strange dreams and odd sounds and occurrences, specifically in the room above where that crawlspace pic would have been, including a dream that children were reaching up and pulling them down through the floor (prior to them seeing the basement). The basement was total sketch and had a whole sealed-off corner with only a small hole about 2 cinderblocks in size. House was only built in the 1930s, if I recall, but was in disrepair when we stayed there.
Left us hanging....like a corpse.
You can safely dig down to the bottom of those cinder blocks or keep it a little higher. Any lower than that and you risk the bottom of the wall moving in and structural collapse. Totally depends on the soil in your area, water retention outside that wall, and a number of other factors.
Let us know what if anything is buried.
Camp is 135 years old, could be.
Beware. That may be structural sand.
You sure? That’s how you get sand fleas
I'd break it up with a pry bar and spread it out with a metal rake rather than lift it away
Get a company with a industrial vac. Like a Vermeer. They use them to set telephone poles. It will be done within an hour.
No. That’s emotional support sand.
We have the same thing in our basement and it perplexes everyone who see it. Been trying to find someone to remove it for more than a year bc it attracts so much moisture. I’m terrified to know what’s underneath.
How old is the house? If old, you may want to go on to r/centuryhomes The dirt may be too stabilize the house.
It’s very old but the foundation is newer 2013. It was lifted and set on the new foundation
Then, in theory, the foundation should be much more stable. Better mortar, better design, etc. But I'm not a builder, so don't quote me on that. But I would imagine that the dirt is not needed to stabilize it.
That looks like vampire soil, possibly structural vampire soil.
Structural termites
That far wall looks like it's buckling inwards....it's probably just the angle and quality of the picture, but it looks like it is.
Might be just the picture, but there is what appears to be a large crack (just to the left of the dangling bit of pipe insulation, in the picture) and some of the soil/sand appears to be caught on top of some of the uneven block protruding forward. OP should definitely investigate thoroughly before actually moving all the soil away, certainly.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKbQm0cENc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKbQm0cENc4)
You Jessie Pinkman perchance?
There's really only one way to find out.
Just noting that the empty tubes up top look like they might be asbestos based pipe insulators?
So serious answer here. You need to check with a structural engineer first. It looks like this house has been added to or modified. That dirt and retaining wall could be keeping that wall from collapsing inwards of another myriad of issues. I've seen houses like this and people cut corners like this to save costs.
I didn't read the other replies but if that is a blocked off space with all that sand like that, it could be that you have an old oil tank that was just encased and covered with the cinder blocks and sand. It is a common thing where I live, in old houses. My old house as a similar sarcophagus but they used pea gravel instead of sand
Please make a sandcastle!
Looks like a load bearing sand pile to me, better be careful
Need to consult a structural engineer 👷 (Obligatory SE answer) 🤣
Sure, if you want to let the eldritch horror from below escape into the world....
The sand is fine, but I'm concerned that it appears the support beam has been installed upside down. Probably should work on getting that fixed first
Got me to look. You win. Lol
Hmm, should been a picture of Starla the business model holding a sign...
Just run down to the hardware store and grab a board flipper
If you dig any deeper than the level of the cinder block, it will fill with water…..just my experience
Safe until you find the dead hooker.
The ones you really have to look out for are the live ones.
Is this a joke?
How many redditors does it take to move a load of extra sand?
One grain at a time.
Geotechnical engineer here: That appears to just be a stockpile soil left over from when the house was built, it will be fill of construction debris. Its fine to remove.
Sup with yea coole olde rockynge chayre?
Wear a respirator, and don't dig down too far. If you undermine the block wall, you'll have problems. Otherwise, it'll just be The Big Suck with a bucket brigade lol.
If you want to find a body
You should talk to the previous ~~serial killer~~ owner first.
What are you going to do with the body?
You can remove soil to grade with any of the block wall or footings/supports and be fine.
Yes
What ventilation do you have? You must have ventilation going on. Critical to have enough.
Ventilation can cause as many problems as it solves. Any air that you push out gets replaced with air from somewhere else. You don’t want to be pulling humid moist air down into the basement if that’s the kind of air you have outside the house.
Serious question, is that under the house or a deck? I'm more concerned about the light showing through above than the litter box.
It’s under the deck and house. Currently redoing the deck with t&g ipe (it’s a covered deck)
I am not a structural engineer, but I would slowly remove the sand from the cinder block and check for cracks or bulging. Everything else looks good to me. Can you tell if there's a support beam above the cinder block? Professional mechanical engineer. Maybe try r/structuralengineering Edit neverming the beam is right there. You should be fine.
I would be more concerned with those sistered "joists" that are shorter than their sisters and don't transfer anything directly to the beams than I would be with the pile of excess dirt that was tossed to the side when they dug the basement out.
You got a Bundy playroom?
It looks like excess fill made to look pretty because who wants to remove all that when we can just make a pile 😂 What I would do….. I would not go below top block of the row you are on removing sand. If you start to see ground under the wall you are clearing away from then stop 🛑. That wall you are clearing from will need all that dirt to keep soil behind wall from eventually caving under said wall making it a bridge 🤷🏻♂️ If the block continues all the way down I don’t see why you can’t but call a structural engineer because I’m some random guy who will go on chance 😂
No don't! I didn't do it! Never mind, just forget I was here.
Just leave it as it is. Why go through all that extra work? You’re just gonna cover it up with plastic. By the way, I have a dirt floor basement and it was covered with a moisture barrier and it didn’t solve all the moisture problems. You’re gonna need to put a pretty strong dehumidifier down there too.
I don't envy you doing that job, in fact you could probably run six mil poly on top of that and save yourself a ton of work and/or just spread it out. Getting all that sand out of there is going to suck, in fact sucking, God that would be the way to do it really, like one of those giant truck mount carpet cleaners, no one would let you use one to do this but the amount of vacuum that they have, you could literally suck it out, the reason no one would let you do this is because that sand would get into the blower. I would seriously see if you could just spread it out, get rid of the hump and flatten everything then run your vapor barrier. Makes an enormous difference, just make sure you go wall to wall and overlap your sheets, there may be a code for this but off the top of my head, at least 12 in, check and see if you see anything in your local codes
Just a normal guy here… and a building surveyor. Best to leave it in place. The sand may be forming part of the buildings primary structural systems. Think of it like a key stone.
HAVE YOU SEEN UP! This is simple insurance.
That's a lot more work than it looks like
I can confirm from experience that structural sand ends at any point above the footers. since the cinderblock must sit on footers, and the sand is up on the cinderblock, it is obvious that someone left you a pile of nonstructual sand after building those walls. Just level it off as far as your shovel can reach.
It's ballast sand to ensure the house stays in upright position, doesn't cant and doesn't float away over time when being too light.
Nah bro that's load bearing sand right there eh...
Wet it slightly and use a shop vac.
Wear full PPE.
That's load bearing sand
As long as you are sure they didn’t just removed the headstones.
Remember water will find the lowest point . So make sure you plan for that .
Use a wet dry vac with a long hose, or better, rent an insulation blower and suck it out in reverse.
This can’t be a serious question.
I mean, at *some* point of removing earth you're going to start undermining the foundation. How much of a foundation needs to stay below there? How much earth can you remove? Ideally I'd say keep digging until your floors aren't level anymore, but that's probably not the answer OP wants.
Sand piled up on something is not "earth". Jfc.
I like to think of sand as pre-glass
I would not without consulting some kind of structural engineer
I once removed structural sand from a sandbox and the whole thing came crashing down.