old house foundation

bugsntinas

hopefully someone can help.due to flooding i am digging around the house which is over 100hundreds years old.does anyone know how deep the foundations might be on an old house?i have dug down around a foot and have found where the render starts and also much larger stones that are wider than the wall.i take it these are the foundation stones but how deep/thick might they be

Martron

without somunding smart.....
it all depends.

What is the rising wall constructed of and what are the ground conditions?

i cant imagine there would be much of a foundation id you are talking about wider stones. But this is an assumption.

best way to find out if to dig a narrow slot along side a foundation. this will give a an indication but i dount that it woill be a unoform depth. what do you need to know the depth of the foubndation for

bugsntinas

not smart at all.the house is made of stone.i'm not great with soil types but the sub soil is sort of sandy clay(well packed down)i was going to dig down but was worried incase i disturbed the stones.
in the last 2 years we've flooded 3 times.i'm laying a concret floor in the kitchen and raising it an extra 3 inches.outside i want to raise the ground level to stop the ground around the house flooding aswell.i want to build a concrete plinth(wall) around the house then seal it before back filling

Martron

these stones should be quite large so if you dig a slit trench no wider than you shovel you should minimise any disturbance and find the depth. i cant imagine it being too deep . especially if the stone wall if wide

macnab

if memory serves then i think the foundation stones are single layer, depth obviously depends on the size of each individual stone but probably no more than 10" or 12" (inches)
My advice is not to dig below the foundation stone level, you dont want those things to move the smallest bit.

Have you damp proofed the walls yet? if not then now is the time. You can run a wire around the house that operates off a low voltage or have a silicon type fluid injected into the stonework.

bugsntinas

macnab wrote: »

if memory serves then i think the foundation stones are single layer, depth obviously depends on the size of each individual stone but probably no more than 10" or 12" (inches)
My advice is not to dig below the foundation stone level, you dont want those things to move the smallest bit.

Have you damp proofed the walls yet? if not then now is the time. You can run a wire around the house that operates off a low voltage or have a silicon type fluid injected into the stonework.

cheers for all the advice.would like to get a proper damp proof but unfortunately we don't have the money only getting this work done because the insurance coughed up for last novembers flood.i know putting concrete around the base/lower wall wont totally stop the damp but at least it will only work up from the underneath and not the sides of the stones.will damp proof the kitchen floor though.