Browse Forums Renovation + Home Improvement 1 Dec 26, 2012 4:14 pm Our house is built into a hillside and so is mainly a single storey (with it becoming a double storey towards the bottom of the hill). I was wondering whether it would be difficult to add additional rooms underneath the current house by cutting further into the hillside. Is this generally impractical? Are there then issues with water seeping into the new rooms or is this easily remediated? Re: Second storey below 2Dec 26, 2012 5:10 pm We are building on a downward sloping block and have rooms underneath (my husband's man cave) so it's definitely possible. Due to the amount of slope on our block there is actually very little cutting required. You can cut into the block to do this but that will push up site costs and require extra drainage and waterproofing. Feel free to have a look at my plans, the link is in my signature. Custom downslope build Build thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=61873 Blog http://www.buildingroyalmanor.blogspot.com.au Re: Second storey below 3Dec 26, 2012 10:56 pm Could be issues with your top slab and the support etc. Our house is cut into a hill and we are adding another storey on top (so 3 storeys) and we had to put in new footings in the existing 2nd storey slab so it could take the weight etc. So I would think a similar thing would have to happen if you were to cut into the hill to create rooms. You may be looking at steel supports to ensure the top level is well supported etc and there may be deeper footings required etc. For our basement level which is preexisiting all of it is double bricked with the wall into the hill being concrete filled etc and thankfully this was designed so well we didn't need to make any structural changes except for when we removed all of the load bearing walls and that was fixed with lots of steel. You can definitely cut into the hill you will just need more engineering help given you have a structure above that you want to retain. Questions will be which way does your sewerage travel - to the street or back etc? Are there council regs on how much cut and fill you can do? Will there be a requirement for retaining walls? How easy is it to access the back of your block with machinery/trucks etc? Our backyard is impossible to access except for a very steep dirt path that has been nicknamed "the goat trail" by the tradies. So a large amount of the work done out the back has been done by hand (not fun and very time consuming) But you can definitely do it and I think it adds heaps of interest to a house to have an almost hidden part. Re: Second storey below 4Mar 05, 2013 11:19 am Our house is fully accessible underneath (it is bricks on a sandstone base), however it is completely enclose except for one small doorway and is only crouching height. Would this mean that the escavation would have to be done by hand? Or are there ways around this (e.g. knocking some bricks out to bring some machinery in)? Re: Second storey below 5Mar 06, 2013 10:23 am D101 Our house is fully accessible underneath (it is bricks on a sandstone base), however it is completely enclose except for one small doorway and is only crouching height. Would this mean that the escavation would have to be done by hand? Or are there ways around this (e.g. knocking some bricks out to bring some machinery in)? A word of caution here -- I assume your original engineer excavated to stable ground to build upon, NOT allowing for someone later to excavate on a whim and possibly weaken the structure. I strongly suggest you get an engineer's report before doing further excavation Arfur We were lucky in that our old house was so small (86 square metres) compared to the new house, they were able to take enough readings around the old backyard house before… 8 37160 Hi, We have a single story MacDonald Jones house, on a waffle pod slab with steel frame. Are we able to build a second story extension? Other info is we are 900mm from… 0 8505 We are building a second dwelling and are currently selecting window and door frames. We want to blend into the forest and also bring out the stone work and the fake wood… 0 15938 |