Ain't Cellars Brilliant!!!

[Moo]

I reckon that once you've located the entrance you should throw a muck-raking party. Later in the year, when refreshments could be taken outside, and disposable overalls provided for those who don't have their own.
We could all bring buckets and spades.......

 

[Penners]

you should throw a muck-raking party.

You'll get a charabanc* full of tabloid journalists.



*Bet it's been a while since you heard that word.

 

[Moo]

a charabanc* full of tabloid journalists.

It'd do them good - a bit of manual labour.

 

[Becka]

this has all made me think about my possible missing cellar .. currently i have a 4inch think concrete floor, but i did a bit of excavating at the edge of the and found dirt underneath it.. not surprising in itself, but what is surprising is that it's really loose, I'd have expected it to be throughly packed down by generations of feet if it was just an earth floor or tiled (no sign of these or any airbricks to show a wooden floor was original) so the looseness made me wonder if it might be fill? or is there another reason the earth could have become loosened? the house is a 17th century timber house with 19th century brick walls round it and a 20th century concrete floor.. the earth i'm digging out (though a very small hole i can just about fit my fingers down) looks like the soil outside with occasional bits of brick in it..

 

[Penners]

If it's a fairly recent concrete floor, then it probably won't have been poured sraight on to earth. The norm is to put in a sub-base of hardcore, blinded with sand. So this could account for the looseness of what you've found underneath.

 

[Becka]

not sure how recent. It was clearly laid before part of the front wall was rebuilt (19'50's judging by the windows) as it stops about 3 inch short of the current wall and a bit of poking about reveals the brick soleplate for the old wattle and daub wall that would have been there, What I'm digging out doesn't look sandy or hardcore-y, but like the earth outside, brown with little chalky bits.. should mention that the cellar isn't a total pipe dream, one other cottage in the block at right angles to mine has one that had to be emptied of rubble etc about 20 years ago having been filled, and theres photographic evidence that the other cottage in that row had cellars too but no one seems to know if our row had them, being as the square was a slum in the early part of the century not many people too pictures..

its probably not feasible, but if i wanted to, how would you go about removing 4-6 inches of very hard, very aggregate filled concrete?

 

[Nemesis]

You'd hire equipment to break it up.

 

[Becka]

what kind?, we had a proper pnuematic drill to have a go at some concrete in the garden and after the first 10 seconds (when my dad pronounced it as 'GREAT') it became too heavy and too difficult and a big waste of money cos no one could manage it for more than a minute or two (I couldn't even lift the thing so i didn't even try) and I still bhave 1/2 the concrete left being hammered at and carted off on the odd weekend.. Just wondering if anyone's attempted anything like this really, and how much hassle it was (I assume truely enormous..) would be good to get it out for a number of reasons, possibly mythical cellar aside, damp avoidance obviously, and it would give me the space to have a wooden floor without reducing the ceiling height to a smidge over 6ft..

 

[Gervase]

For the average floor slab, an electric demolition drill would do the trick. You could go for a monster like this, but I've broken up floors with an ordinary SDS demoliton hammer. Hire one with at least a 1000-watt power rating and an impact rating of 10 Joules or more and you'll be fine. Jewsons and most independent hire shops will do you one.

There's one on eBay which would do the job - here

 

[middi]

........or you could try which is the heaviest sledge hammer you can lift you would be amazed as to how quick it breakes away once you have an exposed edge on the slab.

Ths approach works particularly well if, as Penners suggested, the slab was originally buid on sand blinded rublle or loose hardcore.

Good bashing !!.

 

[NT]

Sledge & bar. The hardest bit is starting the breakup, once you've got some breakage you should progress a lot easier with the sledge hammer. Use the bar to lift up the big lumps once cracked/broken, means less hammering rwequired.

Its hard work but kinda satisfying.

An SDS may do it, though it would be pushing it to its limit. An SDS is a most useful piece of kit anyway.


NT

 

[Penners]

Sledge & bar.

I tired that once, but broke the sledge.

Pity really - it would have been fun in the snow, this week.

 

[bournonite]

A job we did last year - client wanted to get back into the cellars under his house - very big it is.. Massive new floors, all with about £300k worth of polshed, tesselated marble, with family crests in bronze in the marble etc.. Under that lot, is the cellars.. So.. having found out I've been in the mining game, he requested that we drive a new entrance into it. So, from the new kitchen / pantry area (bigger than most normal houses) I dug a decline into the sandstone with rockdrills and splitting compounds etc., and then drove a 5 or 6 yard tunnel off the bottom to break into the cellars. We had a ball - had a breaking through party in the cellar... Still got piccies of it somewhere.

Pete

 

[MdB]

... with rockdrills and splitting compounds ...

What are "splitting compounds"? Just googled but couldn't come up with anything sensible.

 

[bournonite]

Its what we use in gem mining operations - you drill shotholes as normal, then mix this up and pour into the hole, or soak the 'charges' in water and push them into upper holes like sticks of gelignite - they expand rapidly as they react with the water and split the rock without percussive shock, so dont damage the crystals - great in built up areas as no license needed (I have my quarry managers ticket..) :wink:

 

[Penners]

I have my quarry managers ticket.

Aah - I've often wondered why you're named after the "cogwheel crystal". Did you used to work in Cornwall?

 

[bournonite]

Did a bit of time in Geevor - all we mining people had to go down Geevor to be called a miner...!! Then 20 years or so running gold mines around the world. Just in the process of negotiating a deal to buy a mine at the moment - want to set it up as a mining heritage place - but also mine specimens commercially. As for the cogwheels - last good specimen of that, which was sold, 3x2" with good crystals, from Herodsfoot - a tad over £20,000...

 

[Penners]

The Liskeard area is about the only source in the UK, isn't it?

 

[bournonite]

Yup - the herodsfoot mine at Lanreath. World famous.. Almost a shrine for mineral collectors. Have a look at my mineral website if you like - http://www.campylite.com - a bit embryonic - but shows some of my minerals etc.!

 

[Jane Smith]

Look, I come here to avoid conversations like that, so stop it now, OK?

(My husband is a minerals surveyor. He started down t'pits when he was just 16 and worked his way up, through the miners' strikes and everything. Almost every time we see a concrete batching plant, a quarry, or a landfill he says proudly, "I've valued that." He has long conversations with our children about pebbles and bits of concrete, which then get put into pockets and get lodged in the washing machine. I have had enough.)