Once again my house has baffled me. Yesterday I started preliminary work on my summer project of replacing the concrete floor of the basement (which is cracked, leaky, and badly sloped). I broke out a section of floor near the foundation wall, to see how far down the footing was. I dug down about 3" and found the END of the foundation wall! No footing. It appears to have been poured directly onto the dirt.

This house was built in 1910. The foundations were mixed and poured by hand. None are cracked, but the whole thing has definitely settled over the decades. The house is not level.

All I want to really do is have a non-leaking basement. But now if I remove the floor, it looks like I'd be removing the only thing holding the walls up! Not quite, but close.

What do you guys think? Any advice?

a) support the house with cribbing and rebuild the entire foundation?
b) attempt to pour retrofit footings (in stages) by digging under the existing foundation?
c) burn the house down
d) sell it to the next sucker?

Obviously the place has withstood the test of time, sort of. But I can't achieve my goal of having a workshop down there unless I can replace the floors, so, what to do?

Thanks for any thoughts.

1. would be add onto the house for a work shop
2. Underpin that section the work shop is in.
3. Move or don't build a workshop

I had very good success with underpinning a foundation wall.