Recommendation for 6' deep basement cut at edge of neighbors driveway? 1

[PengStruct]

I'm a structures guy and my client, who's building a new house, has an approximately 16' long section of the house built 1' away from the property line and the neighbors driveway. He'll need to excavate at least 6' down to place the footing and I'm telling him he'll need to have shoring of some kind to support the soil. He has already asked me to design the shoring, which I have no experience with. I think this would be a soldier pile and lagging job, am I right? Would it be something reasonable to take on after a good amount of studying up on it? Is even this small of a job too risky for a first shoring job? I've located several references mentioned in other threads on this site and the owner is having boring done as well.

 

[oldestguy]

I am not fully sure of the law here in Wisconsin, but it runs something like this. Any excavation at the property line less than 8 feet deep is not the responsibility of the excavating side owner as to supporting the other property. Deeper than that it is the excavating side owner that is responsible. Maybe you have similar laws.

 

[PEinc]

It may be cheaper to make a safely sloped open cut onto the neighbor's property and then replace the portion of their driveway that had to be dug up. After all, you may wind up doing that anyway if an incorrectly designed or constructed sheeting wall deflects excessively and the driveway settles.

http://www.PeirceEngineering.com

 

[PengStruct]

Oldestguy - I looked into the local code and it goes something like: As long as the neighbor lets the contractor inspect their property, then the contractor is responsible for preserving and protecting from damage all adjacent structures. But if the neighbor does not let them inspect the premises then it is on the neighbor to fix their property if something happens.

PEinc - Your suggestion makes sense and that is basically what I've told my client. They should just try to work it out with the neighbor and pay them for some new driveway paving if they have to. It seems that you would only have to slope the soil a few feet into the neighbors driveway.

Thanks to both of you.

 

[Ron]

PEinc...agree!