Get yourself a board about the width of your trench, place it in the bottom of your footing at the level you need to excavate to. Using your shovel, or if the ground is hard a grub axe, remove soil so it falls on the board, now shovel the loosened earth off the board. Well done if you followed this advice as you have just made your job 50% easier. You can thank me later! 45yrs as miner & ground worker - Now (retired) but still digging.

thanks for the video! digging seems like a simple job but knowing what you are doing (like you!) can make such a big difference! Thanks for all the hints and tips

Thanks for reply, it's great to see a young fella, getting stuck in, respect !! Young man keep pushing on it'll work out in the Long run, 👍

Nice work mate! Come over to South Australia, I'll pay you well to dig my dry dusty clay ground in the Baroosa

I've just dug out 15 tonnes with my son with very rocky soil. We had to use Newcastle drain spades & a pick just to get it loose. I wish we had soil like that in Yorkshire. Great to see younger folk with your attitude these days pal.

currently doing some digging after being immobile as all hell for 3 years and its doin quite the number on my lower back lol. got me searchin stretches and everything. good job being so efficient by yourself!

Working on a grain bin foundation. Got the 16" avg. of gravel backfill in place in the interior with forms and about to start digging the footings. Everything on my grain bin foundation is referencing the original terrain around the 1 1/4" center pivot pipe driven 4' in the ground with a removable 1" internal pipe with a fabbed board holder welded to it, that can either lock a 2x6 in place with a bolt for measuring distance and level to center, or remove the bolt to let it slide back and forth for screeding backfill/concrete. I use different board attachments screwed into the board to scribe lines, achieve uniform depth, etc. Pipe driven in the ground has a coupler, so I can add the appropriate length pipe for the final concrete height. The centerline of the footing is 21' in diameter. Footing will be 2ft wide, 15.5 in deep in relation to original grade of center (to achieve 12" minimum for footing below grade on the low side, high side will be 19" below grade at the bottom of footing). Going to do it all by hand.

Your a trooper mate 👌 don't see many ov us with the shovel in our hands anymore lol 💯😎

Lzzy see you hard at work 💪🏼great job 👍

You did a great job with that footing, great job mate! Sorry I'm late by the way, I've been as busy as you building a level 3 challenge wall at college..! 👷‍♂️

Reminds me when I was in the army doing defensive exercises.we had to dig a trench chest high like yours with a small shovel and pick, and then a sleeping bay / bunker with overhead cover min of 4 foot. No sleep, until it was done. Then you may be out on night patrol. We dug in clay, sandy soil, rock and slate dependant on location. Now retired and digging foundations for my garden project…but now utilise my wife to help me dig 😅

Nice video mate. I'm looking to dig my own footings out for a single extension. Do you recommend 6ft deep and 500mm wide(

he trick digging a trent to make life easyer dig section of footiing first it dose not matter what death so then you have form trent ex 1 miter long once done cut picese of ply or board witd h of trent length you have dug then threw it bottom of trent then start diggen cutting down the tren the earth or clay or hardcore wil fall on the board in the trent so you got soild flat suface to shovel then jusr move it along the trench as you dig it make life so much easyer bin there and done it

Have you ever dug up any interesting artifacts during projects like this?

You don't need the gym after that.....huge respect sir !

Doing this tomorrow for a single story extension, oh what joy 😢

Nooice!

I'm hand digging through chalk at the moment using a mattock. Buckets have been helpful.

Proper graft mate! Is that armoured cable at 10:16?

Proper job that. "breathing out me arse" 😂👍🏻

I have always wonderd how much stuff ive moved with the shovel in my life time imagine it all in one plie it would b a small mountain 😂

Respect.

Get round mine tomorrow, bring ya shovels, I've got to dig out round my foundations 😂

Best footing I ever dug was 300mm deep, we hit shale and BCo said that's deep enough!

Been doing this past 3 days,on my own,no radio,miserable day,ffs 🤣🤣🤣 There is something about digging,depressing and rewarding at the same time 🤣🤣🤣

I don’t mind digging I see it as a workout I like to use a pick to losen the dirt and then shovel it out and use a few wheel borrows so your not getting in and out every other second

It's great to see Minecraft in action, 😂🤣😂

You said not there tomorrow doing a different job….don’t say you must hide another trench? 😅, by the way you said you had a headache… that may be due to de-hydration due to the heat, workload and sweat, so drink plenty of water .

Great Work Out, Hire a Mini Digger on next Job, Go for A Cold 1🍺

Tip number 1 get someone else to dig it 😂😂😂

Damn that sucks bro shat in the footings...yuk

I did over 50 tonnes of footing digging and came across many many full bricks, miscellaneous pieces of metal, plastic etc it was a back breaker

Hire a machine your not in the dark ages

big tip, don't do digging!