Thoughts on a Pit

[smiffy]

My slightly longer than normal, but pretty much standard, single car garage has a pit in it.

Dug, I suspect by one particular previous owner of my house that seemed to excel at doing things half ar5ed and hiding the evidence!. It has occasionally been slightly useful despite all that is wrong with it.

I'm trying to decide what to do with it.

It's less than 5ft deep so you can't actually walk under a car without stooping. Even up on axle stands it's not practical.

It isn't long enough to do both a diff oil and a gearbox oil change without moving the car, and if you move the car to access the gearbox, you can't get out of the pit!

The pit floor isn't concreted, just soil, and through the winter months, our local elevated water table puts about 2ft of water in it!

It's presence makes using a trolley jack a bit dubious as it ends up on the pit boards.

So, what do I do?

Option 1. Dig it out a bit, add some more block work below the existing side walls, concrete the floor and fit a sump pump.

Option 2. Fill it in and concrete over it.

Either way, effort and expense are involved, but at the moment I have the worst of both worlds!

I've spent years trying to decide what to do about it and I now blame it for me still not rebushing the back end of the Zed.

 

[Nodzed]

I find pits a bit of a waste of time, unless they have pit jacks all they are much use for is basic servicing, I'd fill it it.

 

[billz]

If it is at all possible to extend it and make it work. If it is done right it could be a godsend for you to be able to do diy works, i would try not to have to fill it in if possible as you just never know when you may need it all be it the smallest thing

 

[Ianmc]

I'd like a pit, but it would need to be done properly.

 

[t-tony]

I have a pit at the Shed and the butyl liner wasn’t laid in one piece and consequently it lets water through the concrete blocks. It has a concrete floor and is shoulder height. I have a submersible 240V pump but, since the lake was dug next door and the spoil was used to raise the level of the land over the fence I have nowhere to pump it to apart from the drains? At the moment there is around 2ft of water in there, a few years ago it was almost dry. Biggest problem is keeping the pit boards in good condition as even pressure treated timber rots quickly as it’s only 3-4 ft above water all the time.
I’ve been thinking about filling mine in too. But then I remember all the effort I put into digging it by hand when I was a younger man and trailering the soil down to my parents place a couple of miles away and shovelling it out at their place.

Tony.

 

[smiffy]

Hmmm, I was hoping for a more unanimous vote one way or the other!

Thought of doubling the length of the pit, puts me right off, but I might just get in and dig a bit out to see if making it deeper is an option, it will still flood though.

I need a bigger garage, with a 2 post ramp, but that will mean moving.

 

[smiffy]

Well, with the zed off the road due to the lockdown, I decided to see if I could at least do the diff oil and check the diff bush.

Dropped into the pit, decided it was deffinately too shallow, so thought, I'll just dig down one corner and see what I've got. What looked like soil was actually about half an inch of general muck on top of ballast. Kept digging and found a concrete floor about a foot down! Seems someone has dumped a ton of ballast in the pit to get rid of it!

Dug half of it out and even found a sump hole for a pump!

Although it is damp, and it needs pumping, it is now usable for small jobs. Diff bush and oil done. Pit will stay for now. Just gt to convince the wife to let me make the garage wider!

 

[t-tony]

I'm tempted to get my submersible pump out and empty my pit and see how long it stays empty (I won't say dry, cos I know the answer to that) as I have not emptied it out since the lake was excavated in the field next door. Could be interesting.

Tony.

 

[mrscalex]

When we lived in London as a child I’m fairly sure most if not all of the houses in our 1930s semi road were built with pits either in the garage or on the driveway. But then I wonder if I’m going mad as I’ve never come across this anywhere else.