Digging an underground workshop

[Michael] of Teaching Tech moved, and with a large crawl space under the house, he decided to turn it into a workshop.

There were a few challenges that needed to be addressed first. He had to excavate the crawl space to provide a flat surface, although the depth was limited by the concrete footings on which the building sits. The house sits on top of and around large amounts of limestone, which is great from a stability standpoint but gives [Michael] problems. Water can easily pass through the limestone, which means it ends up in its newly dug crawl space. He dug trenches to let the water out and laid gravel. After a few attempts to level the floor, he found floor mats made from recycled plastic and finally put them where he liked them.

Running down his tools down a long, steep hill to the store seems like most of the challenge. But with a few additions to the shop, like hard-tube dust extractions and a French cleat system, it has an incredibly functional dedicated shop space.

If your crawl space is too small for people, a small remote-controlled forklift could turn it into the storage space you need.