I’ve been getting almost universal advice to put in a full basement, so I need to revisit this idea. Any idea as to how much more a basement will add in cost over the slab? My gut feeling is that it’s a lot more expensive.
Thanks
Paul
I’ve been getting almost universal advice to put in a full basement, so I need to revisit this idea. Any idea as to how much more a basement will add in cost over the slab? My gut feeling is that it’s a lot more expensive.
Thanks
Paul
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Replies
I'm in So. California. What's a basement?
It seems very odd that you don't have basements there, what with the high land prices you have. I love having a basement, it is a great space for many uses and makes utilities more accessible. I suppose that a basement there is extra work because the mild temps don't require the deep footings we need.
Exactly, it's the mild temps. Grew up there and moved out a while back.
I really like basements. It makes a lot of sense when you have lived in both kinds of houses.
I think a quality home should have at least a partial basement. "There are three kinds of men: The one that learns by reading, the few who learn by observation and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."Will Rogers
I grew up without a basement. I decided to buy only a home with a basement a long time ago.
i would love a basement, especially during hurricane season
Would you equip it with a good snorkle?;)
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I'd want a 50hp sump pump there myself.
Still need a snorkle for the deisel running it!;)Maybe he can get some 'seconds' from General Dynamics
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"I think a quality home should have at least a partial basement."
I think Frank Lloyd Wright might disagree with you.
Fingersandtoes said, ( I think Frank Lloyd Wright might disagree with you.)
I've been to his college in Wisconsin and worked on one of his sons homes. Loyd wright. And another one I'm not sure who built.
I like what I've seen of his work. But I can't see how a basement under his home would change the look or feel of the house at all.
I do think he had a huge ego like almost anyone in his position would have.
He lived at a time when some people lived large and it was considered good.
Personally, I would not have liked him. To full of himself for my taste.
But that has little to do with the pros and cons of basements.
"There are three kinds of men: The one that learns by reading, the few who learn by observation and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."Will Rogers
Edited 7/26/2009 6:31 pm by popawheelie
"He lived at a time when some people lived large and it was considered good. "
"Personally, I would not have liked him. To full of himself for my taste."
Nothing has changed. Try listening to Daniel Libeskind, Norman Foster of any of the current crop of star architects. When I'm feeling charitable I forgive them the way we do with some great athletes because their work can be so electrifying, but really most of them are a bit much.
My (poorly put) point about basements was that their merits have very little to do with the quality of the house. There are great houses with and without them.
I agree with you. I don't put anyone on a pedistal any more. After touring the college in Wisconsin I got the feeling people did just that with him.
there was a whole movement in arts and crafts. I think he had groupies. "There are three kinds of men: The one that learns by reading, the few who learn by observation and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves."Will Rogers
I'm not in the construction business, so take this with a grain of salt. But the difference in cost should not be that much, if your slab was going to have frost walls anyway. Frost walls need to go down about 4 feet. If you went down a few more feet you could make a basement out of the walls. The slab is the same amount of labor and material whether it's placed in a basement or on the ground, so that's a wash.
So the difference in cost would be more excavation (a few hour's worth), about 4 more feet of wall, waterproofing, drainage, and insulation. For that cost you'd get double the square footage, minus what you lose for the stairs.
"the difference in cost would be more excavation (a few hour's worth),"LOL, that's a good excavator you have there!
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You will be living there so build it in a way that has value for you . If a basement has no value to you why put out the extra cash for it.
well...here it means 8 ft walls instead of 4 ft walls.... the slab costs a little less... the cost comes in the additional concrete walls , deeper excavation, and the floor frame system
Oops, Mike's right, I forgot the cost of a floor.
but if he does a frost shallow footer, he wont even have 4 foot walls
So much depends on your site - soils type and groundwater and slope.
The last I did an actual comparisson on was about 20 years ago.. This was comparing stem wall to 4' vs full basement on well drained gravel type soil - easy dig and good drainage - no groundwater concerns. It was a 50x 30 structure.
The crete work was an added five grand and the excavation,site work was another thousand. It roughly doubled the cost of the foundation and added 80% to the site work.
I've been mostly providing you info and not making too many definite recommendations, because as I read you and your situation, I don't necessarily think a basement is needed. In the north, they are generally a good investment getting a lot of bang for the buck in terms of space.
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Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
where ...
Excellence is its own reward!
Curious, how much of a premium would going to 9' walls instead of 8' walls be? Seems if you are going to do a basement, you might as well not knock your head on anything in it!
Tu stultus esRebuilding my home in Cypress, CAAlso a CRX fanatic!
Look, just send me to my drawer. This whole talking-to-you thing is like double punishment.
Depends who is doing it.Some crete subs only have 8' formsWith ICFs it is just anothe rrow of blocks, same with laying CMU walls
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
Well that's what I was wondering, the worst case where the sub only has 8' forms. What does it take to get them to 9', using your example?
Tu stultus esRebuilding my home in Cypress, CAAlso a CRX fanatic!
Look, just send me to my drawer. This whole talking-to-you thing is like double punishment.
money
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ICF's are 18 inches high not 12 inches.. They aren't block substitutes.. they are 4 feet long..
They don't sell 12" icf blocks but you still have to buy and stack an 18" to get another 12" frenchy. Man wants to know what it takes to get another 12" higher. If you have another methoid with ICFs than placing another block up there, let's here it
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"If you have another methoid with ICFs than placing another block up there, let's here it"
Put them on end and pour sideways using the magic pump truck :)
"how much of a premium would going to 9' walls instead of 8' walls be?"
Under some codes going over 8 ft triggers the need for the wall to be engineered.
Ahhh - now that it interesting!
Tu stultus esRebuilding my home in Cypress, CAAlso a CRX fanatic!
Look, just send me to my drawer. This whole talking-to-you thing is like double punishment.
Of course all this talk of high concrete basement walls assumes the building is designed with the first floor being at grade. Most, or many, basements are hybrids with some portion of their walls framed above grade.
Hey paul
Which part of central PA?
A shallow insulated slab is part of the code so the inspectors have to accept it.
If you plan on shutting down all winter, I would not go that route though.
(I read all your other post re the shell for 31K)
anyway, 18x60 foundation is a lot of wall. 160 lf of poured wall and figure about $50-$60per linear foot for 8"x8' wall with footing if you shop it well and negotiate.
I get prices from mid-higher 40's and up when I typically bid but I know the contractors.
For a crawl or slab, you still need a 3' curtain wall around to get you below the frost line. (plus 10" footing so you can backfill min 3' and still have frost protection and dirt at least 6" below top of slab/wall.
You have to dig a bigger hole, and might have dirt to get rid of depending on the property (but you might be short on dirt on a slab on grade condition)
I know some great concrete guys and framers in the Lancaster Area and would be happy to give you their info if interested. I dont know which part of the state you are in though and if Lancaster would serve your area.
Jeff in Pa
[email protected]
122743.16 in reply to 122743.1
Hey paul
Which part of central PA?
Williamsport
Recently, I have had second thoughts of about this very notion. The builder changed me $35K in 2000 for an unfinished basement with approximately 1100 SqFt. When I am done this year, haven paid multiple contractors over the past 14 months to finish it out, I would have spent another $50K.
Comparitively, I spent $250K on 2650 SqFt of finished home above ground in 2000. Capring the two per SqFt is $94 vs $77 for above/below ground solutions. Now, I must relate that the workmanship in the basement far exceeds that of the tract-built above ground.
Final thought: I should have bought a 1300 SqFt home with 2600 SqFt of basement (in the form of two basement floors). :)
I saw a picture in a magazine of a kitchen. The floor was concrete, and it had a trap door in the floor near the kitchen sink. My interpretation was that there was a small room under the slab that allowed access to the plumbing. Has anybody seen this kind of setup? It sounds like it might be cost effective since its a small space.
Thanks
seen and work in three of those but I think you want an easier access. Generally about 6x6x6 or so
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What part of the plumbing under the slab are you thinking you would like access to? There really isn't much buried under a slab on grade house that it would help being able to get at.
What part of the plumbing under the slab are you thinking you would like access to? There really isn't much buried under a slab on grade house that it would help being able to get at.
I'm terrified that pipes will freeze and burst, as has happened over the years in our existing farmhouse. Also, if the line to the septic gets clogged, how do you clear it without having a clean-out plug?
Regards
Paul
You don't build any plumbing system without cleanouts.There should be no reason for a properly planned plumbing system to freeze and burst ( you have an idea for a new thread now?)Maine reason I see them is that it saves some space in a small place above ground.
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There should be no reason for a properly planned plumbing system to freeze and burst
Our farmhouse has a dirt floor in the cellar, and the foundation is just piled up stones with little or no cement. The frame is made of wide, overlapping vertical boards, so wide that I don't think you could buy them today. So I guess you could say that it's not a properly planned plumbing system; it just kind of grew over the years, starting somewhere in the early 1900's.
Decades ago, we lived in the farmhouse only during the summer, with occasional weekends the rest of the year. With winter coming, I'd pour antifreeze into all the drains, blow out the faucets with my mouth, open up the petcocks, drain the water heater, etc. We let the house freeze up.
Every spring was an adventure when we turned the water on, because as often a not, there would be a gusher somewhere in the house. So that's why I've got this phobia about bad plumbing.
We didn't have a lot of money back then, so when the septic line clogged up and our cheap, hand powered auger failed to clear it, we broke out the picks and shovels and started digging up the lawn, looking for the waste pipe. Only when all measures failed did we call Roto-Rooter; he had it working in 30 minutes.
Paul
You aren't building that farmhouse. you are building new.So there is no reason to fear frozen pipes
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Where I see these, they contain the following;The line in from the pump
The pressure tank.
The valves for shutdown and draining the lines
sometimes a sump pump or a drain the floor to daylight drain.
A light bulb is handy too.
and a ladder to get back out
;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
In the northern climates I think a basement is a no-brainer if the soil conditions are good. In an area where there is no frost I would think the cost difference would be substantial.
Paul,
who is going to build this? you or a contractor?
The reason I ask is foundation work If you use ICF's is so simple a cave man can do it (sorry to all cavemen) Actually in my case my sister in law with absolutely no construction experiance at all (unless you call painting her bedroom as construction experiance) did mine.
She did it in one day after a 20 min. drug slurred instruction from me (and I fell asleep before I finished)
The heaviest thing you have to lift is a can of foam. (the forms weigh less) You can make it as simple or as complex as you want. At a minimum I saved $10,000 by doing it myself.
Don't let others talk you out of it!
It's not as hard or scary as so many make it seem. The key is to get a professional to excavate the site for you. The actual pour doesn't take very long (couple of hours) and if you're fat and out of shape like I am you might hire a kid from the local grocery store to haul the hose around and you supervise. Don't worry! If you buy the forms from the right concrete company they have personal they send out to check your work before they come with the pumper and concrete. They also gave me a video to watch which really showed me how easy it is..
How did you say your sister layed out the footing and poured it perfectly level by herself?
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That part I managed before becoming bedridden. Heck if you can read a tape measure and a level it's not that hard (as you know)
I tried to work over some footings by people who thought it was easy too.For them at least, it was all in their mind.I have no doubt paul could pull off an icf if he wanted a basement and wanted to do it himself, but he needs to know it is a lot harder to do right than what you let on
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Piffin
Can some people screw things up?
Sure! We've all seen it but that's not exclusive to DIY'ers. I know many people who post here go back and repair work other "professionals" do.
The great thing about ICF's is the video and help the companies offer. Watch the video and decide if you can do it..
Is it a bit more complicated than I lay out? Sure, but not enough so it should scare off a lot of DIY'ers.
Listen there are a lot of things I can't do.. master a computer is sure one of them yet many find it extremely easy and can't understand why I can't..
If I seem overly enthusiastic about certain things it's not an attempt to defraud someone or cheat them. Rather I want others to find out they can do things and feel the same empowerment that I felt..
If othes don't want to and want to hire others to do the work for them that too is fine..
The trouble with the construction industry is there is no one in charge of standards. You can't look at your grades at the end of the year and say well here's were I did better and here's where I can improve.
In selling equipment for the past 2 decades I never once met someone who felt they were average or below average. Not everybody can be the best!
My point is not whether someone can screw up.It is that it is not as easy to do as you claim.You are so enthusiastic about IDFs that you are way outside of reality in trying to get this guy to DIY a job that he want s acontractors to do, to build a basement when he wants a slab, and before anyone has a chance to notice, you'll want him to shellac that slab as well.
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OK how hard was it?
I mean I'd never built a foundation before. ever!
I got it started and wound up in bed for a month.
My sister-in-law with absolutely no prior construction experiance at all finished it for me.
A clear case of the inexperianced leading the no experiance.
When I poured the foundation for my portico (my second time building a ICF foundation) I threw away the instruction manual and did it my way. That included cutting each form into 3 pieces and pouring the footing and the wall in the same pour. Then back filling the forms before the pour so I didn't need to have scaffolding to stand on to do the pour. (I also eliminated the bracing).
I really should get my camera back from my daughter and post some puictures of how nice it turned out.
As for talking someone into building a foundation, you really need to go back and read the statement by the OP
How did you say your sister layed out the footing and poured it perfectly level by herself?20 inch slump
LOL
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You sure he didn't fill it with water and add bags of concrete later?
No bracing? The walls looked like a Tennessee road map.
Edited 7/28/2009 9:32 am ET by catfish
"How did you say your sister layed out the footing and poured it perfectly level by herself?"
Come on, keep up! If you had been paying attention you would remember that his sister in law only formed the foundation. He hired some kid from the grocery store to pour it with a line pump. And no, I'm not making this up.
The difference in cost is substantial. However, where I work the land prices are so high that everyone that isn't in the flood plain puts one in. You want to maximize land usage. Like I said though, major difference in cost between a basement and a slab, as you can imagine.