House with a basement

[MossRoad]

Plus, for those of us in earthquake country, a garage under the second story is likely to pancake.

What's the difference if its a garage space or a house space under a 2nd story? Don't they have 2 story houses there in earthquake country? Or no houses with 24x24 rooms in them?

 

[Travelover]

What's the difference if its a garage space or a house space under a 2nd story? Don't they have 2 story houses there in earthquake country? Or no houses with 24x24 rooms in them?

It has to do with what happens when you have a high lateral force. A first floor with multiple walls resists the lateral force, where as a big open space, particularly with big cut outs in the walls for the garage doors will just matchbox. But you are right, an open floor plan on the first floor is not good for quake resistance. When the next big one hits the PNW, I'd rather be in a ranch.

 

[aczlan]

Make the stairs wide enough that if, for some reason, you lose the ability to comfortably use stairs, you can put in a chair lift on the stairs. They are very nice when needed.

Hear ye, hear ye. My in-laws have a stair chair and it makes having a 2nd floor possible (joint issues make stairs painful for them).

Aaron Z

 

[MossRoad]

My in-laws had a tri-level house. 1st floor had garage, country kitchen and living room. They had either go UP half a flight of stairs or DOWN half a flight of stairs to get to any bedroom or bathroom. Laundry was a full flight down under the 1st floor. They built a new 1 floor house. Everything on 1st floor... except the laundry, which is in the 9' deep basement! MOM! What are you thinking? 25 years later, they are both having joint and stability issues. I recently built a gate across the basement steps so they don't fall down them when going out to the garage. There is a small closet in the garage that's back wall is against the 3rd bedroom closet. A stackable washer and dryer could easily be put in there, but they won't let us do it for them. They insist on going to the basement to do laundry. Scares us.

 

[teg]

We built with thoughts of finishing out one side of the basement... but have put finishing off the basement to another day. It's plumbed for a bathroom and I will get that "finished" hopefully this year. We've always had basements and would not want it any other way. The greatest Man Cave!!! I don't think finishing it is that good... I would make the first floor larger!

Dehumidifier is your friend... if you don't want it to smell (that's our case).

Stress to your builder, that if it cracks (because too much water in concrete) for 5 years, it's his dime to fill the cracks!!

We had planned ahead and add 3 pipes from the basement straight to the attic. We had them capped, I'm using one for Radon mitigation (fan piped from the basement floor) I would have them put in a 4" pipe into the ground. We have 3" pipe... doesn't matter either way. (look up the radon thread.)


Need to get newer photos!! these are a couple years old...
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[dougtrr2]

You mentioned putting a wood stove in the basement. Consider the path of the wood from the outside to the stove location. When you burn a lot of wood you realize how dirty it can actually be. We built out house with a walkout basement and the wood boiler room has a separate door directly to the outside. Regardless of whether you do full basement or walk out basement I would widen the stairways to 42". It makes getting things up and down a lot easier.

Doug in SW IA

 

[fidowanttobe]

I am in my 10th house, and the only one I have built. This one has a walk-out and I love it. HOWEVER, if I ever do it again, the only steps I will have is going to the "upstairs" above a garage, and the threshold at the entrance doors! Without a doubt, it will be slab on grade. One of the houses I had actually was built by a man in a wheelchair so it was a large ranch. Absolutely loved that house and I have no one to blame but me why I didn't build this one that way.

 

[zmountaineer]

I have always had walkout basements. One piece of advice I can give you that I haven't seen mentioned yet is to go with steel I-beams to really open up the basement. We went with 12" I-beams and the support posts are MUCH further apart than if we went with wood. It would have been something like every 6ft there would have been a support post. A ranch style house would probably be different than our 2 story. We also did 9ft basement walls.

 

[MossRoad]

I have always had walkout basements. One piece of advice I can give you that I haven't seen mentioned yet is to go with steel I-beams to really open up the basement. We went with 12" I-beams and the support posts are MUCH further apart than if we went with wood. It would have been something like every 6ft there would have been a support post. A ranch style house would probably be different than our 2 story. We also did 9ft basement walls.

View attachment 539644View attachment 539645

A good friend of mine and her husband had a modular home built for them. He is an engineer. So he figured out the size of steel I-beam he'd need to run the length of the entire house, and had the foundation built to support it. The entire basement is free of any posts! HUGE! Very nice thing to have. He coordinated delivery of the I-beam with delivery of the house, so the same crane set the beam and both halves of the house the same day. Worked out great!

 

[newbury]

<snip>Who really wants guests coming over, and how long do they stay?

Just my thoughts.

Feeling a little ant-social today?

When I add on to my house, I'm going to put in an over sized front door. I haven't shopped around to see what's available, but I've ordered enough doors to think that I can probably get one built any size I want. It's just a matter of what I can afford. I'm also thinking that I can make one 48 inches wide, which would be perfect!!!! I'm still just day dreaming, but I think it's a good dream.

SWMBO wants an addition to our retirement home, one of my preq's are doors wide enough to drive a BX1800 thru.

I've two houses with walk out basements.

The one in suburban Northern Virginia just walks out into a 12x6 cellar hole with 3' walls and stairs up. I've a porch above. It provides an excellent paint studio in the summer. I suspend Polycarbonate Roofing Panels underneath the porch, thus I've a dry place to paint "stuff" outside, yet easy access to my workshop in the basement.

The one in Mississippi walks out onto a 30x20(?) covered deck and a pool. Nice concept but we don't use the pool nor the basement much yet and I've 5,500 sq feet of workshops 100 yards away where all my tools are and I almost live.

I grew up with my Grandfather and Father all having basement and basement workshops. Beside the utility of a shop that was always cool (temp wise) due to the subsoil temps they always provided a good place to get away from the "womenfolk". The womenfolk got a sewing room/craft room. SWMBO has a 26x12 craft room in Mississippi in the main house and I've my "shops".