Basement (floor, foundation, furnace, paint)

[jesslm]

My husband and I have just bought our first home. It's an old home build in 1909, recently a rehaber redid it.So new everything. It is perfect except for the basement. It's about 6 foot deep,the floor is very uneven, and they painted over the windows. It looks more like a dungeon. My husband is dead-set on a useable basement. How hard would it be to dig a foot deeper and lay a new floor? Time consuming wise and cost wise? The furnace is in the middle of the room, but it does has a walk-out door down there. Thanks for all the help!

[desertsun41]

It is much much cheaper to raise the house then to dig the basement floor deeper, especially if you have to jack hammer the old slab and dig the basement by hand. There are house raising companies that that's all they do. They will raise it up on railroad ties and while it sits up you will hire Masons to put a few more coarses of block before the house is lowered back down. While you are up you can have a new slab poured right over the old unlevel one. You will have to make it about 4" thick to prevent cracking and in addition you will have to pitch the floor for drainage or just do a french drain.

Of course this is not as easy as it sounds. There are plumbing issues to deal with as well as the possibility of wiring issues. You have porches that will need a new design and raised decking. This could cost upwards of $20,000. How bad do you want that basement?

[Coldjensens]

Lowering the floor is usually impractical. Your foundation walls only go so deep. You should have some sort of drainage system under the floow. The excavation would be nearly impossible.


Jacking up your house and adding a course of block or two would probably cost less than $20,000 but more than 10,000. We had a large house jacked up, put on traucks, moved about 8 miles.

It cost $20,100 for the house mover. Retoring the house, the new basement etc was a different story.

You may run itno all kinds of problem. You may be required to re-grade your lot to maintain the elevations. Some communities do not want houses sticking way out of the groun on a big pedastyle. Some communities may not allow this at all.

You will have a lot fo issues with plumbing, wiring, telephone etc. You will ahve to rpelace the basement stairs. Your local government may force you to bring the entire house up to code which could easily cost you $100,000. Make sure that you know everything that you are getting into before you commit to doing anything.

Realistically, your best bet is to teach your husband to duck, or go buy a different house.