jatfromklb
New Member
i am buying a little house with a full basement, but it only has 7-ft headspace. can anything be done. thanx
I've seen it done. You need to have a general contractor or engineer look at it. The issues with digging the basement deeper is how does it affect the foundation/footers.
If money is not object, there is another technique....raise the house. Saw that done here once. House was on a crawl space....maybe 3 feet. They raised the house up, dug out some, and put a whole new "first floor" under the existing house. $$$$$
The footings can be "under-pinned" with shrink free cement. In most cases, they will ask you to install rebar up inside the new extended footing and tieing in to the horizontal concrete floor. (Each state or province will have their own critiria) It is usually dug out and poured at 4' intervals. They usually recommend 4' on opposite walls at 1 time ie: 4' on west wall and 4' on east wall on the same day. Then continue in this fashion until the entire perimeter is done. (check with your local authorities for the bylaws that apply to you)
Other methods include digging in front of the footing in the basement and pouring in fron't of the footing . General rule of thumb is, for every 1' down, the cement must stick into the basement 1'. This method is less time consuming, but not the greatest looking. Too much lost floor space to have the 1 ' ledge around your entire basement.
***********************************Being I am only 5 feet tall, 7 foot in a basement would be fine for me. You got to figure, too how often are you going to be in the basement? If there are other properties for sale, why not continue looking? And, put that money you would had spent in raising the house into another property maybe, of greater value?
******************************It's NOT uncommon for someone to install a basment where a crawl space or partial basement once existed. The cost I've heard is around 30k-50k. We are blessed to have a amish community close by and let me tell ya, them boys can lift, move, straighten, you name it without cracking anything. They have become more dependant on power tools though Anyway if the home and property is worth it, yes it can be done, Here it is done usually to a 100yr old farm house, by probally family member, that has boughten the entire farm and is just taking over the family operation. So money is not the biggest issue if they can remodel the house where there ancesters where born and lived.
***************************************90 year old basements were not designed as living spaces. Thats why most are so low. The one I worked on was a small (900ft)lake cabin when it started in the 50's. Its been remodeled at least a dozen times and is now over 2k sq ft. Houses built now usually have a full height basement as its an easy way to add flexible space to a house for very little money to the builder. And it makes remodel work a lot easier being able to get to everything from underneath.
****************************************************If you're looking at 20-30k to dig down a foot... that's about what it costs to raise a house. Definitely look into both options; sometimes raising is cheaper than digging.
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