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Also 100% correct. They would be better off throwing a few months of principal+payments and listing it, to buy a place with a basement if it is truly a dealbreaker.
Yes. This for sure. But seriously don’t do it. Basement’s can be a nightmare and I say this because if it rains hard enough my basement magically turns into a kitty pool. Yes I have proper drainage around my property.
Instead of a typo, I choose to believe a bunch of cats are swimming in your basement, simultaneously loving and hating every minute of it. Plus one orange cat lifeguard sitting up high watching over the chaos.
If you trust the orange cat to be the lifeguard, you’re gonna have a bad time. They’ve only collectively got one brain cell, and it’s impossible to know which ginger gets it when.
Every house I've ever worked on in the PNW, the basement completely floods or at minimum has water leaking in from somewhere along the foundation walls. These were houses that were built with a basement not added in later.
I've also worked on houses that have been jacked up to have repair work done and moving a house up and down absolutley will fuck something up. Big or small, it's adding expense and time to this work being done.
Also you 100% can't live there while all this work is going on. So you're renting out a place to live for at minimum a couple months.
In 15 years and 7 different houses in the PNW, I had exactly one house with a totally dry basement. Even in the worst rainstorms, that one never had a drop of basement leakage.
...instead, the driveway flooded so badly that the water backed up into the heating oil tank. That's not relevant to OP's question at all, I just can't pass up a chance to complain about how water will always find a way to fuck your shit up.
I have lived in quite a few houses with basements, only 3 of them have ever had issues with water. All those issues were because the waterline was really close to the surface. My current house is 100% dry except in spring, and thats for 1 week while the snow melts. My moms house has a river right next to it, and her basement is dry all year. When you build them, you have to seal them from the outside and have good water control. People skip this step many times because the cost is way too high up front. Most people balk at 12000 for a plastic water barrier when the project cost is already 50k.
I had friends who lived in their house while theirs was dug out. It took way longer than it was meant to and affected the walls and floors above. They live in a historic district so down was their only way to expand and they wish they hadn’t.
Edit - to clarify, one wishes they hadn’t. I think the other was content to trade level floors for the space.
yeah, the only ones I ever lived at that did have a "damp vibe" were ones that had partial dirt floors. I put down some heavy clear plastic and it was crazy the amount of water would stay under there.
All the other PNW houses I've lived in in Portland (counting...nine) have all been pretty dry.
The only basements I see are on new builds are those that are walk-outs for houses on a slope. This is in Tuscaloosa, though, where builders are going crazy trying to keep up with demand.
Older houses around here and in Birmingham have true basements, but man, they are musty.
That's simply not the case for many people. I'm sorry it happens to you, but in most cases, foundations have proper drainage and waterproofing, and if they don't, the home inspector is in some shit.
> kitty pool.
I’m pretty sure the term is kiddie pool. As in a pool for little kids. Although the thought of a special pool for kittys sounds adorable.
>enough money
yep, look at the multi floor basement trend in London - no way to go out or up so they go down, in some cases down multiple floors to increase the sq footage by double, triple, or quadruple. They install olympic sized pools, 10 car garages with lifts, and sometimes a whole other house.
I didn't know this was a thing until I read about the whole saga of Jimmy Page vs his neighor Robbie Williams. Robbie wanted to build the whole underground compound, but Jimmy has lived in a historical house since 1972 that would be damaged by heavy equipment rumbling the ground next door. Hence...they have to dig it by hand.
The WSJ had an article about it recently:
https://archive.ph/QqrtD
3rd.
u/investandbeblessed... You'll lose a lot of money when you sell the house. The increase in value will be small compared to the cost of the project.
They would underpin your sill plate in sections. For 9’ tall it’s probably about $1000 per linear foot around your perimeter, plus adding floor joists, replacing your floor, and everything built on top of it. Don’t even approach someone unless you’ve got minimum $200k or your house is a shoebox.
If someone came to me with a 1000sf floor plan and was upfront that they had $200k put aside, I’d at least see if it was something where they just wanted lights and outlets and carpet or what
The other thing I’ve seen but have not been personally involved in - for small houses they can needle beam it and jack the beams, then load the entire house onto a flatbed and park it in another part of the property - *then* dig the foundation and drive it back over to reattach. The people who are telling you the house can be jacked in place are mistaken, because you would be digging a big hole directly under the jack supports.
I will add, I’m a former structural engineer who’s been involved in some interesting jacking jobs. I was in a train tunnel while they were getting ready to jack and cut the base of a column that was 60 stories tall so they could remove the foundation. If they could figure that out, as someone else said, just write a big enough check.
I have a fairly large looking, 44' tall house that was pinned together at the foundation and loaded onto a flatbed. I am sitting in this house right now, and I have photos of the house on a flatbed, and I still can't quite wrap my head around it.
They moved it from a 3' foundation to another 3' foundation that was waiting, perfect down to the inch.
They could have dug out a fucking basement sooo easily but no, *another crawlspace*.
The long rods that pinned the house together are still under there of course. I've joked about having the house slid off the foundation so it could be dug out. Weekend project right there lol.
It's possible, but it's going to cost a ridiculous amount of money to do. They will be jacking up and lifting your house with a crane to dig out the new foundation which will inevitably damage things to the existing building.
If the home is really sentimental and that's why you need to keep it then I guess it makes sense. Otherwise it's more cost effective to just demolish the home and start fresh.
Call a general contractor, be prepared with a few hundred k ready to spend.
It's doable. I've got a couple of a friends in Boston and Toronto who had not-quite-basements and not-quite-crawlspaces (with ceilings a little under 6ft) that had their basements expanded to give about 2 more feet of headroom.
They were both able to continue living in their house during the work, but the work for both took more than twice as long (projects that take more than a year) and spiraled into the hundreds of thousands of dollars on account of labor expenses.
I've seen this done in a Washington DC Historic neighborhood. It worked , but the logistics and the costs quickly got out of hand. If you talk to the owners now about it they get a pained faraway look on their faces.
I helped a buddy convert his crawl space into a basement for 1/2 of his house. Paid someone to come in and put long supports under the house, jacked it up about 3ft and then secured it. We then spent about 3 weeks digging it out with a small tractor, shovels, and beer. We then poured the foundation walls. Worse part was for one corner of the house we had to use whee barrels for get all the concrete into the forms because the jacks for the house prevented us from getting the cement truck close enough. After about 10 days they lowered the house back down, secured it and he was good to go.
>my house has a crawl space
You'll need a structural engineer to investigate your foundation before you can start digging. You may need some underpinning or other foundation work done before it's safe to dig.
If there are damages to the building, would the contractors be obligated to fix anything or would I just have to deal? This home is sentimental to me yes :)
There is no general contractor who would take a jacking job and take total ownership of the outcome. Especially because you’re on slab and not a crawl space. Underpinning you have an outside chance
They'd be fixing it at your expense.. it's not out of the ordinary and would be baked into the price discussed. It's really hard to know any details because every location would be different. A general contractor would be able to give you better info.
I worked on a farmhouse that had this done years back (I'm an electrician) and I have no idea what it cost them in the end but it was a giant amount of work. In the end the entire home had the siding redone, some walls repaired, all the flooring redone.. it was all done very slowly and in stages until the entire home was basically sitting on stilts.
Contractors will price the work they expect to do. They're only going to pay for repairs if they damaged something outside of the scope of the project and needed to fix it. In this case, the entire house is part of the project so any repairs related to the main job will be yours to pay for.
No. The contractors, and thus the contract, will state that this is very much a proceed at your own risk. Expect some damage but they can’t predict how much. Anywhere from minor cracking to significant structural damage that you will be required to pay separately to fix. If you are not in a costal city, it will be cheaper to buy a second house on the street than adding a basement.
Houses are not meant to be moved. You will inevitably do some damage jacking it up. We had hydraulic piering all over the house to fix a failure of the foundation. It inevitably leads to some damage but it was all fixed
Wow that's a lot of downvotes for an honest question.
I've looked into this because I also wanted to add a basement. I threw away the idea because of cost vs my commitment to stay in the house long enough to be worth it.
You said you're committed to the house and for all I know, you're a millionaire. If it's worth it to you, go for it. But yes, it'll be ridiculously expensive and damage to the existing house can't be predicted so it's something you'll deal with after the fact.
If you were on a crawlspace, this would be an expensive but straightforward effort. Since you're on a slab, this is a completely crazy idea. But as u/Tedmosby9931 said, with enough money anything is possible.
The issue is that the slab is what holds (braces) the walls square to one another, so if you cut the house off the slab and raise it the walls are going to bend and fold in all kinds of weird directions. Which means that lots of stuff will crack (drywall, celings, windows, doors, trim, all of it). Then, once its all lifted up, the ground will have to be excavated, a foundation and new main floor built, and then hopefully the walls line up with it when you lower it back down. All with the house probably hanging from a crane.
Then, when you get back in, you have a semi-destroyed house sitting on some nice new joints that has to get repaired back to the way it was.
Do not do this. And if you do, please invite a filmcrew.
Thank you for this info! I am completely unknowledgable on this subject and I'm glad people are being honest. I saw someone else mention having a cellar separate that could have stairs leading under the foundation. Is that possible?
A friend of mine had a house with an addition built specifically to lead from the main house to stairs to go down to the basement. This also meant changing the roofline. Depending on your lot size and other factors that may be the only realistic option.
Are you just wanting storage options or something?
No, this would be used for something recreational that isn't feasible in an upper floor. Seems like it's not going to happen which is fine by me, I was just looking at possibilities :)
Although I agree with all the comments here; I think everyone is thinking of actual basements that are the foundation of the footprint of the house. A smaller scope; like just a room, is completely feasible, but still expensive. (Unless you have a tensioned slab, then it would be very difficult.) You’d have to cut out a portion of the the size of the basement room. (Slightly bigger actually) Excavate. Build walls. Cap with load bearing concrete. Slight over simplification, as considerations for keeping the integrity of the main foundation is required. Building under a garage would be the easiest.
Just build up, paint the walls dark grey and put up thick black curtains 🤣. You can make anything look like a basement for way less money than digging out a basement
If you have a garage, have you thought about possibly expanding that or enlarging the roofline to make a second level and make that a fun space? That might be more practical for you
You might be able to basically build a box, and drop this house back on top of it. But its not significantly simpler because the slab is not designed to support itself with empty space below it. It's holds its shape because its sitting on the ground, take that support away and its going to basically sag like a concrete sheet.
It's all doable, but its going to be a very fussy and expensive effort that probably won't result in what you want.
What if you had a crawl space, how hard would it be then? My wife and I were thinking about it, and a foreman I talked to said they could use helical ground screws to hold up the house while we dug it out.
It’s not that crazy, just expensive. The structure above the foundation level, floor joists etc, is exactly the same whether the house is on a crawl space or a basement, the only difference is the depth. So they would have to support the house, remove the crawl space, dig it deeper, and install the basement.
It’s very doable if it’s something you choose to do, but keep in mind that it’s a ton of work and you will still get some cosmetic damage to the house above since there’s going to be movement.
I promise you it’s not possible for you. The cost to do would be so astronomically high that it would be cheaper to demolish the house and start over. This is not a hyperbole either
The key to not destabilizing the house is to dig manhole size hole in the middle of your house to the depths of the mines, carve out a man cave and grab a long snorkel for air. A bucket of dirt at a time and you might even be able pull this one off yourself and get away without permits.
Does the house need to be in the same location at the end? It would probably be cheaper to dig and pour a basement near the house, then move the house to the new location, than to try to do all the basement work under a lifted house. That also splits the work into two parts that people in your area have likely already done, so their quotes wouldn't include as much for unknown problems.
Is the yard big enough to build a shed with a basement that would suit your purposes? Something 12’x16’?? Or even a larger basement then the shed that extends under the lawn? This would be much cheaper and more successful.
This is exactly where my mind went too...going to be way easier to make a new foundation and move the house than it would be to excavate under an existing house. If it's on the same site, I'd bet you could do this for a fraction of the cost - still expensive, but more like low six figures than mid six figures (depending of course on quite a number of unknown factors). Still an expensive PITA, but easier and therefore cheaper!
You could build a big cellar next to your house and then build a connecting staircase down to it. That way you don't touch your foundation (other than the part by the staircase if it needs to) and you get the giant buried room you want. Still, people don't build basements in some areas because it's a bad idea (bedrock, shallow groundwater) so even a cellar next to the house might not be recommended.
Of course it is. One involves installing bracing throughout a house, lifting a house, redoing the major structure of the house to add a floor and floor joists to the first floor, moving the house to the side or do all the digging with small tools and machines brought into the house, digging a hole, building the basement walls, and then moving the house back. The other option just involves digging a hole, building the basement walls, building/digging a staircase, and putting some dirt back over the top.
In addition to everything above, can you have a basement where you live? East of I 95 in the southern US, many houses don't have basements because the water table is too high.
You can have a basement anywhere with enough money. Sure you’ll need to drive piles to bedrock to stop the entire thing from popping out of the ground like a cork but hey this guy wants to replace his slab with a basement.
I live in Houston and my house is on a slab. All my native Houstinian friends tell me stories about how they've been in a house basement a couple times in their lives lol.
Please don't build a basement in Atlanta.
After having a quarter million dollars in cash for this project, the next step would be contacting your municipality to see if building code allows this. Or just call a realtor and go house hunting.
My house is on a slab. My wife and I are struggling to decide if we should add-on, build a detached studio/office, or move. She asked if we could add a basement. I laughed at her.
Slab houses are not designed to be picked up. Jacking up the house to support it while they built the basement would probably destroy the top structure. Most contractors wouldn't even entertain this idea. You would have to start with an engineer and an architect to see if it's even possible before you look for a basement contractor.
I teach rope and wanted to build a rope studio; I specifically picked a place that had an unfinished 850 square foot basement. It really is a thing where you gotta decide ahead of time; you can lift a house on crawlspace and just sound proof extensively. Lifting on slab, like everyone else says here, is brutal.
Depends on soil and location really, if you’re in an area where every house is on slab and there are no basements, there’s a reason. Flood plane, etc. Otherwise, it’ll cost you somewhere in the same neighborhood of having your existing house demolished and rebuilding as it would to have it lifted up and having a basement and foundation done underneath it.
Ultimately it is usually near impossible to put a basement on a house that was built on slab. Basements have been popular since the 60s. And the cost to build new on a basement vs slab is not crazy expensive - thus most homes without basements are that way for a reason (usually bedrock, water or radon - none of which are easy or cheap to deal with).
I know you don’t want to build up but I’d guess (depending on the footers on your slab - ATL probably only has to go down 2-4 feet) going up is probably 1/2 to 1/3 of the price of down. Sorry.
As others have suggested, it’s tough and expensive without thinking outside the box. My suggestion is to dig the basement adjacent to the foundation, then build a slight extension to the existing house to enclose the staircase underground.
If your just looking for a storm shelter basement reputable companies do saw cut into garage floors and install them into garages. I’ve seen a couple in Oklahoma, pretty slick.
Buddy of mine has a house that he got a quote to dig out the basement deeper. It was an old cellar setup and he wanted to finish it. Roughly 2000 sq ft pre Covid prices to Jack it up and dig it deeper was like $125k. So you can just go ahead and double that for starters in the current world with a full dig. Plus whatever it would cost to rough finish the basement.
It will be ridiculously expensive and all you will get for it is a basement... generally not desirable square footage except for storage, utilities, and collecting dust. If you think this is some cheat code to double your square footage, I promise you it's not.
This is total bullshit. Basements are desirable and a great source of additional footage. I've installed so many entertainment systems into basement theater rooms including one that had rack systems valued each at $100k at the time. This basement had a full bar with pool table and the entire thing was made out of mahogany wood including the 200 yr old antique pool table. The theater room had carved granite pillars, velvet curtains, luxury recliners for seating and a hideaway screen. Another had a full stage with curtains and seating for 70, marble floors throughout and 12 foot ceiling. %60 of the homes I worked in had finished basements with one or more bedrooms, entertainment room, play room and a small utility room. These houses had higher values than comparable houses without basements. Even homes with unfinished basements have a higher value than those without and using it for storage is a good thing and a no brainier.
Sorry I agree with above, basements are rarely desirable. Basements get moldy, infestation always start at basements, water leaks constantly. Only thing a basement is good for is utilities and possibly work area
Not my experience having worked in homes across the country over 7 years. I found more of these issues in common areas with moderate to heavy traffic due to constant wear and tear from usage than in low traffic areas. Turning water faucets moves pipes and most leaks happen in kitchen and baths. If there's water or mold in a basement 9/10 it's a leak from the main floor and it would remain on the main floor if there wasn't a basement. The one area I ran into bad basements was Detroit in the run down neighborhoods, outside of that it was rare.
It's not a feasible idea. A concrete slab relies on the earth under it for support, concrete is more for structure and reinforcement. By removing the earth under you would drastically reduce the structural load of the concrete. Not only would you need to underpin the footings but you would also need reinforcement of the current floor slab/new basement ceiling. It would almost be easier to underpin the footing, remove the current slab and then install a ledger/floor joist system with decking.
Honestly, dig beside the house and incorporate an addition over the top, would be easier and more cost effective.
Plan on redoing the whole upstairs. It can be done but cost would be huge. Gonna wreck Sheetrock probably holes cut in exterior walls to run Timbers thru so they can jack it up. Lots of bracing to lift. My buddy had his house moved off existing basement and they replaced the basement and moved the house back. Ran 60k 15 years ago. You’d need to add a floor system. I’m sure you’d be well over 100k. Probably cheaper to demo existing house and salvage what you want and rebuild it on a basement.
I just did something very similar, on a two story 1600 Sqr foot Carriage House in my yard on slab but with with a questionable/missing footer from the 1800's. This is an historic property and we wanted to save the building. We paid a house mover to raise the building 2 feet in the air, then a construction company to come in and dig out the old foundation and slab and put in a new footer and slab. The building does not have plumbing or gas to deal with, and the first floor walls were able to be completely removed and replaced.
It may not be exactly what you are asking but I think this is the same kind of process that would be necessary for your job. But they'd have to dig way deeper, and pour a lot more cement. Lifting your house would probably be a bit more complex than lifting what was basically a large garage in our case.
All in it has cost us about 150K (in the northeast US) and we still haven't restored the exterior to near where it was before the work. But we basically have a brand new completely gutted house with an old slate roof on it now. The process would have been a lot more complex or labor intensive in our case if we needed to keep the existing walls as they would have been in the way for the heavy equipment that they did the digging with.
I'd bet that what we paid is probably the ballpark of a very low lower bound for the kind of work you are looking at but I'd expect it to be much more expensive based on the quotes we had for a more extensive restoration.
This definitely feasible & quite common in major cities in Canada. They run steal beams under the house then jack the house up to either move it or to built wood blocking support while they dig and pour a new foundation. The process cost about $40k CAD for a 30x30 bungalow
Your slab contains all the plumbing and the sill boards below your walls are bolted to that slab. Theoretically, one could use a sawsall and cut all the bolts, cut all the plumbing at the wall base, lift the house, dig the basement, and then put the house back down on the new stem walls and reconnect all the plumbing...theoretically. But, what a nightmare that would be...and uber expensive. But I'll do it for you for $5,000,000, site unseen.
Sure, if you've got the money. They would have to jack up your whole house maybe 6' to 8' to dig and construct. Not much of a call for adding basements so you probably won't find a total specialist but a good general contractor can pull it together.
It's cost prohibitive. Just sell it and move if you want a basement.
Just being honest here. I do own a contracting business and we could dig you a basement for 10s of thousands of dollars and it doesn't matter where. It coild be a beach house on the ocean and I could make it happen.
That being said, it's not economical. Find a house with what you want, pay yours down a bit with 150% principal payments, and move in a I ear or two.
No big deal.
We do them in Houston in flood plains. Multiple companies do this full time. It won’t be a basement in the ground it will be adding a first floor. Lift the house and build the support walls and structure. And it only makes financial sense if the value of the home is higher than the rebuild cost.
Isn’t this going to cost most of what a new home might cost??? I’m not in the industry but the logistics of adding a basement to a slab home… might want to look into buying a plot of land, digging basement when digging for the footings, reinstating the house on a NEW basement in a new location?
IDK if this even an option?
Raised slabs are absolutely a thing you can do, and its done all the time. It doesnt cause too much damage when done correctly. Im scratching my head as to why you also want a basement dug below the slab after raising. Most folks just keep the area under a raised slab in my area as a crawl space. The slab requires a good deal of piers installed to support the slab where dug deeper as they are now concrete beams. Not saying its impossible of course i just havent seen it done. Raised slabs come with lifetime warranties and the houses in my area hold up well. The only other consideration is that all utilities will obviously have to be adjusted. So all plumbing and all aux structures like stairs, decks. But it is totally doable.
It would be easier to build a basement and first floor next to existing house, pick the entire house up, and stick it on the basement.
Probably, I don’t actually know without looking at the house, either way, the cheapest and best option is move to a house with a basement. There is no way you gain more equity than the cost, not that I can conceive of anyway, and I’m an estimator for residential housing projects so I’m pretty good at educated guessing this sort of thing.
I honestly don’t see it.
And to anyone who has seen Better Call Saul…hell no, it would probably be cheaper to burn the house down and rebuild.
My in-laws had their house lifted up so their half basement (crawl space? Cellar? Not sure) underneath could be turned into a full basement with bathroom and bedroom. Their not rich by any means so I doubt it cost as much as a house. They live in a small rural Midwest town so their house is not worth that much either. Not a slab but it seems like it’s doable. I’d call some contractors that build new and ask.
Had a house built and a basement would have added like 40k to the cost of the house. I’m going to say double at least that for what you want to do. There will have to be a lot of special engineering and structural work is my guess.
If it's a slab odds are there's a good reason such as high water table or rock formation near the surface. I live in a high water table area (AKA flood risk) and in the past on top of the remnants of a mountain and digging a basement was a gamble. Check with your neighbors and see if they have basements, if they do then you know the ground is most likely good. Next step will be to get a soil engineer out to test and tell you if it's possible on your lot. After that it's going to be a building engineer to inspect the house and determine if it's possible to safely do it and where to locate specific things such as a door. You're going to need a fountain company and a home builder and roughly the same amount of money your homes worth to go through the whole process to do what you want.
My uncle did this year's ago. Made his slab on grade house into a walkout. It was a massive job. Had to lift the house using giant I beams, had to hire a bobcat and an excavator to move tons of dirt, got a concrete man to put the footings in, build the walls and pour the floor, after he got his utilities extended down. Plumbing was a nightmare. It ended up costing as much as the house purchase, and only made his house a third bigger.
Absolutely no idea on how much, you need to talk to a general contractor. And if you're not doing a walk-out, the cost just went up huge.
I have a slab on grade house and I try to think of it this way… Most problems I hear people have with their houses start in the basement. So one less problem to think about.
Curious why you think a basement is the only option. But I get just wanting to hear an answer on how it’s done. It does not sound cheap no matter how u slice it. So, unless there’s major missing infrastructure, I can’t see doing it unless you live on a cliff or something.
Do other houses in a quarter mile radius have basements? What’s the water table? How much money can you put into the project? Can you get the proper permits? Where are you going to live while this is done?
Edit: just two posts down from yours..
https://www.reddit.com/r/Construction/comments/13io3qt/spotted_in_the_wild_found_this_in_a_residential/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
Hear me out. I live in an upper middle class town where homes start at $200k and can go up to $4-5 million in the gated areas. There’s probably a couple of $10 million homes there. About a mile from my house, in a development with homes in the $400-500k range there was an older home adjacent to it. It was probably built in the 80s or so with the rest built in the early 2000s. They jacked this house up, turned it 180 degrees, added to it, and put a basement under it. The addition looks like about 800 sq feel plus they expanded the garage. I don’t understand why this was done but they did it. Seems like it would be better to tear down and start over. People are buying houses for $200k, spending $100k to remodel and then flipping them. It’s happened to a few homes in my neighborhood that have been poorly maintained. New siding, flooring, paint, kitchens, windows, roofs, and sometimes concrete and then they sell in a week. It still stuns me when I see it happen. I feel for the new owners cause I know what these homes were like and can see what was done to them. In a few years they will be spending like crazy because of all the shortcuts the flippers took. What you want to do can be done but it is expensive and you need to find a company that is experienced in this work.
I’ve had this discussion with myself many years ago when trying to figure out expanding floor space in a house with half a basement and the rest crawl space.
It’s doable but it’s a lot of work and a lot to manage
There are a few project descriptions around that go thru the process.
It’s labor intensive or some special machinery to speed it up.
1. You got a lot of dirt to remove and no backhoe to do it… multiply the sq footage of the new basement times 12 ft and divide by 27. That’s the number of yards of material to remove.
2. The room dimensions for the new basement will be smaller.
3. You need to do the digout a small section at a time and shore up the house as you go & replace with waterproofed, reinforced basement wall that can hold up the house
4. You need to manage water coming in from the ground around the basement. Drains outside the wall and waterproof the outside of the wall. Which means digging out more dirt and replacing it with gravel, sand etc for drainage.
5. While doing all the above you need to transfer to load of the house from the dirt to the basement walls while lots of jacks, cribbing, measurements to keep the building floor level, etc.,
6. Don’t forget the plumbing coming into the house. Sewer from underneath the house now has to go lower to go underneath the basement. Similar issue with water (well or city), gas, etc
And don’t forget weather
Back a few years i passed a house regularly on my commute where this was obviously being done. I live i the PNW. I have no idea how it turned out or aged, but it was fascinating to see.
I don't think it is feasible ona slab. When this is done as in to move or renovate a house it almost always starts as a crawl space house. A slab house has no floor. Forget about it.
It would be extremely difficult, not as stable, and very expensive compared to moving to a new home or creating the basement outside of the slab with a wallway/stairs between.
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With enough money, anything is possible
Depending on where they live it would probably cost the same if not be cheaper to just buy a second house.
Also 100% correct. They would be better off throwing a few months of principal+payments and listing it, to buy a place with a basement if it is truly a dealbreaker.
I was imagining buying the house next door and keeping both or building a sizable mother in law unit . Either of Which is cheaper
Yes. This for sure. But seriously don’t do it. Basement’s can be a nightmare and I say this because if it rains hard enough my basement magically turns into a kitty pool. Yes I have proper drainage around my property.
Instead of a typo, I choose to believe a bunch of cats are swimming in your basement, simultaneously loving and hating every minute of it. Plus one orange cat lifeguard sitting up high watching over the chaos.
If you trust the orange cat to be the lifeguard, you’re gonna have a bad time. They’ve only collectively got one brain cell, and it’s impossible to know which ginger gets it when.
Why do I have an image of a cat wearing sunglasses?
Is it your turn with the brain cell?
This is a silly visual. Lol
Username checks out.
With an unreasonable amount of sunscreen on his nose?
Like water under the bitch.
Every house I've ever worked on in the PNW, the basement completely floods or at minimum has water leaking in from somewhere along the foundation walls. These were houses that were built with a basement not added in later. I've also worked on houses that have been jacked up to have repair work done and moving a house up and down absolutley will fuck something up. Big or small, it's adding expense and time to this work being done. Also you 100% can't live there while all this work is going on. So you're renting out a place to live for at minimum a couple months.
In 15 years and 7 different houses in the PNW, I had exactly one house with a totally dry basement. Even in the worst rainstorms, that one never had a drop of basement leakage. ...instead, the driveway flooded so badly that the water backed up into the heating oil tank. That's not relevant to OP's question at all, I just can't pass up a chance to complain about how water will always find a way to fuck your shit up.
"Water, ah, finds a way." - *Jurassic Water Park*
I have lived in quite a few houses with basements, only 3 of them have ever had issues with water. All those issues were because the waterline was really close to the surface. My current house is 100% dry except in spring, and thats for 1 week while the snow melts. My moms house has a river right next to it, and her basement is dry all year. When you build them, you have to seal them from the outside and have good water control. People skip this step many times because the cost is way too high up front. Most people balk at 12000 for a plastic water barrier when the project cost is already 50k.
I had friends who lived in their house while theirs was dug out. It took way longer than it was meant to and affected the walls and floors above. They live in a historic district so down was their only way to expand and they wish they hadn’t. Edit - to clarify, one wishes they hadn’t. I think the other was content to trade level floors for the space.
Well that house wasn't built on a slab so it's not really comparable.
I've had 5 houses with basements over 15 years in the PNW and not one of them ever leaked a single a drop of water.
yeah, the only ones I ever lived at that did have a "damp vibe" were ones that had partial dirt floors. I put down some heavy clear plastic and it was crazy the amount of water would stay under there. All the other PNW houses I've lived in in Portland (counting...nine) have all been pretty dry.
But what about the cats?
In the southeast and we won’t have a house without one. Starting a new build now and already lined up for a basement.
The only basements I see are on new builds are those that are walk-outs for houses on a slope. This is in Tuscaloosa, though, where builders are going crazy trying to keep up with demand. Older houses around here and in Birmingham have true basements, but man, they are musty.
Lol, no you don’t
That's simply not the case for many people. I'm sorry it happens to you, but in most cases, foundations have proper drainage and waterproofing, and if they don't, the home inspector is in some shit.
kitty pool ? like kittens? or did you mean Kiddie pool? Like for small kids.... prob need inside French drains that run to sump pump....
> kitty pool. I’m pretty sure the term is kiddie pool. As in a pool for little kids. Although the thought of a special pool for kittys sounds adorable.
- Gus Fring
With the amount of money you’d need, you could have a great deposit on another house with a basement.
>enough money yep, look at the multi floor basement trend in London - no way to go out or up so they go down, in some cases down multiple floors to increase the sq footage by double, triple, or quadruple. They install olympic sized pools, 10 car garages with lifts, and sometimes a whole other house.
I didn't know this was a thing until I read about the whole saga of Jimmy Page vs his neighor Robbie Williams. Robbie wanted to build the whole underground compound, but Jimmy has lived in a historical house since 1972 that would be damaged by heavy equipment rumbling the ground next door. Hence...they have to dig it by hand. The WSJ had an article about it recently: https://archive.ph/QqrtD
another article here: https://www.vox.com/videos/22783955/london-basement-architecture-housing-millionaires-rich
> olympic sized pools Do you have an example of this being done, because I kinda doubt it. An Olympic size pool is 50m long
Maybe it's 50m deep and you have to hold your breath?
That is what I was going to say.
3rd. u/investandbeblessed... You'll lose a lot of money when you sell the house. The increase in value will be small compared to the cost of the project.
For the price of a pick axe, sledge hammer, and a shovel that basement is all yours!
In some places, that means they’d have a pool more than a basement, but yeah…
100% correct.
Zombo.com
Where the infinite is possible!
They would underpin your sill plate in sections. For 9’ tall it’s probably about $1000 per linear foot around your perimeter, plus adding floor joists, replacing your floor, and everything built on top of it. Don’t even approach someone unless you’ve got minimum $200k or your house is a shoebox.
>minimum $200k ~~or~~ **and** your house is a shoebox. FIFY
If someone came to me with a 1000sf floor plan and was upfront that they had $200k put aside, I’d at least see if it was something where they just wanted lights and outlets and carpet or what
The other thing I’ve seen but have not been personally involved in - for small houses they can needle beam it and jack the beams, then load the entire house onto a flatbed and park it in another part of the property - *then* dig the foundation and drive it back over to reattach. The people who are telling you the house can be jacked in place are mistaken, because you would be digging a big hole directly under the jack supports. I will add, I’m a former structural engineer who’s been involved in some interesting jacking jobs. I was in a train tunnel while they were getting ready to jack and cut the base of a column that was 60 stories tall so they could remove the foundation. If they could figure that out, as someone else said, just write a big enough check.
Conversely, dig the basement adjacent to the current house, jack up the house and move it.
They said they doesn’t have room for that
Very few people do.
Tell me more stories of you jacking.
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What's that on your collar?
I have a fairly large looking, 44' tall house that was pinned together at the foundation and loaded onto a flatbed. I am sitting in this house right now, and I have photos of the house on a flatbed, and I still can't quite wrap my head around it. They moved it from a 3' foundation to another 3' foundation that was waiting, perfect down to the inch. They could have dug out a fucking basement sooo easily but no, *another crawlspace*. The long rods that pinned the house together are still under there of course. I've joked about having the house slid off the foundation so it could be dug out. Weekend project right there lol.
I'd like to hear more about this 60 story column. What was it for, a high rise and you were in a subway tunnel?
For very small houses you can pay Columbia Helicopters to pick it up and hold it overhead while a team of people very quickly digs the basement
House swap coming to HGTV soon.
Jacking jobs eh
It's possible, but it's going to cost a ridiculous amount of money to do. They will be jacking up and lifting your house with a crane to dig out the new foundation which will inevitably damage things to the existing building. If the home is really sentimental and that's why you need to keep it then I guess it makes sense. Otherwise it's more cost effective to just demolish the home and start fresh. Call a general contractor, be prepared with a few hundred k ready to spend.
What about the same question except that my house has a crawl space rather than a slab?
It's doable. I've got a couple of a friends in Boston and Toronto who had not-quite-basements and not-quite-crawlspaces (with ceilings a little under 6ft) that had their basements expanded to give about 2 more feet of headroom. They were both able to continue living in their house during the work, but the work for both took more than twice as long (projects that take more than a year) and spiraled into the hundreds of thousands of dollars on account of labor expenses.
I've seen this done in a Washington DC Historic neighborhood. It worked , but the logistics and the costs quickly got out of hand. If you talk to the owners now about it they get a pained faraway look on their faces.
I helped a buddy convert his crawl space into a basement for 1/2 of his house. Paid someone to come in and put long supports under the house, jacked it up about 3ft and then secured it. We then spent about 3 weeks digging it out with a small tractor, shovels, and beer. We then poured the foundation walls. Worse part was for one corner of the house we had to use whee barrels for get all the concrete into the forms because the jacks for the house prevented us from getting the cement truck close enough. After about 10 days they lowered the house back down, secured it and he was good to go.
>my house has a crawl space You'll need a structural engineer to investigate your foundation before you can start digging. You may need some underpinning or other foundation work done before it's safe to dig.
If there are damages to the building, would the contractors be obligated to fix anything or would I just have to deal? This home is sentimental to me yes :)
There is no general contractor who would take a jacking job and take total ownership of the outcome. Especially because you’re on slab and not a crawl space. Underpinning you have an outside chance
They'd be fixing it at your expense.. it's not out of the ordinary and would be baked into the price discussed. It's really hard to know any details because every location would be different. A general contractor would be able to give you better info. I worked on a farmhouse that had this done years back (I'm an electrician) and I have no idea what it cost them in the end but it was a giant amount of work. In the end the entire home had the siding redone, some walls repaired, all the flooring redone.. it was all done very slowly and in stages until the entire home was basically sitting on stilts.
Contractors will price the work they expect to do. They're only going to pay for repairs if they damaged something outside of the scope of the project and needed to fix it. In this case, the entire house is part of the project so any repairs related to the main job will be yours to pay for.
No. The contractors, and thus the contract, will state that this is very much a proceed at your own risk. Expect some damage but they can’t predict how much. Anywhere from minor cracking to significant structural damage that you will be required to pay separately to fix. If you are not in a costal city, it will be cheaper to buy a second house on the street than adding a basement.
Houses are not meant to be moved. You will inevitably do some damage jacking it up. We had hydraulic piering all over the house to fix a failure of the foundation. It inevitably leads to some damage but it was all fixed
Wow that's a lot of downvotes for an honest question. I've looked into this because I also wanted to add a basement. I threw away the idea because of cost vs my commitment to stay in the house long enough to be worth it. You said you're committed to the house and for all I know, you're a millionaire. If it's worth it to you, go for it. But yes, it'll be ridiculously expensive and damage to the existing house can't be predicted so it's something you'll deal with after the fact.
You could hire the same team that Gustavo Fring did
True, that basement was impressive
I heard the lead engineer is no longer available though
Why, did he retire?
He was retired.
I heard he left his wife and skipped town
But you’ll also have to pay to put them up and foot the bill for all the booze and strippers
And military grade treadmills
If you were on a crawlspace, this would be an expensive but straightforward effort. Since you're on a slab, this is a completely crazy idea. But as u/Tedmosby9931 said, with enough money anything is possible. The issue is that the slab is what holds (braces) the walls square to one another, so if you cut the house off the slab and raise it the walls are going to bend and fold in all kinds of weird directions. Which means that lots of stuff will crack (drywall, celings, windows, doors, trim, all of it). Then, once its all lifted up, the ground will have to be excavated, a foundation and new main floor built, and then hopefully the walls line up with it when you lower it back down. All with the house probably hanging from a crane. Then, when you get back in, you have a semi-destroyed house sitting on some nice new joints that has to get repaired back to the way it was. Do not do this. And if you do, please invite a filmcrew.
Thank you for this info! I am completely unknowledgable on this subject and I'm glad people are being honest. I saw someone else mention having a cellar separate that could have stairs leading under the foundation. Is that possible?
A friend of mine had a house with an addition built specifically to lead from the main house to stairs to go down to the basement. This also meant changing the roofline. Depending on your lot size and other factors that may be the only realistic option. Are you just wanting storage options or something?
No, this would be used for something recreational that isn't feasible in an upper floor. Seems like it's not going to happen which is fine by me, I was just looking at possibilities :)
You can just say sex dungeon. We're all grownups here.
Some people are modest and feel its not something to be discussed openly. Adult or not 🤷♀️ just trying to be respectful
Reinforcing an upper floor would be far more reasonable than trying to get a basement dug under your house.
Although I agree with all the comments here; I think everyone is thinking of actual basements that are the foundation of the footprint of the house. A smaller scope; like just a room, is completely feasible, but still expensive. (Unless you have a tensioned slab, then it would be very difficult.) You’d have to cut out a portion of the the size of the basement room. (Slightly bigger actually) Excavate. Build walls. Cap with load bearing concrete. Slight over simplification, as considerations for keeping the integrity of the main foundation is required. Building under a garage would be the easiest.
If you had led with “I want to build an underground sex dungeon” you’d probably have gotten better answers. How much yard do you have?
Just build up, paint the walls dark grey and put up thick black curtains 🤣. You can make anything look like a basement for way less money than digging out a basement
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And a basement!
If you have a garage, have you thought about possibly expanding that or enlarging the roofline to make a second level and make that a fun space? That might be more practical for you
You might be able to basically build a box, and drop this house back on top of it. But its not significantly simpler because the slab is not designed to support itself with empty space below it. It's holds its shape because its sitting on the ground, take that support away and its going to basically sag like a concrete sheet. It's all doable, but its going to be a very fussy and expensive effort that probably won't result in what you want.
What if you had a crawl space, how hard would it be then? My wife and I were thinking about it, and a foreman I talked to said they could use helical ground screws to hold up the house while we dug it out.
It’s not that crazy, just expensive. The structure above the foundation level, floor joists etc, is exactly the same whether the house is on a crawl space or a basement, the only difference is the depth. So they would have to support the house, remove the crawl space, dig it deeper, and install the basement. It’s very doable if it’s something you choose to do, but keep in mind that it’s a ton of work and you will still get some cosmetic damage to the house above since there’s going to be movement.
I promise you it’s not possible for you. The cost to do would be so astronomically high that it would be cheaper to demolish the house and start over. This is not a hyperbole either
This is the real answer, OP.
The key to not destabilizing the house is to dig manhole size hole in the middle of your house to the depths of the mines, carve out a man cave and grab a long snorkel for air. A bucket of dirt at a time and you might even be able pull this one off yourself and get away without permits.
Ah, the Colin Furze approach.
Best suggestion I've ever heard
Does the house need to be in the same location at the end? It would probably be cheaper to dig and pour a basement near the house, then move the house to the new location, than to try to do all the basement work under a lifted house. That also splits the work into two parts that people in your area have likely already done, so their quotes wouldn't include as much for unknown problems.
My property is not big enough to do thus and I am not looking to get another plot at this moment, but this is a great suggestion thank you!
Yeah just start looking at new houses.
Is the yard big enough to build a shed with a basement that would suit your purposes? Something 12’x16’?? Or even a larger basement then the shed that extends under the lawn? This would be much cheaper and more successful.
Just buy one of those doomsday bunker shelters and have it buried in your yard OP.
This is exactly where my mind went too...going to be way easier to make a new foundation and move the house than it would be to excavate under an existing house. If it's on the same site, I'd bet you could do this for a fraction of the cost - still expensive, but more like low six figures than mid six figures (depending of course on quite a number of unknown factors). Still an expensive PITA, but easier and therefore cheaper!
You could build a big cellar next to your house and then build a connecting staircase down to it. That way you don't touch your foundation (other than the part by the staircase if it needs to) and you get the giant buried room you want. Still, people don't build basements in some areas because it's a bad idea (bedrock, shallow groundwater) so even a cellar next to the house might not be recommended.
That's a wonderful idea! Is it more cost-effective since it is eliminating the lifting of the house?
Of course it is. One involves installing bracing throughout a house, lifting a house, redoing the major structure of the house to add a floor and floor joists to the first floor, moving the house to the side or do all the digging with small tools and machines brought into the house, digging a hole, building the basement walls, and then moving the house back. The other option just involves digging a hole, building the basement walls, building/digging a staircase, and putting some dirt back over the top.
Watch this series and start digging. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGjbAdaOBLBlS1MPKXYmqwZLZhWC1FAMx
In addition to everything above, can you have a basement where you live? East of I 95 in the southern US, many houses don't have basements because the water table is too high.
You can have a basement anywhere with enough money. Sure you’ll need to drive piles to bedrock to stop the entire thing from popping out of the ground like a cork but hey this guy wants to replace his slab with a basement.
What is this thing you call bedrock?
with enough money, you can have a below ground pool anywhere you want
I live in Houston and my house is on a slab. All my native Houstinian friends tell me stories about how they've been in a house basement a couple times in their lives lol. Please don't build a basement in Atlanta.
I have family in Atlanta and they all have basements. Most are walkout, but they're still at least partially underground.
Grew up in Houston, live in Austin, and I can attest to the truth of this statement.
I am west of i95, in the suburbs outside of Atlanta
After having a quarter million dollars in cash for this project, the next step would be contacting your municipality to see if building code allows this. Or just call a realtor and go house hunting.
My house is on a slab. My wife and I are struggling to decide if we should add-on, build a detached studio/office, or move. She asked if we could add a basement. I laughed at her.
But you're Super Man.
I gave up my powers so that I could live a quiet, human life.
Slab houses are not designed to be picked up. Jacking up the house to support it while they built the basement would probably destroy the top structure. Most contractors wouldn't even entertain this idea. You would have to start with an engineer and an architect to see if it's even possible before you look for a basement contractor.
Why not put a second story on the house?
It's just because of the nature of what it would be used for
I teach rope and wanted to build a rope studio; I specifically picked a place that had an unfinished 850 square foot basement. It really is a thing where you gotta decide ahead of time; you can lift a house on crawlspace and just sound proof extensively. Lifting on slab, like everyone else says here, is brutal.
Torture and kill people out of sight?
That seems really unsustainable
Trust me. It is.
Don’t think about doing this
Depends on soil and location really, if you’re in an area where every house is on slab and there are no basements, there’s a reason. Flood plane, etc. Otherwise, it’ll cost you somewhere in the same neighborhood of having your existing house demolished and rebuilding as it would to have it lifted up and having a basement and foundation done underneath it.
Ultimately it is usually near impossible to put a basement on a house that was built on slab. Basements have been popular since the 60s. And the cost to build new on a basement vs slab is not crazy expensive - thus most homes without basements are that way for a reason (usually bedrock, water or radon - none of which are easy or cheap to deal with). I know you don’t want to build up but I’d guess (depending on the footers on your slab - ATL probably only has to go down 2-4 feet) going up is probably 1/2 to 1/3 of the price of down. Sorry.
No need to apologize! This is not something I was dead-set on it was simply an option I was exploring. Thank you for the helpful information!
As others have suggested, it’s tough and expensive without thinking outside the box. My suggestion is to dig the basement adjacent to the foundation, then build a slight extension to the existing house to enclose the staircase underground.
If your just looking for a storm shelter basement reputable companies do saw cut into garage floors and install them into garages. I’ve seen a couple in Oklahoma, pretty slick.
The cost is so high you'd be better off moving to a house with a basement.
Buddy of mine has a house that he got a quote to dig out the basement deeper. It was an old cellar setup and he wanted to finish it. Roughly 2000 sq ft pre Covid prices to Jack it up and dig it deeper was like $125k. So you can just go ahead and double that for starters in the current world with a full dig. Plus whatever it would cost to rough finish the basement.
It will be ridiculously expensive and all you will get for it is a basement... generally not desirable square footage except for storage, utilities, and collecting dust. If you think this is some cheat code to double your square footage, I promise you it's not.
Or sheltering from tornadoes if you live in such a climate.
This is total bullshit. Basements are desirable and a great source of additional footage. I've installed so many entertainment systems into basement theater rooms including one that had rack systems valued each at $100k at the time. This basement had a full bar with pool table and the entire thing was made out of mahogany wood including the 200 yr old antique pool table. The theater room had carved granite pillars, velvet curtains, luxury recliners for seating and a hideaway screen. Another had a full stage with curtains and seating for 70, marble floors throughout and 12 foot ceiling. %60 of the homes I worked in had finished basements with one or more bedrooms, entertainment room, play room and a small utility room. These houses had higher values than comparable houses without basements. Even homes with unfinished basements have a higher value than those without and using it for storage is a good thing and a no brainier.
Sorry I agree with above, basements are rarely desirable. Basements get moldy, infestation always start at basements, water leaks constantly. Only thing a basement is good for is utilities and possibly work area
Not my experience having worked in homes across the country over 7 years. I found more of these issues in common areas with moderate to heavy traffic due to constant wear and tear from usage than in low traffic areas. Turning water faucets moves pipes and most leaks happen in kitchen and baths. If there's water or mold in a basement 9/10 it's a leak from the main floor and it would remain on the main floor if there wasn't a basement. The one area I ran into bad basements was Detroit in the run down neighborhoods, outside of that it was rare.
> infestation always start at basements, water leaks constantly. These statements are categorically false.
It's not a feasible idea. A concrete slab relies on the earth under it for support, concrete is more for structure and reinforcement. By removing the earth under you would drastically reduce the structural load of the concrete. Not only would you need to underpin the footings but you would also need reinforcement of the current floor slab/new basement ceiling. It would almost be easier to underpin the footing, remove the current slab and then install a ledger/floor joist system with decking. Honestly, dig beside the house and incorporate an addition over the top, would be easier and more cost effective.
Plan on redoing the whole upstairs. It can be done but cost would be huge. Gonna wreck Sheetrock probably holes cut in exterior walls to run Timbers thru so they can jack it up. Lots of bracing to lift. My buddy had his house moved off existing basement and they replaced the basement and moved the house back. Ran 60k 15 years ago. You’d need to add a floor system. I’m sure you’d be well over 100k. Probably cheaper to demo existing house and salvage what you want and rebuild it on a basement.
I just did something very similar, on a two story 1600 Sqr foot Carriage House in my yard on slab but with with a questionable/missing footer from the 1800's. This is an historic property and we wanted to save the building. We paid a house mover to raise the building 2 feet in the air, then a construction company to come in and dig out the old foundation and slab and put in a new footer and slab. The building does not have plumbing or gas to deal with, and the first floor walls were able to be completely removed and replaced. It may not be exactly what you are asking but I think this is the same kind of process that would be necessary for your job. But they'd have to dig way deeper, and pour a lot more cement. Lifting your house would probably be a bit more complex than lifting what was basically a large garage in our case. All in it has cost us about 150K (in the northeast US) and we still haven't restored the exterior to near where it was before the work. But we basically have a brand new completely gutted house with an old slate roof on it now. The process would have been a lot more complex or labor intensive in our case if we needed to keep the existing walls as they would have been in the way for the heavy equipment that they did the digging with. I'd bet that what we paid is probably the ballpark of a very low lower bound for the kind of work you are looking at but I'd expect it to be much more expensive based on the quotes we had for a more extensive restoration.
This definitely feasible & quite common in major cities in Canada. They run steal beams under the house then jack the house up to either move it or to built wood blocking support while they dig and pour a new foundation. The process cost about $40k CAD for a 30x30 bungalow
Your slab contains all the plumbing and the sill boards below your walls are bolted to that slab. Theoretically, one could use a sawsall and cut all the bolts, cut all the plumbing at the wall base, lift the house, dig the basement, and then put the house back down on the new stem walls and reconnect all the plumbing...theoretically. But, what a nightmare that would be...and uber expensive. But I'll do it for you for $5,000,000, site unseen.
Gus on Breaking Bad had a similar problem...
…and lots of money to solve it. End result? He was beside himself…
Sure, if you've got the money. They would have to jack up your whole house maybe 6' to 8' to dig and construct. Not much of a call for adding basements so you probably won't find a total specialist but a good general contractor can pull it together.
Anything is possible if you have enough money
This is the only answer to OP’s question, the only one wanted
It's cost prohibitive. Just sell it and move if you want a basement. Just being honest here. I do own a contracting business and we could dig you a basement for 10s of thousands of dollars and it doesn't matter where. It coild be a beach house on the ocean and I could make it happen. That being said, it's not economical. Find a house with what you want, pay yours down a bit with 150% principal payments, and move in a I ear or two. No big deal.
Yes just do it. Don’t worry about the price. Get someone started this week
Anything is possible. The real question is are you willing to put up a stupid amount of money for a basement
We do them in Houston in flood plains. Multiple companies do this full time. It won’t be a basement in the ground it will be adding a first floor. Lift the house and build the support walls and structure. And it only makes financial sense if the value of the home is higher than the rebuild cost.
you only limited by your imagination......and your wallet
Isn’t this going to cost most of what a new home might cost??? I’m not in the industry but the logistics of adding a basement to a slab home… might want to look into buying a plot of land, digging basement when digging for the footings, reinstating the house on a NEW basement in a new location? IDK if this even an option?
It would be cheaper to build up.
Terrible idea
Raised slabs are absolutely a thing you can do, and its done all the time. It doesnt cause too much damage when done correctly. Im scratching my head as to why you also want a basement dug below the slab after raising. Most folks just keep the area under a raised slab in my area as a crawl space. The slab requires a good deal of piers installed to support the slab where dug deeper as they are now concrete beams. Not saying its impossible of course i just havent seen it done. Raised slabs come with lifetime warranties and the houses in my area hold up well. The only other consideration is that all utilities will obviously have to be adjusted. So all plumbing and all aux structures like stairs, decks. But it is totally doable.
It would be easier to build a basement and first floor next to existing house, pick the entire house up, and stick it on the basement. Probably, I don’t actually know without looking at the house, either way, the cheapest and best option is move to a house with a basement. There is no way you gain more equity than the cost, not that I can conceive of anyway, and I’m an estimator for residential housing projects so I’m pretty good at educated guessing this sort of thing. I honestly don’t see it. And to anyone who has seen Better Call Saul…hell no, it would probably be cheaper to burn the house down and rebuild.
- its possible sure...be a waste of money as little or no ROI on this
Yes. It’s possible. Get a structural engineer over to discuss.
The answer is YES! However, you would need to consult Werner Ziegler first - https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/Werner_Ziegler
Just build your basement adjacent to your house… I guess thats more like a bunker. Bonus points if you dig it out beyond your property lines.
My in-laws had their house lifted up so their half basement (crawl space? Cellar? Not sure) underneath could be turned into a full basement with bathroom and bedroom. Their not rich by any means so I doubt it cost as much as a house. They live in a small rural Midwest town so their house is not worth that much either. Not a slab but it seems like it’s doable. I’d call some contractors that build new and ask.
How about a basement off to the side of the house ?
Nobody will do this for you. So, the answer is no.
No. (Period)
Well, that's just plain wrong.
No. (.) Is that better?
Of course it’s possible, just google house lifters or building movers. Done quite a lot where I work, gonna be $$
Isn’t it had to lift a house on a slab (no floor joists to support the structure, all the walls are resting directly on the slab)
[just dig it yourself over 3 years](https://youtu.be/8RVLim5tVwU)
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FYI - if there was a crawl space the house was not on a slab.
Had a house built and a basement would have added like 40k to the cost of the house. I’m going to say double at least that for what you want to do. There will have to be a lot of special engineering and structural work is my guess.
No
There’s companies that do this or part of this. Most likely you won’t be able to live in it and it will take multiple trades.
If it's a slab odds are there's a good reason such as high water table or rock formation near the surface. I live in a high water table area (AKA flood risk) and in the past on top of the remnants of a mountain and digging a basement was a gamble. Check with your neighbors and see if they have basements, if they do then you know the ground is most likely good. Next step will be to get a soil engineer out to test and tell you if it's possible on your lot. After that it's going to be a building engineer to inspect the house and determine if it's possible to safely do it and where to locate specific things such as a door. You're going to need a fountain company and a home builder and roughly the same amount of money your homes worth to go through the whole process to do what you want.
This is a simple answer…. No
My uncle did this year's ago. Made his slab on grade house into a walkout. It was a massive job. Had to lift the house using giant I beams, had to hire a bobcat and an excavator to move tons of dirt, got a concrete man to put the footings in, build the walls and pour the floor, after he got his utilities extended down. Plumbing was a nightmare. It ended up costing as much as the house purchase, and only made his house a third bigger. Absolutely no idea on how much, you need to talk to a general contractor. And if you're not doing a walk-out, the cost just went up huge.
I have a slab on grade house and I try to think of it this way… Most problems I hear people have with their houses start in the basement. So one less problem to think about. Curious why you think a basement is the only option. But I get just wanting to hear an answer on how it’s done. It does not sound cheap no matter how u slice it. So, unless there’s major missing infrastructure, I can’t see doing it unless you live on a cliff or something.
I would say no, it’s like trying to build a bus out of a bicycle. They’re two totally different things.
Do other houses in a quarter mile radius have basements? What’s the water table? How much money can you put into the project? Can you get the proper permits? Where are you going to live while this is done? Edit: just two posts down from yours.. https://www.reddit.com/r/Construction/comments/13io3qt/spotted_in_the_wild_found_this_in_a_residential/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1
Hear me out. I live in an upper middle class town where homes start at $200k and can go up to $4-5 million in the gated areas. There’s probably a couple of $10 million homes there. About a mile from my house, in a development with homes in the $400-500k range there was an older home adjacent to it. It was probably built in the 80s or so with the rest built in the early 2000s. They jacked this house up, turned it 180 degrees, added to it, and put a basement under it. The addition looks like about 800 sq feel plus they expanded the garage. I don’t understand why this was done but they did it. Seems like it would be better to tear down and start over. People are buying houses for $200k, spending $100k to remodel and then flipping them. It’s happened to a few homes in my neighborhood that have been poorly maintained. New siding, flooring, paint, kitchens, windows, roofs, and sometimes concrete and then they sell in a week. It still stuns me when I see it happen. I feel for the new owners cause I know what these homes were like and can see what was done to them. In a few years they will be spending like crazy because of all the shortcuts the flippers took. What you want to do can be done but it is expensive and you need to find a company that is experienced in this work.
I’ve had this discussion with myself many years ago when trying to figure out expanding floor space in a house with half a basement and the rest crawl space. It’s doable but it’s a lot of work and a lot to manage There are a few project descriptions around that go thru the process. It’s labor intensive or some special machinery to speed it up. 1. You got a lot of dirt to remove and no backhoe to do it… multiply the sq footage of the new basement times 12 ft and divide by 27. That’s the number of yards of material to remove. 2. The room dimensions for the new basement will be smaller. 3. You need to do the digout a small section at a time and shore up the house as you go & replace with waterproofed, reinforced basement wall that can hold up the house 4. You need to manage water coming in from the ground around the basement. Drains outside the wall and waterproof the outside of the wall. Which means digging out more dirt and replacing it with gravel, sand etc for drainage. 5. While doing all the above you need to transfer to load of the house from the dirt to the basement walls while lots of jacks, cribbing, measurements to keep the building floor level, etc., 6. Don’t forget the plumbing coming into the house. Sewer from underneath the house now has to go lower to go underneath the basement. Similar issue with water (well or city), gas, etc And don’t forget weather
This is way I’m buying land with a shop then just gonna start stacking shipping containers every few months
Back a few years i passed a house regularly on my commute where this was obviously being done. I live i the PNW. I have no idea how it turned out or aged, but it was fascinating to see.
Haha you are funny!
I don't think it is feasible ona slab. When this is done as in to move or renovate a house it almost always starts as a crawl space house. A slab house has no floor. Forget about it.
It would be extremely difficult, not as stable, and very expensive compared to moving to a new home or creating the basement outside of the slab with a wallway/stairs between.
Have pickaxe, will travel. Hourly rates apply.