Flow Protection
Spacious home and space to allocate more furniture are never ending desires of every house owner. Basement lowering/underpinning does just that. Basement lowering/ underpinning creates more livable space in the basement of your home. Also, this process ensures strength to the structure, thus uplifting the face of one’s home
Terminology:
Benching:
This is used to create additional livable space in the basement. The Benching process is technically one more branch of underpinning system. In this process we can create the same overall height gain while minimizing square footage. This is more efficient than usual benching process, as the time taken is half of what is taken for Underpinning process and also more cost efficient
- The concrete floor is dugout
- The soil is dugout and properly elevated, depending on the vertical length required, this would give us an idea how long from the wall, the concrete needs to be projected
- Concrete bench needs to be 1 ½ ft out from the inner wall If you lower your basement 1 ft down
- The benching should be be poured after perimeter excavation is done
- The renewed plumbing should be put in place, if the elevations for latest plumbing doesn’t meet then there will be a requirement for sewer injector
- A new interior drainage system is put in place to deal with waterproof aspect of the property
- A base consisting 3 inches of ¾ gravel is laid on floor
- Brand new concrete floor is now laid and finished
UnderPinning:
This process is solely for creating more additional living space. In this process, additional space along with over all height of basement can be created, along with square footage. Usually homeowners use this to make additional income by renting the basement space to others.Planning and Cost
The first and foremost step to the process of underpinning is personal verification of the place that is being considered for lowering, whether lowering will improve the value of place or not. If the cost for lowering will add to overall value of the place in near future or not. The final step before starting the process is to consult a structural engineer, who might give us an approximate figure of the cost that would be incurred in the process.
After personal and professionals consultation is done. If lowering is adding value to the place, then step two would be to have engineer permits and drawings.
- Concrete floor is dug out and proper elevation is given by the soil excavated
- Engineer drawings are used to position the pins, in three stages
- Additional footings for posts should be installed, Incase of new post requirements, means removable jacks are positioned to support beam and structure
- After the pins installation is finished, the space of a couple of inches between the existing footings and concrete should be given to accommodate dry pack grout installation
- Post completion of these 3 stages, the renewed plumbing should be put in place, if the elevations for latest plumbing doesn’t meet then there will be a requirement for sewer injector
- A new interior drainage system is put in place to deal with waterproof aspect of the property
- A base consisting 3 inches of ¾ gravel is laid on floor
- Brand new concrete floor is now laid and finished
Benefits of Basement Lowering
Basement lowering/ underpinning creates more livable space in the basement of your home. Also, this process ensures strength to the structure, thus uplifting the face of one’s home.
Usually basements are 6 feet high, digging out 2 feet, will give us 8 feet of space, which is good for movement.