building / structure question

[wncramsey]

If you were to have a piece of property with a house (house has basement) on it, would there be anything structurally to prevent you from converting the basement to a walkout basement by removing the soil and adding windows / doors.

Diane

[kuriakos]

In most cases, no. You just put a beam over the opening, and make sure to provide for drainage in the dug out area so it doesn't flood the basement.

[Hoop]

Properly installed doors/windows shouldn't upset the structure. The biggest concern is drainage. This may require extensive excavation, hauling away of fill, retaining walls, landscaping, drain tile, etc.
No 2 locations will be the same.

[Macybaby]

I wouldn't think so, as usually the whole problem with basements is building the walls so they can support the weight of the dirt on the other side.

It would be something I did a lot of research on before attempting. There could be erosion issues with the sides and things like that.

Cathy

[wy_white_wolf]

Yes, depending on your area. If removing all the dirt puts the bottom of the footers above the frost line you could get frost heaving.

[DaleK]

What the wolf said. We just built our house with a walkout (2 years ago). The footings had to be on three different levels to get them low enough (or I suppose we could have put them ALL deep but that would have been a lot more $$$). The ones on the buried side of the house are normal depth, halfway across the end walls they go down 5', then down again so they're at full depth for the exposed wall.

[Danaus29]

I sure hope not! The previous owners of this house made it a walkout basement. They also put on a deck that rotted and had to be removed, and a sliding glass door that was installed wrong and has serious issues now.

Our biggest problem is that even though the house is on top of a hill, the dug out walk out was never properly drained. The gravel was insufficient, the pipe for drainage empties into the middle of the yard, on top of the slope towards the neighbor's yard. And the basement door is some homemade piece of waste that has huge (we're talking 2 inches in some areas) gaps between it and the frame and the door was never made to withstand weather. Other that that, no foundation problems have shown up, yet. (knock on wood)

[wncramsey]

Thank you for your replies, this information gives us a few more options and things to look at when we look for our property.


Diane