raising a house to convert a crawl to a basement

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03-17-00, 10:18 AM

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We have a one story house w/a crawl. We really like our location, but need more room. We would like to know how difficult it would be to raise our house to have a full basement? My husband is an engineer and does construction on the side. Is it possible for him to do something like this? Any suggestions would be great?

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03-17-00, 07:47 PM

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It is possible, but have you considered the cost to do this versus the cost of possible adding a second story or addition?

Also, your house would be barely usable during most of the process of raising it.

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MTAC - Van Buren,MO
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Home repair & Construction

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03-18-00, 03:54 AM

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Chocca:
Adding a basement to a house is a long and costly job. I will not go into all of the details, but will give you an over view. you folks decide, and if you decide to, I will try and help you. First you will have to get a company, usually a house mover, to jack up your home. About 5 to 6 feet off the ground. Disconnect all utilities, and after the house is up, connect them back up. Hire a excavator to dig out the dirt. Find somewhere to get rid of the dirt. There will be many truck loads of it. Clean out your basement area, build forms, pour concrete walls, pour concrete floor, hire the housemover to lower the house, disconnect the utilities, reconnect all the utilities. The list goes on. This is a very serious job. A very costly job. It is not a one man job. It is a several crew job. I don't know how big your home is, but you can probably figure around $100 per square foot of floor space. Now you can decide what to do. Good Luck Oh by the way, this will take about 3 to 4 months, and you will have to live in your home 6' in the air during this time.

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[This message has been edited by Jack the Contractor (edited March 18, 2000).]

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10-02-05, 08:04 AM

LMawby

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raising a house to convert a crawl to a basement

I am so very sorry that I didn't run into you sooner. I don't think that anyone has intentionally misled you, but there is some misinformation that you have received. We also have a one story home that we raised to place a basement. They do not need to jack you home up 5-6 feet, and cut all of your utilities. We live in Michigan. They busted out the block in approximately 4 spots of our home, slid through the steel beam, dug under the beam to place the supports, and then excavate the basement. You can do either a block or a wood basement without have to "jack your house up". Also, from having previous real estate experience, a basement adds a great deal of value to your home. If your husband is an engineer, and has construction background, this is a definite possibility. We are in the same situation, and just had to sub out some of the stuff. I hope that you researched it further and didn't chose to give up on it.

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10-14-05, 07:56 AM

darren_1974

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I did my house myself, and did not hire any outside contractors. I have (had) very little construction experience. I have posted about it on here before, so if you search, you should be able to find it. There are some pics here:

http://members.shaw.ca/hackers/pics.html

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Basements, Attics and Crawl Spaces
Insulation between basement and first floor

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delenca on Oct 13, 2005

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