basements?

daisy · Guru

basements?

Sara · Guru

ours is mostly finished with a portion of it unfinished which is where our storage all is.

basically it is where we hang out the most. big tv, wii, all the toy are down there.

i can take pics if you are wanting. the carpet down there needs shampooed it is not as nice as the rest of the carpeting through the house.

it is drywalled on the finished side then the drop ceiling. the unfinished side is just that, unfinished..lol.

as far as mold, it past our home inspection when we bought it in may of 08 and i am assuming they test for mold there so no problems that we know of.

we do not have a dehumidifier running we did replace or heating and air unit in june of 08 since the one here had been since this house was built. i know it has a hepa air filter humidifier system or something to that nature we did the best we could since owen struggles with his allergies so much.

the only other toys we have are our two book shelf cabinents surrounding our fire place then a small basket of toys in the family room on the main level. then the front living room there is a small basket plus one big toy item that keegan got last year.

it is so nice to have the majority of the toys down in the basement and things up here out of sight. minus a little.

not sure if any of that helps you..lol

sbucking · Guru

Ours is finished except for the laundry room. It's a very small guest room, 3/4 bath, and then our playroom. A few months after we moved in we found black mold (Had to pay $500 for the test) and gutted most of it to start over.

There are some great sealers you can paint on your walls to keep the moisture out. You can also buy some shemical you can spray to kill any mold if it's mild. We also keep a dehumidifier going in our basement and it fills up every day in the summer. We don't run it as much in the winter. It's probably a two gallon tank, and was around $100.

muffy · Guru

our is unfinished. it is huge - 140m2 (about 1400 sq ft) which is the same size as the ground level of our house.

there was moisture in the foundation when we bought the house - so the first thing we did when renovating was dig around the entire exterior foundation of the house, waterproof the basement walls from the exterior, and once that dried (took a few months time) we bulldozed back the dirt next to the foundation.

we have one main area at the bottom of the stairs which has 5 rooms, with doors, leading from there.

i have painted most of the rooms - at least the ones we go into all the time. two are unpainted - i was planning to do that next summer.

Supafly · Guru

Ours is finished. It is a walk out, so we have not really had moisture issues. We have never needed a de-humidifier here (my parents used to use one-they have a walk out too, but like Megan, their basement is about 1400sq ft, where as ours is about 700 max)

We also put a 1/2 bathroom in ours. It is small, and even then takes up a fair amount of space (and it was very pricey to get the pump for the toilet because we got the kind that mounts flush to the wall and doesn't require you to break the concrete floor), but it has been INVALUABLE. Seriously, I don't think we would even bother using the basement if we didn't have it. SO SO SO glad I talked Bill into it.

We don't have carpet-again because it is a walk out to our backyard-so we don't have issues with clean up or carpet collecting moisture or mold. And we put sealers on the walls when they were being finished, plus a moisture barrier on the floor before we put down the pergo. It hasn't been an issue at all.

LDSMOM · Senior Member

Basements here are a bad idea because the water table is so high and they tend to get flooded. However, most people have at least a partial basement with a sump pump. Mine is small (only 10X10 or so) and has my furnace that takes up most of the space. The rest is where I put empty boxes. Even though the water table is high, the basements don't usually get mold because the air is dry.

Lizzy · Guru

kelly....ours is unfinished and in bad shape, but i have been following this blog - and they have done a great job -might give you some ideas!

daisy · Guru

Lizzy wrote:

kelly....ours is unfinished and in bad shape, but i have been following this blog - and they have done a great job -might give you some ideas!

i love these people. they are hilarious. thanks so much - our basement is VERY similar to this one. very. except our "cavernous windows" dont open. UG.
i'm going to open the door down there today and let it air a bit. i should do that here and there.
after christmas i'm going to start cleaning out all the crap - i need it EMPTY.
then i'm going to have mike scrape up the floors (they were painted a few years back but are flaking) and then we have to figure out some sort of sealant for this little place where water comes in.
with all that plus dehumidifier, i might feel a bit better without spending a fortune. we do need more ventilation.
thanks for the blog, i'm going to read more intently later.

Dddiii · Guru

Our basement is finished for the most part. The laundry room is not and there is also access behind doors to some storage areas, sump pit, etc. I do like having this access because I don't like not being able to see at all what's behind the walls that we don't have access to.

I really don't think they took the proper steps to tackle moisture before finishing it.   None of the walls are sealed. We have carpet and there is nothing underneath to block moisture.

I have a feeling we will be redoing the whole thing in a matter of years.

The water table here is VERY VERY high. During a flash flood a few months ago, I actually saw water coming through the concrete blocks (EEEEEK!).   There was a sump pump here when we moved in but the whole lining was rusted out and the pump wasn't a very powerful one, so that was our first big investment.

Basements kill me. I had a hard time for the first 6 months or so even going down there. I feel like there *has to* be mold down there, iykwim.   It's really just a matter if it's enough to worry about or something we are just going to have to live with like generations before us did.

I will say this... if we win the lotto and decided to stay here, the basement will be the FIRST thing to be gutted and we would also waterproof outside around the foundation.

I hate water. LOL.

daisy · Guru

Dddiii wrote:

Our basement is finished for the most part. The laundry room is not and there is also access behind doors to some storage areas, sump pit, etc. I do like having this access because I don't like not being able to see at all what's behind the walls that we don't have access to.

I really don't think they took the proper steps to tackle moisture before finishing it.   None of the walls are sealed. We have carpet and there is nothing underneath to block moisture.

I have a feeling we will be redoing the whole thing in a matter of years.

The water table here is VERY VERY high. During a flash flood a few months ago, I actually saw water coming through the concrete blocks (EEEEEK!).   There was a sump pump here when we moved in but the whole lining was rusted out and the pump wasn't a very powerful one, so that was our first big investment.

Basements kill me. I had a hard time for the first 6 months or so even going down there. I feel like there *has to* be mold down there, iykwim.   It's really just a matter if it's enough to worry about or something we are just going to have to live with like generations before us did.

I will say this... if we win the lotto and decided to stay here, the basement will be the FIRST thing to be gutted and we would also waterproof outside around the foundation.

I hate water. LOL.

this is exactly how i feel too.
there *has* to be an issue down there - there's no way there isnt. but i dont SEE anything - like, i doubt there's black mold. we have a rock foundation, and in "the rock room" it's really gross - i worry about that area. hmm.

Lizzy · Guru

daisy wrote:

Lizzy wrote:

kelly....ours is unfinished and in bad shape, but i have been following this blog - and they have done a great job -might give you some ideas!

i love these people. they are hilarious. thanks so much - our basement is VERY similar to this one. very. except our "cavernous windows" dont open. UG.
i'm going to open the door down there today and let it air a bit. i should do that here and there.
after christmas i'm going to start cleaning out all the crap - i need it EMPTY.
then i'm going to have mike scrape up the floors (they were painted a few years back but are flaking) and then we have to figure out some sort of sealant for this little place where water comes in.
with all that plus dehumidifier, i might feel a bit better without spending a fortune. we do need more ventilation.
thanks for the blog, i'm going to read more intently later.

I love this! (send him over here will ya ;)

It does seem like the yhl blog spent alot of money on their basement (figuring in the cost for the drylock (sp?).

How much are you wanting to spend?

daisy · Guru

Lizzy wrote:

daisy wrote:

Lizzy wrote:

kelly....ours is unfinished and in bad shape, but i have been following this blog - and they have done a great job -might give you some ideas!

i love these people. they are hilarious. thanks so much - our basement is VERY similar to this one. very. except our "cavernous windows" dont open. UG.
i'm going to open the door down there today and let it air a bit. i should do that here and there.
after christmas i'm going to start cleaning out all the crap - i need it EMPTY.
then i'm going to have mike scrape up the floors (they were painted a few years back but are flaking) and then we have to figure out some sort of sealant for this little place where water comes in.
with all that plus dehumidifier, i might feel a bit better without spending a fortune. we do need more ventilation.
thanks for the blog, i'm going to read more intently later.

I love this! (send him over here will ya ;)

It does seem like the yhl blog spent alot of money on their basement (figuring in the cost for the drylock (sp?).

How much are you wanting to spend?

um, nothing? lmao.

i have no idea. i guess for now, just the basic costs of a dehumidifier and some vents. we dont have a lot of extra for this right now at all.