Basement / Discussions

...basements properly so they won’t go moldy Wood studs will almost certainly be wet when you buy them and install them, that is what you need to allow to dry to the interior since they can’t dry to the exterior. Putting wood studs against a basement wall and then putting plastic over them is why almost all basements smel...

...basement vs slab on grade as a good starting place – Slab on Grade vs Foundation & Crawlspace or Basement? In there you can see our slab on grade installation video of our previous demo house when we did it by hand. It works fine, but we do now prefer the raft slab system, which we tried in our latest demo house, o...

Should I put pea gravel or equivalent on the crawl space floor to allow moisture drainage? Before putting the moisture barrier down. Thank u A lot of crawl space floors will have gravel on them, but the intent is not really drainage, its just as a surface to walk on that is easily leveled I would suggest. Gravel for dr...

...basement walls does nothing good, but it does a lot of harm. You can read more here –  Why are Basements Moldy? How to Fix & Prevent Mold in Homes  The short story is that concrete is wet and dirt is wet, so if you put plastic against it, condensation will form. Installing polyethylene vapour barriers is the worst ...

...basements and crawl spaces Does the house have a basement or is it a crawl space? And what is the floor, is it dirt or poured concrete? I would assume it is not insulated nor would it have a vapor barrier, so just doing a vapor barrier itself puts you halfway to a passive radon stack, in that 6 mil poly vapor barriers ...

I live in Calgary, Alberta and bought a house built in 2007. I noticed this past winter when I started renovating my basement that the rim joists were poorly insulated and we're damp. I insulated the rim joists with R10 rigid board with spray filling the gaps and then R12 batt insulation. I then noticed that under our ...

...basement. People get in trouble for lowering their basement without a permit. I was in a house once where the owners had done that, but an inspector came and had ordered them to destroy all their work, because they did it without a permit. Apparently it's unsafe to mess around with the concrete foundation. It's structu...

...basement and would like to know if plumbing supply lines must always be run through interior partition walls or can they be brought to exterior basement walls that have been insulated using EPS + wood stud + mineral wool? The interior basement walls have been insulated with 2" of EPS (R-10) and then wood studs construc...

...basements properly so they don’t develop mold When you see Rockwool on basement walls, any moisture in the concrete can move right through it, as long as it is not stopped by an interior vapor barrier. That is also why you should never put an interior vapor barrier on basement walls, since the source of moisture that c...

...basement is only 21% of total under house footage. 79% is crawl space. Basement Never painted. Walls go up 4 ft to a 2ft wide ledge and then the old stone foundation. 1 side is an exterior wall; 3 sides are crawl space beyond the stone.  A lot of heat is lost through uninsulated basement floors, so good idea to fix tha...

...basement and 75% crawl space. It was flipped last year before I bought it. A radon test in the basement = 4.4. I covered the sump hole with lexan (nice fit but not air tight) and put in a 6" PVC exhaust pipe with an inline exhaust fan to the outside. I'm waiting for the results of a second radon test. I used canned spr...

...basement. We wondered about 'backfilling' our basement, raising the house to second story height, and building a new ground floor on a slab on grade foundation, so to speak. We live in a high ranch, with the front door cut into the existing foundation, so the idea would be to bring the foundation to "level" (tying in d...

...basements.To get an idea of the different types of caulk and silicone sealants and which are best, see here ! The problem is then that you really shouldn’t walk on it much or risk perforating it. That would be a cheaper solution and likely quite a bit more effective. The Radostat and HRV is a great tool for mitigating ...

...basement? And is it heated or unheated below? And is it insulated below? We aren’t too familiar with existing building practices in Ireland unfortunately so we just need to get up to speed with what you already have. There are many ways to go about radiant heat, and if you are considering insulating the floor I’m guess...

...basement construction may be an even more valuable read for you. Building better basements: how to insulate your basement properly In there you will see a few different techniques for insulating basements, whether that is insulation on the interior, the exterior, or both. You can expand the drawing and see greater deta...

...basement floor. High water table and the engineer wanted the footings on undisturbed soil. So I basically need to pour my basement wall 18 inches higher then plan then fill the inside with crushed gravel and have my basement floor elevated. How should I install my perimeter weeping tile? I obviously cannot have it that...

...basements is to have a dedicated HRV or ERV in the basement, along with a Radostat radon sensor. The radostat in a continuously operating radon detector that will activate the HRV or ERV system when levels exceed recommended safe levels, and it will shut the system off when levels have returned to normal. An experience...

...basement floor? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks so much!   We prefer a slab on grade over a basement for a bunch of reasons, and these pages here are written specifically to address your question, so start here – How to choose between a slab on grade and a basement Pros and cons of a finished basement f...