planning new build - connecticut basement

Hi,

This thread has been a long time coming, another guy who's spent a very long time reading posts on this forum, and finally getting together the courage, and information required to start my own thread.

brief situation overview

had house built in 2006, requirements for me were, a basement, and a garage. my wife picked everything else out. fast forward 2010, finally settled in, empty basement has been slightly irking me for awhile. always had ideas of finishing it, generally enjoy getting involved in projects way out of my league that i have no business doing.

i've gathered some basic info about the basement for you guys, my goal is the theatre, but there are other things i'd like to, and hope to fit in the basement, this is very preliminary planning process. so EVERYTHING is subject to change, i'm looking for basic layout input, and we'll move from there on.

there is a budget for this, i'm not sure where exactly its at, but since this build will likely take the better part of the remaining years of my life, i'm sure there will be time to accumulate more money over the course of the build. my budget is certainly not that of some of the people on here (i wish!). sacrifices will need to be made.

Here is the measurements and layout of the basement at this time, this basement is unfinished, at the north wall, concrete is only about 3ft high, and the top half is wood. the east and south wall are full concrete, and the west wall is also half and half, there is about 8-10ft of full concrete on the east side of the north wall, and the rest of the wall is half and half.



the circle on the top left is my water heater, the square on the mid right is my furnace, the corner that is 13 feet below the water heater, is where my fusebox is located. The two small black dots are support columns. its also important to note that the giant beams that those columns hold up, drop the ceiling a few feet in that particular area.

i've put together a few pictures from various views of the basement to give an idea of what i'm working with. you can view them here. The small floorplan on the bottom left of the pictures should give you an idea of what you are looking at.

http://zendesktops.com/images/basementviews/1.jpg
http://zendesktops.com/images/basementviews/2.jpg
http://zendesktops.com/images/basementviews/3.jpg

in addition, there are some "problem" areas.

originating from near the furnace area, and running directly across the entire length of the basement (outside of the joists) is air ducts, and a waste pipe. as pictured here.

http://zendesktops.com/images/baseme.../wastepipe.jpg

the ceilings are not particularly high (definitely high enough, but not the 9ft i wish i had for sure) of all the measurements i took, i somehow forgot to take this one, so i should be able to respond to this post shortly with those measurements.

one of the reasons i waited so long, was because i was paranoid of the basement flooding, its only been 4 years, but we've been dry. there has been moisture, but usually only if i leave a window opened. it stays dry if everything is sealed up.

there are two cracks that showed up since we it was poured,

one is on the half wall, it spans the whole halfway, the crack is not visible from outside. and you can see a picture of this here.

http://zendesktops.com/images/baseme...smallcrack.jpg

the other, spans the entire 13 ft from just behind the stairs, to the top of the plan, it is PERFECTLY straight, and had me very concerned, however, when i was able to remove a chip of the concrete from the crack, i noticed that just about 1cm below the surface, is a plastic plate? it looks like this plastic plate edge runs along the entire crack (and explains why its perfectly straight). is this a common practice in pouring a foundation? is this for moisture or insulation? you can view the best picture i have of this here.

http://zendesktops.com/images/baseme...s/bigcrack.jpg

the white on the inside is the edge of said "plastic plate". it seems like the edge ended up in the middle of my basement.

with that being said 'm sure there will be TONS of issues, but right now, i'm just planning out where to start, and what i want it to look like.

ideally i would like to fit, a small bar (could be dry, not big on plumbing), some type of game table (pool table?) and a theatre.

let me know what you guys think.

my post got semi destroyed since i can't post links yet, and am only allowed a maximum of 5 files. so whatever is missing from this, i'll try to post in the next post below

update - my ceilings are 8 ft to the floor joists, and 7 ft where there is a duct (or the huge support beams between the columns)

i have some ideas for layout that i should be able to put up here shortly,

i still can't put links in my posts but i will attach the rest of the pictures missing from my first post on this one.

i've been thinking about where to start,

it seems like the standard is to frame out your room, tapcon pressure treated into the slab , and then after your framing is up, fill in the flooring with your choice (delta/platon+osb , dricore)

i have read a few posts though ( i think RTROSE comes to mind) where they mentioned that they would have rather just put the subfloor down first, and framed ontop of it.

is there any advantage to this? i mean it would make it alot easier to keep the OSB in large sheets, less cutting, more coverage. what are the sound isolation results of something like this? i'm thinking about building the theatre as a room inside a room, instead of isolation clipping everything. i'm not AS concerned about sound escaping through the floor within the basement, as i am about it escaping to the rest of the house. if i frame ontop of OSB subfloor, i probably won't be able to cut/seperate the subfloor from the theatre and the rest of the basement, because of moisture integrity.

last question for this post, i've read about people using basement sealing paint on the concrete, before they start their process, any word on this? i haven't had any water yet, and i doubt paint is going to help that anyhow, but this is probably the only time during the whole build that i'll actually be able to do this.

thanks for your help, i think being able to replace the subfloor (future flood?) without having to rip the walls out (hopefully?) is rpobably reason enough to do subfloor after framing, that plus added isolation bonus.


i will probably use some type of adhesive as well, thanks for that tip. tapcons seem like the standard in my area, and i'm more comfortable with a hammer drill than a ramset. a hammer drill is also something i already own, so would help keep me within budget.

thanks for your help

attached is one floorplan i had in mind,



the theatre would have a door (probably behind screen) to utility room, and in the back of the theatre, there would be space for equipment rack (under staircase),

i'm still not sure what to do with my furnace area, and how i'm going to handle the large waste pipe that is too far from my duct to be part of the soffit.

i'd really love more suggestions as i'm lacking creativity, if i come up with any other ideas i'll post here

also IB sub room is not a requirement, just an idea

Thanks Cathan,

I actually posted the pictures as links, but since i'm a new poster, i'm not allowed to post URLs yet, so i had to attach like that, once i have enough posts, i'll go back and fix that.

the utilities in the room on the far left is just waterheater/fusebox, so that won't be effected by ventilation/small space, the furnace is on the far right side of the basement, and is the real pain, i have no idea what to do with this area, and yes, it will likely need some space/ventilation, or atleast removable walls so i'm able to service it at sometime in the future. i really don't think moving it is an option because of the duct layout to the rest of the house.

waste pipe, moving it, sounds reasonable, probably up closer to the duct so that it could all be enclosed in a soffit? i really dont know where else i'd move it, my floor joists run from bottom to top, so there is about 20 joists the pipe would have to pass through, and the pipe is way too big to let it go through the joists, i'd be interested in other ideas that people had for where to move it or how to lay it out,

and i will adjust the pictures as soon as possible

thanks so much for the advice guys.

updated to links in posts for pictures (left attachments anyway)

after re-reading your post, i realize you may have been talking about equipment rack under the stairs, it should be fairly easy to incorporate some type of exhaust fan, either a seperate duct or an exhaust fan out into the recreation area

given the information above, heres whats currently on my mind.

1. if i go with a room within a room structure, (roughly 18-20ft by 12ft) will i need to attach my new ceiling to my old ceiling with isolation clips? or will the room be able to support itself?

2. moving wastepipe, since everything is exposed, its probably a job i could do myself, (with an unlucky friend as a helper) but where is the ideal place to move it too? how close can it be to the duct without being able to hear the toilet flush in every room!

3. toying with the idea of a more opened (and non dedicated theatre) floor plan, the theatre area would be still dedicated to theatre , but opening things up and throwing sound/isolation out the window. possibly a question better suited for a thread in a forum not dedicated to dedicated theatres!

4. there is a window on the top rightish area of my basement, thsi window is above ground and is a full sized window (this part of the wall is a half wall) is it mechnically and architectually possible to create a walkout basement from this window? cut the bottom half of the wall out, install a door, have external stairs up to grade level (would only be 5-6 steps) retain dirt with a retaining wall, install drainage at the bottom of the cavity.

5. the two cracks mentioned in the above post, are these issues, or do i just proceed as planned? if i think about bringing in a basement specialist, in this situation no matter what they are going to try to generate revenue and talk me into the importance of fixing these, i need to know if i'm wasting my time, (and possible HT budget)