What considerations should be made for finishing your basement now or in the future?
Finishing your basement levels are an economical way to add significant usable square footage to your home. There are many different levels of finishing that can be done, but provisions should be made during the planning stages whether you plan on finishing now or in the future.
Considerations for Finished Basements:
- Bearing walls for future room walls. (You don’t want posts in the middle of a room to be completed later if possible.)
- Door heights: Are you going to want to raise the basement slab. If so, provisions should be made now.
- Bedroom: Future bedrooms need to have egress windows in the event of an emergency.
- Bathroom: Under-slab plumbing can be done pretty inexpensively if done now versus in the future.
- Insulation: Considerations for finishing your basement should be made when determining your energy code envelope.
- Windows: Building Code requires ventilation and natural light for making the basement level living space.
- Your electrical and mechanical systems should have provisions for the future.
- An awning window (Not the cheap sliding windows that are often poured into the foundation) should be in the mechanical room room for natural light and ventilation in the event of electrical/mechanical failures.
- Ceiling heights: Duct work size and locations need to be thought through ahead of time.
- There are a number of provisions to help make the basement level feel like normal living area and for keeping it warm and dry.