Our Green Dream Home

Cheapest Space to be found

Basements are known for the cheapest space you can find when building a house.  Where can you double your square footage for a fraction of the price?

A few area to think about when having a basement

Structure – the biggest thing to remember when building a basement is moisture control.  To help prevent this, there are a lot of products

• Membranes
  1. Rubber membrane – this is a liquid that is painted or sprayed on.  Check to make sure it is solvent free and meets VOC standards
• Waterproofing
  1. Concrete sealer - this is a liquid that is painted or sprayed on.  Check to make sure it is solvent free and meets VOC standards
• Ridged foam

Waterproofing is not enough.  For best protection add:

• French drains

  1. These drains remover water from around and away from your home.  These need to be installed before the basement is backfilled (dirt moved back around the walls) so they need to be planed for.
• Sump pumps
  1. This is a pump that will remove water from around your basement and pump it away.   You will need to plan placement of this before your house is build.  You will also need to provide power for the pump so keep that in mind

Make sure that you insulate well

• This would be a good place to use a Soy been spray on insulation
• If you use insulation made of jean reminisce, add a polyethylene film to help with radiant heat and moisture. 

Using Concrete that contains 25% recycled flyash strenghtens the concrete and reduces the amount of flyash being disposed of. **Flyash is a by product of coal burning power plants**