There are a variety of basement improvement opportunities as a result of underpinning your home. Ask your City Wide Group expert inspector to discuss all the possibilities with you. You can consider expanding your family’s enjoyment of your home by adding a recreational space, additional living spaces, or even a rental opportunity. You may need to underpin your home to ensure your foundation’s integrity to protect your home and investment. You may want to upgrade your plumbing to install new appliances or to improve the efficiencies of existing equipment. The City Wide Group can lay out the underpinning project to meet your needs.
The process of underpinning the foundation opens up the hidden mechanics of the home and makes them accessible for inspection, correction, renovation and improvement. As underpinning and basement floor lowering is usually undertaken in older homes, older household plumbing, electrical and insulation systems can be replaced or upgraded with modern technologies. All these can be brought up to Building Code and beyond to the most desirable contemporary standards. Consider the following improvement options.
Reconfiguring the Space
With an underpinning project to lower your basement you have the potential to remove load-bearing walls and replace them with a horizontal beam and steel posts. The warren of existing basement rooms can also be transformed into a rational plan for your dream usage. Functional areas can be moved and appropriately sized which might include designated storage, laundry, bathroom, kitchen and various living areas. Make your plan with the City Wide Group while the foundation is exposed.
Plumbing and Heating
Hidden plumbing is exposed during the process of foundation underpinning providing the perfect opportunity to replace any defective installations and upgrade others to new, modern technology. The opportunity also exists to alter or improve your furnace and water heating system when these will have to be disconnected or suspended as part of the underpinning construction. For example, you may choose to replace your hot water tank heater with an on-demand installation. Even if you are not intending to complete a finished basement project at this time, this is the optimum occasion to rough in any plumbing for future installations such as an extra bathroom, kitchen, or new laundry area. You should also consider flood and wet basement protection installations like sump pumps and backflow valves now that you have the foundation fully exposed.
Flooring
The installation of a new concrete floor following the foundation underpinning work opens up the options of radiant heating and a wide range of new, efficient and beautiful flooring materials. Radiant heating systems supply heat directly to the floor or to panels in the wall or ceiling of a house. The systems are based on radiant heat transfer -- the delivery of heat directly from the hot surface to the people and objects in the room via infrared radiation. Radiant heating is particularly effective in homes where individuals suffer from allergies as there are no allergens distributed through the heating system. A variety of new, improved subfloor systems are now available to eliminate dampness and receive wanted finished flooring.
The City Wide Group has the expertise to help you with all your underpinning requirements. Call today.