Recent comments in /f/pittsburgh

vivamario t1_jaesc5v wrote

Reply to comment by turp101 in Viewing homes in the area by Ar30la

I've turned Pittsburgh basements into living space. It's brutal, expensive work but possible. You have to install perimeter drains/sumps, reroute the utilities into the joists, cut in egresses, demo the interior concrete slab and then dig until the floor is low enough. If the foundation is too shallow, then you have to underpin. Then you have to set new center supports and pour new foundations for those, pour a concrete slab, and waterproof.

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SnooDoubts2823 t1_jaeq7vb wrote

Reply to comment by turp101 in Viewing homes in the area by Ar30la

I've been blessed owning two Pittsburgh area homes, one built in 1955 and the other I live in now in 1956 and both bone dry with no additional work since construction (that we know of). Both finished.

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leadfoot9 t1_jaepi2v wrote

Reply to comment by lefindecheri in Viewing homes in the area by Ar30la

Hmm.... I never thought of that. I did notice that some cheap, crappy developments out toward Bridgeville didn't have them, and predictably, those homes have way too many cracks for their age. I also heard an offhand remark a few weeks ago by someone that "most homes in X neighborhood don't have basements" (they absolutely do, indicating that the speaker was in a different social class than me and was probably looking at far newer homes that I could never afford). Now, new buildings being out of compliance with basic codes is very common... inevitable, even, but surely oversights THAT big don't happen, right?

It turns out there are actually FOUR methods for frost protection:

  1. Founding below the frost depth.
  2. Extending insulation into the ground, such that the heat of the building will keep the ground under it from freezing.
  3. Building Per ASCE 32
  4. Founding on solid rock

Now, #3 would probably require involving an engineer, so I doubt it's done for cheapo houses, and #4 would be absurdly expensive, so I assume that #2 is the normal practice.

With that being said, many types of insulation degrade with time, and #2 involves a pinky promise to keep the house at 64 degrees minimum year-round. So, I guess look for newer houses to occasionally get f***ed when they're vacant/for sale in the winter or there's just a winter power outage.

FYI: Crawl spaces don't help with frost protection. The don't affect the foundation depth, they just raise the living area off the ground. They're so that the plumbing under your house is accessible for repairs instead of being encased in a solid concrete slab. Like a basement, but cheaper.

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pburgh2517 t1_jaeofjl wrote

Reply to comment by turp101 in Viewing homes in the area by Ar30la

One front corner of my house is ground level then the hillside slopes downward in all directions ending up with a walkout basement in the back.

It may be due to the upkeep done by previous owners. It was a very well maintained home by the same older woman for many many years.

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