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Old 04-17-2013, 04:35 PM
 
22 posts, read 39,904 times
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I don't know who to ask, so I figured here to be a good place. When people build houses/cabins in the rockies, do they typically build there house over a basement? What challenges, both physically and financially, are involved in digging for a basement in the Georgetown area?
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Old 04-17-2013, 04:41 PM
 
Location: Evergreen
403 posts, read 759,217 times
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The biggest unknown in the mountains is rock. If you encounter rock then you have to deal with blasting to get a foundation in and then your costs escalate. We custom built our home in 2008 in Evergreen and have an 1800 sq ft walkout basement which didn't significantly add to the cost of our build because we left it unfinished and chose a lot that wasn't visually rocky.
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Old 04-18-2013, 08:21 AM
 
Location: Na'alehu Hawaii/Buena Vista Colorado
5,529 posts, read 12,663,767 times
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Maybe you could call and talk with the Clear Creek County building department. They should be able to give you the best answer.
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Old 04-18-2013, 08:30 AM
 
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,694 posts, read 58,012,579 times
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Very dependent on local soils and specific terrain.

I have always put daylight basements under my homes. A couple of my homes in CO had 1/2 basements or a big rock jutting out here or there. (if I chose not to blast). Usually I was able to find a spot on the property that would give me a nice south facing hillside and decent dirt. DO ADD Radon venting BEFORE pouring your slab. If you are real creative, you can double the Radon Mitigation (and venting as Thermal Mass for Annualized solar. (Heat the Radon Thermal mass (drain rock) with attic / solar heat in summer, to warm home in winter).

Be sure to insulate slab / thermal mass properly for heat transfer (12" per month), or you will overheat your home in summer / fall.
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Old 04-18-2013, 02:49 PM
 
Location: Colorado
22,823 posts, read 6,433,253 times
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Speaking of soils, our last home here had a basement and we wanted a basement in our new home. Our lot had
shale so although a basement was included in the floor plan we had to pay an extra $1000 for them to dig through
shale....don't know if we were taken advantage of or not but the home was still a good price and the money
was worth it to us to have all that extra space. Love basements....
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