What else is in your basement...guest room or family room or?

Check about zoning. It can be an awful headache to have to legalize when you go to sell, and the towns penalize you for filing to maintain a bathroom after the fact (ask me how I know, lol).
If you make it legal now, you would not have to worry later, but you may increase your taxes....

How far underground is the sewer line? Did the laundry room have a floor drain or just the wall drain for the washer hose? Floor drain is a good sign. If your sewer line isn't deep enough, you would have to install a lift pump for the toilet (and shower if you add one). Much more complicated.
For resale, I would think a bathroom would be a big asset (assuming it was done legally and to code). Squeezing in a shower would mean some future family could use the basement as a guest room (if you have windows that qualify as legal exits - check local building codes)

Hey Claire!! Long time no see!! Re the waste lines-- there's a pump system made specifically for installing bathrooms lower than the house's waste pipe. I've seen it advertised on tv by a local plumbing supply showroom. I'll see if I can find out the name of it on tuesday and get a link on line for you.

Egress is the biggest thing, so as the other have mentioned, definitely run it past your local officials. Were anything bad to happen down there and the work was done with no permitting, you'll be subject to punitive step from the town, plus insurance companies can turn their backs on you and leave you holding the liability bag.

Most common way to achieve egress is with egress windows.

Yeah the septic...for liquids I'll have a sump can buried flush with the top of the basement slab, a backflow check valve, and a pump that can handle 2" solids. Or you can use a single unit. For the toilet, look into a macerating unit, some of these can take all of the bathroom waste. Some are somewhat standard toilets with a macerating pump add-on. There are also "up flushing" toilets but they are not as common these days.

There are several ways to skin that rat. Then macerate it. Then pump it away.

We have an added bathroom in our bsmt and it is handy. The p.o. did not legalize it so that falls to us. We are doing so as part of a remodel and extension, but it does add to the process and costs us because the town penalizes financially for getting things made legal after the fact.

We do not have egress windows in the bsmt (there are not any sleeping quarters down there). Not having egress windows does not seem to be a problem. Our town is a real nit picky kind of municipality, yet the bsmt bathroom has so far been easy. For example, the front 2 windows in our house were replaced with 9" deep bay windows, but no paperwork had ever been filed. Because we are doing reno work they came up on the radar. Our boys' bedroom has one of the bays, which is not considered an egress window because the casements are not wide enough by code. There is a side window, also a double casement, which will not be considered an egress window because of the bar in the middle. Therefore, we will probably have to rip out a perfectly good set of Andersen casements to get it approved. Sigh....
The worst part is none of the non-complying stuff was done on our watch, yet we are left holding the bag.

Egress. There's a basement door with a staircase on the outside for outdoor access; our basement is considered a ''walk-up'' basement. Wouldn't that be my egress?

The cast iron pipe for waste runs down through that part of the basement from upstairs. Would that make it less/more complicated?

There is a floor drain, along with the drain for the washer/dryer turned sink.

We typically pull permits (mostly), since our house is on the main drag where the city drives by. They notice trucks in driveways and are generally very nosy so I wouldn't consider doing this without one.

Thank you all! (Hi Bill and Mongo!) So...considering the information here, what might be the financial damage for a very basic, bare bones bathroom? What's your feeling about including a shower?

Hiya back at you!

You'll need secondary egress directly from the basement bedroom itself. Not through the bedroom door to another set of stairs within the basement. That's the primary exit. You need a secondary escape out of a window in the bedroom basement itself for anyone trapped in the bedroom. Monarch is one company that puts out a good product. Bilco is another. There are others as well. Or you can opt away from a "commercial" system and use a regular window and fashion your own window well liner.

I'm not positive about these numbers, but I think the egress window sill has to be within 44" of the bedroom floor and the window opening needs to be a minimum of 5.7 sqft. The well outside the window has to be 9 square feet minimum. If the window well outside the foundation is deeper than 44" you need a ladder out of the well. It sounds more complicated than it is. Your local codes could be different.

DIY you can probably add the window and well for around $1000-1500. Say $300-400 to cut the opening, $400-500 for a window, the rest for the trimmings and the window well. Contracting it out with a commercial egress system could easily run $5k to $8k.

The ability to use the existing cast iron waste for your new bathroom depends on a few things, there are drain as well as vent considerations. A plumber will easily be able to figure out the design requirements. But that cost can be anywhere.

I'd definitely make it a 3/4 bath; sink, toilet, shower.

Including the plumber, with the rest of it DIY'd you should be able to do the bathroom for $2500. Could be a few hundred less...it could be several thousand more. Depends on your skills, the materials used, etc.

Thank You for responding!

Well, there are two sets of stairs; one to the inside staircase, and one outside. Are you telling me I still need more exits? The bathroom would be on the staircase(s) side.

I don't actually want to make a bedroom down there, although there is a closet if someone wanted one. The basement is partially finished with wormwood paneling, but it needs cosmetic updating. I'm not quite ready to deal with that, as I thought having a bathroom would make it easier to tackle that in the future. Does that make any difference, or is it just assumed the room would be a bedroom?

How much am I shooting myself in the foot if I don't have a shower? I have room, but I'd rather keep the room for storage (metro shelving), which I need much more than a shower.

Nutshell answer? If you have a bedroom, you need a window capable of serving as a point of egress within that bedroom. House fire. Door jammed closed. How do you get out of the basement? The window.

If you don't have a bedroom then you don't need an egress window. You have the stairs, those will suffice.

You don't need a shower. If you had a bedroom I think the shower would be nice. But with no bedroom, then I think a regular half-bath would be perfectly appropriate.

Ditto on what mongoct said (a shower would be great if you have a bedroom), but if it is just an all purpose room, no need for a shower. Sounds like you have a lot of research on placement of a bathroom, but if it can be built seems like it would be a great plus to your home.

Thank you all for responding to my post. This all helps immensely, and I have broached the subject of a basement bathroom. Hopefully, the seed is planted and will germinate into something!

Claire
now there's a blast from the past - nice to find you here amongst other GW friends.

- I put a basement bath in a previous home -
Regarding the pump set up Mongo referenced we chose one unit
http://www.plumbingsupply.com/sewage.html
Necessary to get what goes down the toilet, sink drains to the main sewer line - I realize you stated you have a floor drain - is that connected to sewer line? & would need proper venting
sewer pipe close to where you want to install the toilet - toilets flush down - so law of physics it needs to be below where the toilet drains or you will need a pump
Hope that helps

best of luck

What a nice welcome, jejvtr! (Thanks for that.)

Thank you too for the info; it's all going to help when I get that bid to see if this might actually happen!

If you feel you have to add bathroom in your basement why not.
Bathroom in your basement will help you to be more comfortable.

Here is a link that might be useful: swimming spa

We had this done this week -- a licensed plumber did a "rough in" for a toilet and a sink -- $1,700. This doesn't include framing and walls since we haven't gotten to that point yet.

They did it in less than two days.

Just to add -- I am not having a shower. There will never be a bedroom down there (I already have one upstairs that is not even being used) -- so I can't imagine why anyone would want to take a shower in the basement.

Thank You stir fryi! That's very helpful (as were everyone else's comments.) We've opted not to add a shower, and if I can arrange the toilet as separate space from the sink area, I can ''pretend'' it's more like a tiny satellite kitchen. The basement would be much a better place for an extra fridge too, which I can see using more than a shower!