Basement or main floor laundry room?

11 years ago

We have a rambler with an unfinished basement. Our current laundry room was built to (I'm assuming) double as a mud room bc at the back of the laundry room is a door leading outside to the back yard. But it's not really big enough to be both. I really want a mud room. I want the kids to use that door, and I want to use it as I come and go from the garden and chicken coop. The door is usually inaccessible though because the kids pull laundry out of the dryer as they look for stuff. There isn't really isn't a good place to fold laundry in there. We have 3 bedrooms on the main and we're finishing 3 bedrooms in the basement. As we are planning the basement, we are considering whether or not to:

1. Build my dream laundry room down there, where half the bedrooms will be, and convert this upper room to just a mud room, which is the only thing I really feel is lacking in this house.

2. Add the mudroom lockers in the laundry room and just deal with the crowding.

3. Use the back portion of the RV garage to build in a great laundry room. It would be accessed from inside the house from the main floor and be part of the house. We don't actually have an RV or intend to get one. It's just a trend here to have an RV garage. If we did that we would have 3 normal sized garages (well, larger than normal. The 2-car portion of the garage is 25' deep, but still not deep enough to park an RV, if that makes sense).

Those are the best options I have right now. Opinions?

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Comments (5)

Cavimum
11 years ago
The problem with putting a W/D in the garage is that if you have a deep freeze, the garage is cold, too. Washer hoses can freeze. It happened to a neighbor of mine, at our previous home. If the washer is far from the water heater and your washer has no internal water heater, you may never get a true HOT, especially when the washer is, say, 50 degrees F cold from the ambient temp in the garage. Personally, I would never ever buy a house with W/D in the garage. They are HOT in the summer and COLD in the winter. One also has to think of resale.

Not knowing the layout of your main floor, if you put the laundry in the basement, can you have a dumb waiter built to send and bring laundry upstairs? Manual or electric, it could be a lifesaver if you sprain an ankle, or whatever.

If your garage is on the same level as your basement, the dumb waiter would be nice for bringing up groceries, too.
danceme
Original Author
11 years ago
If we built out into the garage we would run the HVAC there and insulate and everything. It would be an actual room of the house, not the garage. So in that way it would be increasing my square footage of my home as well.
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I personally don't believe there is a right or wrong answer here. It boils down to personal preferences and how YOU do laundry. When we bought our house we did a complete gut and reno. My laundry was located in a large closet in my kitchen (large enough for cabinet with sink, stacked machines and another storage unit to the right). Everyone convinced me to keep it there - said it would be so convenient to have it on the main floor. Fast forward a few years and two small boys later ... I hated it. I was still working full time then so weekends were laundry days (that's when I could strip beds and such). I'd be walking over laundry in the kitchen ... yuck! A couple years ago we finished our basement and down it went (where I wanted it in the first place). My issue with having it upstairs with the bedrooms is size. Unless it could be a large room than can accommodate all I want in my laundry then the basement is the only logical place for it. My husband wears suits/dress shirts to work and I iron items like sheets, linens, etc ... An ironing board always seemed to be up in my kitchen. I also like to hang dry certain items so a drying rack had to be somewhere. Anyway, you get the picture. Down in the basement I have a large dedicated room. It has my machines, cabinets and a large laundry sink. I have a large table on castors in the middle of the room for folding, crafting, wrapping gifts. We installed two large Ikea Pax units to hold out of season items and craft/wrap supplies. I've got a wall mounted tv, comfy chair and my elliptical. It's a great space and I use it all the time (as laundry never seems to end). My kids use it too for messy projects or crafts like painting. Nice to not have the mess in the kitchen anymore. I do have to carry laundry up and down but heh ... I could use the exercise ;) I really don't mind considering the space I have to work in. I wouldn't trade it for a small laundry closet upstairs. Now ... a second set of machines on the bedroom level?? That's another question all together :) If you're doing a laundry room on an upper level, I would make it a water tight space with a drain (incase of floods). You certainly don't want to ruin your nice new home. Plus you would want to reinforce the floor to take the extra weight and vibrations (to ensure a quiet spin). Friends of mine built expensive custom homes and this is how they do the (large) laundry rooms on the bedroom level. They usually install Miele front loaders and they reinforce the floors and make them water proof. I read this on waterproofing: "The best way to prevent a leak from flooding the rest of the house is to build a curb across the laundry room's threshold, waterproof the floor area, and install a floor drain. Because the drain will normally be dry, it will require a trap primer, which diverts a dribble of water from the supply line to the drain to keep the trap full and prevent sewer gas from wafting into the living space. Additional safeguards include washing-machine drip pans and electronic shutoff valves that automatically stop the flow of water when they sense a leak."
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Moving the laundry to the basement wouldn't lower the value of the house. Like you said every inch of space is a premium so don't waste it on washer/dryer on the main floor of the house when there is plenty of room in the basement. Lots of basements house the laundry in America so I would move them down there.
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fahrenheit_451
11 years ago
By your forum name, I would do the following (if it were me):
- Reinstate the mud room to its full purpose and remove the washer and dryer.
- Build a laundry room in the basement.
- Build a laundry room in the RV garage.
Hauling laundry up and down floors is a pain. You can ease the burden a bit through a laundry chute, but two separate laundry rooms (one per floor) makes life easier. This also provides you with a backup should a washer or dryer unit fails. The mud room will still have the connections to reinstate it to a laundry room should you decide to sell your house.
danceme
Original Author
11 years ago
You make an excellent point. I'm currently 7 months pregnant with #6, and the oldest are in kindergarten. I really do need a full mudroom and a good size laundry room. We have a large property with gardens, orchard, playground, chickens, etc. Plus they are all getting into sports. We come into the house dirty a lot of the time. If I did a second laundry room in the basement it would be smaller, bc it won't be my laundry room :). There will be 3 bedrooms and 4 kids down there when they get older. They already sort their clothes, load the washer, and fold/put away when they are dry. All I do is turn on the washer and move the clothes to the dryer bc they are too short :). So by the time they move downstairs, they will be well trained in the ways of laundry.

Now to see how expensive my idea is :/
sandys4259
11 years ago
One other issue I wanted to point out to you is to consider the possible effect of flooding that might occur if your laundry room is on the main floor and the washer should break down. Though it should not happen, we have had a flood from our laundry room three separate times from three separate issues, 2 which caused substantial damage to the flooring.
Our laundry is in the basement and we have engineered laminate flooring. The first flood caused water to go under the floor and we had to tear it up. We thought the problem was rectified, so we put the same floor down again. One year late we had another flood from the washing machine which again went under the flooring and we had to tear the flooring up again to dry out. Needless to say, that type of flooring did not go back down again.
While we were deciding what type of flooring to put in the basement, the pump on the washer went and caused some more flooding, except not so bad this time.
So even though lots of people never have any issues with possible flooding from the washer, there is always a slight possibility of it happening and it might be something to consider when thinking of where to place your laundry room.
Good luck with whatever you decide.

Basement or main floor laundry room?

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Cavimum

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Basement or main floor laundry room?

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Cavimum

dancemeOriginal Author

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fahrenheit_451

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sandys4259

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