For those with walkouts, how'd you finish the basement level exterior?
We are building a craftsman home with a walkout basement and using both cement board siding & stone on the exterior. The current plan is to use the stone only on a few front elevation locations, and the cement board siding everywhere else.
But I'm beginning to think that I would like to use stone to cover the exposed basement-level exterior walls (a portion of one side and the rear) instead of just continuing the siding all the way down. If I do this I'd also like to add a stone "watertable" of sorts around the perimeter of the home even where there's siding - between the bottom of the siding and the ground.
Cost is of course a concern with stone, but it's not as though cement board + ongoing painting is exactly cheap either. Additionally, we're building on top of a basement where portions of its concrete walls will be exposed and will need to be covered by whatever we choose here, so the upper framing may need to be adjusted outward slightly to line up with the lower basement walls + furring strips (if siding is chosen down there).
So for those of you that made one decision or the other, why?
(this isn't our exact plan but it's close - I'm referring to the area pictured below in stone...)
Comments (17)
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Daylight/walkout basement - not a sloped lot
Comments (17)I don't have a copy of the basement floor plan. However, it did come with the house plan and it was so well done, that we made very few changes. The only rooms that do not have windows are the play room and the bathrooms--which is fine by me. The basement windows are large and to the south. We also have tall ceilings down there and it does not seem like a basement at all. The house is 3500 sq ft, so not as big as you may have thought--although certainly big enough. We finished 3000 sq ft in the basement. We don't really need the upstairs great room either, but surprisingly we do use it. I have my baby grand in there and it has NO television. I do love my home. I wanted a home that was elegant but not pretentious, like so many new homes in my area. It took us about a year to build and we had a terrific building experience with the best builder I could have hired. We did time and materials, which I know is frowned on here--but for us it worked out well....See Moreconverting an Englsh basement to a walkout
Comments (6)In the photo of my backyard, on the left side, all the drain tiles and the gutters collect into corregated black pipes, buried into the yard, and exit the house to the back of the property. The very back of the yard is a swale/fen/wetland area (build for the purpose of drainage, not a protected area). This area is much lower than the house and the GC suggested digging down to the draintile on the left side of the house and tapping into the draintile and running another pipe down to the drainage area and gravity feed water away from the house (and subsequently away from the sump pump and relieve the sump pump we have only one, and a very large footprint of the house). He's done this successfully on other houses where there is a good gravity slope away from the property. What needs to be done regarding frost footings? How does that all work?...See MoreA thermal/vapor barrier? Remodeling our walkout basement
Comments (11)Look at Hydroment's Ultraset. It's a trowel-on membrane. An excellent adhesive, a moisture barrier, and a crack isolation barrier all in one. For the areas that will have RFH, you can use the Ultraset as an adhesive to set something like Cerazorb, a synthetic cork. Some folks do use 1/4" or 6mm thick true cork on the slab to act as a thermal break, just make sure it's not a low-density cork and that it's recommended for that purpose. There are RFH websites that sell a proper cork product. The RFH can then go over the Cerazorb/cork. OR you can use the Ultraset to adhere RPM mats (or equivalent) to the slab and install your RFH over that. RPM mats will act as a therma break, even though they have a negligible R-value. RPM mats are lugged mats, the lugs act as anchors for weaving RFH wire. While the RPM mat has little R-value, cork on the other hand has an R-value of about R3, so you'd get roughly R 0.75 from a roll of 1/4" cork. In the areas that won't get RFH, you can use Ultraset to adhere 1/4" cork/Cerazorb to the slab, then install a floating engineered flooring over the cork. 1/4" thick Wedi board can also be used instead of cork/Cerazorb, etc. All those are low-profile options. You'll get a bit of a thermal break but very little improvement in R-value. If you want more R-value, look at sheets of XPS. XPS comes in 4' by 8' sheets and is about R5 per inch. As you can see there are numerous ways to get this done. Some products have certain advantages over others....See MoreFloor plan review (walkout basement, views, decks)
Comments (14)Your bedrooms, closets and bathrooms seem to be nicely sized. You might consider scaling back your great room, 27'x27' is pretty big. That is 729 sq ft. Try putting some furniture in the layout and see what you think. Instead you could have a slightly smaller but still generous 20x20' or so (400 sq ft) great room and an additional slightly separate kids space with the remaining sq ft. The remaining 329 is enough for a 18x18' room, also quite generous. Then you could have an area for kids toys to be corralled and not out in your main living space. In my experience this needs to have sight lines to the main living space or kids won't use it. Later it can be a place for older kids to have friends over etc. Or that remaining sq ft could just be trimmed to save money or dedicated to a guest or kid's bedroom upstairs. You also might consider having the children share one one full bathroom (maybe #3) and convert the other (bath #2) to a powder room for guests and have linen storage in the extra space. Right now your main family entrance moves through back halls and then through the kitchen (sharing space with where someone might stand to wash dishes). You might move the clean up sink elsewhere and use that area as a buffet space when you have guests and a drop zone for mail, groceries etc. as people move in from the garage. You also don't have any space dedicated to dropping shoes, coats, backpacks etc. as you come in from the garage. I know that is something that I can't live without :). When the rest of the floor plan is more set I would take the kitchen layout to the kitchen forum. The house has a very irregular shape which will make your roof and foundation both more complicated and expensive. Depending on your budget this could be something to consider. Do you have an idea of what the exterior will look like? and what you want it to look like? If you can have one garage bay side entry could you have all of them side entry? Most people seem to prefer that look, up to you though. It looks like a beautiful spot and a lovely large lot. What kind of climate are you in?...See More
dbrad
7 years agodazureus, thanks for those photos - that's always helpful and your house is going to be beautiful!
jannicone, I'm beginning to agree with you that the stone seems a more appropriate choice for our plan as well.
At this point we've about decided to land somewhere in the middle. Basically we'll keep the stone on the front & sides as planned (in certain spots) and also add the stone "watertable" (probably only exposing 4-5 courses of stone at the most) around the entire perimeter of the house. Something like these photos (although many of these expose more stone in the "watertable" than we intend to):
cpartist
7 years ago
worthy
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agoUsually I just continue the brick to the walkout grade.
Risistone landscaping walkout.
The practical origins of brick water table detailing have so morphed into simply another McMansion feature that I've (sort of) foresworn them. (JDS once declaimed on these at length.)
bobbyboob
7 years agocpartist
7 years agocpartist
7 years agoIf this were my house, this is what I'd do. I'd do all shingles front and back and just do the stone along the bottom including around the back as you show in your first picture. And I would ditch the shutters.
dbrad thanked cpartistpalimpsest
7 years agoI would do this, as if the stone was the foundation, and the chimney and the other materials on the rest of the house. Hopefully this would make up your percentage
Jay Walsh
7 years agocpartist
7 years ago
PROMark Bischak, Architect
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agodazureus
7 years agoJay Walsh
7 years agojosephene_gw
7 years ago
dazureus