Moving big equipment out of a basement...

I'm with Rabler and Dabbler on the crawl spaces. Half under my house is basement. The other half is crawl space. Full basement is the only way to go.
The recently built house above me has one thing that should be in every house. It's a two story house. The bottom story is a two car garage. What is unique is a room next to the garage under the kitchen and laundry room. This room is dedicated to the hot water heater and the heating furnace. Easy to get to, easy to maintain.
 
Interested you guys brought up crawl spaces. The last house I built I borrowed part of the plans. I spent a bunch of time trying to find plans I liked. It was going to be a capital gains home, so it really wasn't going to be a long term home for me. Ever house I worked on I would wander through trying to find something I thought would work. Yes I'm picky that way. One of the houses they had me hold off on some work. The contractor called me telling me he was ready and we setup a time. When I got there he wanted me to walk through with him even though I'd already been through. The basement was half full and the other half crawl space???
Anyway talking with him while we were walking through something clicked and I started modifying in my head the issue I had with it. He offered to give me a set of the plans which I gladly accepted. Had a draftsman make the mods I wanted and started construction. Later I had the same contractor come through. He didn't think it was the same house at first, even from the road it had a different look. It was fun to see his reaction to the changes. Yes I went to full basement. I've never had a crawl space home but have been in enough to know it's not for me.

The most unbelievable part was when I put it up for sale. The husband was the driving force!!! The wife was very quiet and he handled everything. The garage was oversized (30x40) with a wash tub sink (bathroom just inside the entrance to the home) and plenty of 220v and 110v outlets inside and outside the garage, and it's own power panel with room for upgrades. The basement was set up for an apartment with it's own entrance. They turned it into a short term rental. He makes great use of the garage space modifying his vehicles. First time I've ever seen the guy in charge of home buying!!!
 
I lived in a crawlspace home for 4 1/2 years when I was in grade school. Traditional side split. A *lot* less room in the house, given its footprint. Too many stairways.
 
I'm not sure I would agree that basement doors are undesirable in Canada. We're located in Ottawa, Bungalow built on a slope so basement has 3 x walkout patio doors to the backyard, also stairs in the garage that lead to basement electrical room.

Our previous house (Toronto) also built on slope to river also had patio walkout from basement. I liked the basement walkout so much it was one of the nice to have features we hoped to find when we moved to Ottawa.

There going to take me out of here feet first.
 
slow-poke said:
I'm not sure I would agree that basement doors are undesirable in Canada.
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I can only speak to the Calgary market. Here a walkout basement is only found on large houses. Due to the slope, or whatever, they are often a lot less $$ than houses with 'normal' basements.
 
Dabbler said:
I can only speak to the Calgary market. Here a walkout basement is only found on large houses. Due to the slope, or whatever, they are often a lot less $$ than houses with 'normal' basements.
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Is this for fear of security or water leaks or? I guess it would be a lot easier if it was on the down side of a slope under the house. A guy local here had his whole 4 car garage and shop set up that way. Just looked like a typical ranch style house out front but the driveway went down and hooked into the garage. Perfect setup IMHO. Turned out he was a world renowned racing boat head designer. He did the machining on a BP and heavy 10 SB. Then made the wood patterns there for casting the heads. Not a huge shop but very nice setup.
 
@C-Bag sorry I missed your last post. The problem I think has far more to do with market expectations. A little like having a glass sliding door in the main bedroom. It isn't done often here, and rankles most people because it is unexpected. From the houses I have toured, there seems to be a nearly desparate attempt to make the walkout more 'a part of the living space' and seems to lead to an awkward family room in a place than is less convenient than usual.

In any event, the walk out houses I toured seemed to somehow be 'less' in an intangible way - both the houses on golf courses and the ones on the river valley. AND they were priced cheaper, but I wasn't interested. I bought a bungalow in a nice part of town on a side hill instead.
 
Dabbler said:
A little like having a glass sliding door in the main bedroom. It isn't done often here,
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Bizarre. Here most houses have a sliding glass door, especially the upper end in the master bedroom and living room. Our little house master bedroom had an 8’ and SO had to have a 12’ three section with the mini blinds between the dual glass panes. The only way to fly IMHO. We are not the investment type and build to suit. Our little place is I think 1200sqft. 3bd 2 bath and has almost tripled in supposed value. I say supposed because in the Central Valley where we moved from we could have bought a new McMansion for what we paid for our fixer here. But as with my SO’s relatives back east you live indoors, in your house. Not so here. Like our little living room/kitchen/sunroom has two French doors that open onto the deck courtyard on the front of the house facing south as does my garage shop. First thing in the morning one of the French doors is propped open and stays that way all day until I lock down at night.

You talk about expectations SO is always looking at the market here and has taken me through a couple and the more millions of $$ they are the weirder and less appealing to me they are. Only one had a basement of sorts as is many custom houses here multi level that rambles down the hillside it’s built on. To each their own but I would have probably gone nuts trying to figure out how to find a house with a nice down slope walk out and taken advantage of the discount!
 
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