Basement Costruction
Basement Costruction
(OP)
I posted this under the geotech section by accident. Please don't scold for reposting...........
A friend of mine is about to build a house. He has a basement that is fully buried on one side, about half of the side walls are buried, and the rear is completely exposed. I have a couple of questions.
1. What construction is better, CMU or Concrete? Obviously the Concrete is more expensive but as far as waterproofing goes what would be the better choice. He is near a lake so the water table is likely higher than on other sites.
2. Once the wall becomes completely exposed, say the rear wall, should you switch to a timber wall for economical reasons?
A friend of mine is about to build a house. He has a basement that is fully buried on one side, about half of the side walls are buried, and the rear is completely exposed. I have a couple of questions.
1. What construction is better, CMU or Concrete? Obviously the Concrete is more expensive but as far as waterproofing goes what would be the better choice. He is near a lake so the water table is likely higher than on other sites.
2. Once the wall becomes completely exposed, say the rear wall, should you switch to a timber wall for economical reasons?






RE: Basement Costruction
Mike McCann
McCann Engineering
RE: Basement Costruction
see my post started today.
RE: Basement Costruction
RE: Basement Costruction
I am not sure if this is what your saying, but the load from the soil will enter the floor diaphram and then extend out to the adjacent shear walls. The load on the front wall will have negligable effect on the rear wall. In fact, the only effect would be displacement due to diaphram bending. So you have to make sure your floor diaphram can resist the soil and wind load from the front wall.
RE: Basement Costruction
RE: Basement Costruction
If not, then make practical, realistic assumptions and not simplifying assumptions for individual walls. Recognize the parameters of the walls (h/t, fixity at ends, rotation of the strip footings and the loading effects of a complying floor/diaphragm). - Use Roark if necessary and have found there very helpful for many walls.
All to often, it is too easy to jump in and design a basement, which can be compared to reinventing the wheel. Recognize constructability and historic performance!!!! - This comment is based on 35 years experience as a registed engineer with deep involvement in residential construction, standards and codes. Too often, well-educated engineers design residential structures they are not not really qualified to do because they are not really involved and use practices/standards that are more applicable to different types of structures.
I have seen an engineer design a 20' long, 8' high 12" basement wall in good soil as a pure cantilever retaining wall instead of taking time to look at some of the accepted code/standards design tables. The result is a costly, complicated project that gives engineers a bad reputation.
RE: Basement Costruction