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This video is all about helping you to understand how you might add an outside
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entrance to your basement. You probably don't have one now, but the ability
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to get into your basement from outside is a huge benefit. Not just during the
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finishing process, because it's a whole lot easier to bring materials in through
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a separate entrance than it is to drag them all the way through your house, but
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also because it just makes your basement that much more useful forever
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So what we've got here is an illustration of the basement. It's possible to cut
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through and to make an opening like this. No matter what your basement is made out
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of, that's possible. And there are saws and things that make pretty quick work
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of this sort of thing. Now what we've got going on here is a precast concrete
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outside basement unit. So you'd buy something like this. Your basement would
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be prepared for it. So an excavation would be done. The hole would be cut. Some
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holes would be drilled here, and here, and here, to accept threaded rod that's cast
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into the prefabbed unit. So a crane would lower this in place. There's a gasket
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around the outside that waterproofs the connection to your house. And then
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washers and nuts are installed and tightened up here where the threaded
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rod comes through. So that's your basic outside entrance in probably as
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easy a way as you could get. As I said, it's prefabricated. These units come with
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a weather cover. It's a hinged weather cover. It's not actually a roof as such
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but it does keep the water off. And it's meant to go with this unit. And this is
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kind of the basic approach to how things would work. There will probably be some
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sort of a drain in the floor in case water gets in. And if your soil is light
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around here, then you don't have to do anything else except maybe put a little
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bit of crushed stone underneath to give a place for the water to go
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Now if you wanted something a little larger or more lavish, you could
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build an outside entrance like a little house with its own roof. So you'd
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excavate more ground than what's been shown here. You would create a kind of a
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footing for some walls that could be built. It could be poured. It could be
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blocks. And it would take you not only up above ground level, not only to ground
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level, but above ground level. And you could have a roof on that as well. That
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is, I think, the nicest form of outside entrance because it's the easiest to
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walk down. You'll have a normal door here on this side and you just open the door
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and walk downstairs. You can also create the same sort of thing that you have
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here except with no roof and just better drainage down here in the bottom
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So essentially it's open and any water that falls in would drain down and away
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from your building. But this is the prospect in a nutshell. And as I said
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it's very much worthwhile. The ability to come into your house from outside
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especially into some sort of a workroom or a utility room, really boosts the
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value of having a finished basement. And I would certainly strongly recommend it
