BASEMENT FINISHING COURSE VIDEO: Basement Anatomy Tour

In this video, I want to explain how a typical basement is put together

There's going to be some variation, mostly depending on how old your basement is

but what you see here is a typical modern basement, and I think it's very close to what most of you will be facing as you work to finish the basement

So standing inside what you see is the floor, of course, and the walls

and these could be poured concrete, they might be blocks. If it's an older basement, it might be brick

If it's a very old basement, it might be stone. And I'll be discussing these things later and the different strategies you need to adopt

and how you learn to recognize what you have. Also, standing here in the basement, there's this large window

That's labeled here an egress window. Egress means the ability to get out of something

Chances are very slim that you're being. basement has a window of this size. You will need to add one, either that or some sort of an

outside entrance, because people do need to get out of basements in case of an emergency

So you're not likely to see an egress window just yet, but you will see other things

like you're going to see a support post. Most of them are round steel pipes, like what you see

here, and they can be finished and made to look pretty later, and I'll be covering that

you're also going to see what are called the first floor joists here

These form the floor framework that holds up the floor of your upstairs

and it also functions as the ceiling joists for your finished basement

The support posts which are pretty much universal in any basement will be holding up some kind of a beam In this case as you can see here this is a composite beam So it made up of three or four or maybe five pieces of one and a half inch thick pieces of lumber

They're spiked together and they form a beam. That beam could be metal as well

Either way, it's doing the job of distributing the support delivered by the posts

One very important area that you need to understand is the rim joist zone

This is where the outside edges of the floor frame meet the outside of your home

And it's an area that's almost universally finished badly in a way that does promote mold and mildew growth

The reason is because there's very little material between the inside of the rim joist and the outside of the house

and in cold climates, there can be condensation that develops there during winter

It's very, well, it's not very difficult, it's impossible, actually, to insulate and finish the rim joist area properly with fiber-based insulation and typical vapor barriers

I'm going to be expanding on that and explaining more to you about how you can finish the rim joist properly

but you really do need to keep that zone in mind. Now, moving to the outside of the basement

we've got some things going on that you won't see, but you should know about

Down at the bottom, we have some weeping tile. This is a flexible, large diameter pipe

maybe four inches in diameter or so, and it's got holes in it

And its job is to provide a place for water outside your basement to collect and flow away So this weeping tile that you see here will be connected to something that lower than itself

It will have to extend to a spot that's lower than your house so that the water can, from the outside of the basement, can drain away

In order for the weeping tile to work, it needs to be surrounded by crushed stone of some kind or very loose, light soil

sandy, gravelly kinds of soil, so that there's spaces between the particles and to provide a place for the water to go

Same goes up here too on the window well. It has to have a drainable bottom so that when rainwater does go in, it can drain downward and not pool on the bottom

Now a fairly recent innovation that is very effective is this dimpled foundation wrap that you see on the

the outside. It's impervious to water. It's fairly thick. It's plastic. And it has these little

round dimples on it that hold it away from the basement wall. So what that does is it creates

a small, thin, but effective open drainage channel, vertical drainage channel that allows the water

that's in the soil here to drain downwards and to connect in with the weeping tile like you see here

And what that does is it removes the soil pressure from the equation

If water is present in the soil and there's the full weight of the soil pressing against the foundation wall

there's going to be a tremendous amount of pressure forcing that water horizontally through your wall

And if there water there it can pass through completely sound concrete or concrete blocks Those materials are kind of porous and that why basements leak so much one of the reasons So this foundation wrap creates vertical drainage channels

where the soil is not applying pressure everywhere against the foundation wall

And without that pressure, the water will take the path of least resistance

which is to move downward, not going inside your basement, and then connecting with the crushed stone and the weeping tile that's going to take that water away

So why am I telling you all this? Well, you probably don't know whether or not you have foundation wrap around the outside of your basement

And if your basement does not leak, then that's fine. You don't need foundation wrap to prevent leaking

But if you need to do some remedial action in order to dry out your basement before finishing

and I'll explain how you can determine that, and what the different steps are. Foundation wrap is definitely something that you're going to want to consider

You're going to want to know about that. And that's true whether you intend to install it yourself

rather difficult for a homeowner, but you really do need to know about it

so that you can direct any contractor properly and you can understand what they're talking about

and how things are supposed to work. So there are lots of other things I'm going to be talking to you about

in terms of the anatomy of the basement. One is the floor drain

how to connect into it for drains for a bathroom or kitchen, how you can install a backwater valve to prevent sewage backup

from bubbling up from this floor drain under unfortunate conditions and ruining your basement

Thousands of basements are ruined every year precisely because of that dynamic

And lots of other things. But understanding what a basement looks like

and all the different parts is a great way for us to begin