Bought our first house, building my studio.

sharward wrote:

I totally agree that you need to address the moisture issue before you build down there. You'll definitely want to read through all of Andy Eade's Rotten Basement Conversion Thread. There you'll see a similar discovery, although his was much worse -- he had damage caused by moisture and termites (and I'm sure the the two conspired together to make things worse over time!). There is light at the end of the tunnel for him. He's now actively building, but he ran into a lot of issues that had to be fixed before he could start to build. --Keith :mrgreen:

Thanks, I'll definitely read through that thread! I've looked at it before, but not in detail.. Good to hear he's finally building! Must be very challenging to encounter so much problems, as if the building process itself isn't enough..

First, keep all kind of plants away from the walls, should be at least 1 meter away (perimeter distance) from a wall. It seem to be a slope towards your garage, and you might lower the temp downstairs to awoid the melting of the snow and ice at your driveway. I had a house before where someone before me decorated with what was cheap to get (clay and water needing plants) today I look only for houses that are truely DRY!!! Even if they have a basement, (which is good in insulation) do I look for a dry solution. I managed to get rid of the wet spot!! Kaj

Hi Flipside? I had a look again at your pictures, and it looks like the moisture spots are caused by the backfilling towards none treated walls. Sure there is a story behind what has been done, but you might never find out from the horses mouth. but surely you have to be very thorough in your search for the sources to the moisture spots. The wall that had moisture, did you find any plastic film (condense protection) added on the back side or at the flipside of the wall? Could the wet spot come from the melting of snow, at the garage door near the main building? PS We have started the construction now, but some hours to go before I can test and celibrate an grand opening. Ha det koseligt. Kaj

Gee, do 2 years pass by fast! Yes they do! :shock: Anyhoo, I've sort of given up on the garage-basement idea, because it seems I still have problems with water somehow finding its way inside. Here are some photos to illustrate what we've done so far: All the crap that was up against that wall is now removed: We removed as much as we managed on the side as well, I will make steps there: We dug up the entire front of the garage as well, where most of the water seemed to come in: Replaced the plastic (Notice the right hand side, outer corner. This is the only place we couldn't manage to dig up from either the front or the back of the house, and I'm guessing the water either comes in here, or it comes in in the small gap between the bricks and the garage floor and seeps down..): Not really related, but we changed the asphalt with bricks: Now, I've started considering closing off one side of the garage (the one to the right). We only have one car, so we only use one side of the garage. Then the rooms below can be used for storage of all the stuff in the garage now. There are some pros to this: 1. Much more height available (281 cm), giving me the possibility of angling the ceiling? 2. More room for slightly angling the back wall and one of the side walls (the new wall dividing the garage, for example?) reducing the need for diffusors and clouds? (Atleast that's what I've gathered from some reading around here) 2. No water issue! 3. It is even more separate from the house, with the left garage side inbetween. 4. The entrance to this room can be from inside the garage which is locked when the gate is down, making it harder to reach for unwanted people.. I feel sort of bad for throwing away the nice suggestions I've been given here though :/ But at the same time, I don't want to take the risk with possible moisture and water coming in if I'm using the rooms below.. One last alternative might be to only use one of the rooms in the basement, the one where you can see the window in the first two photos. But then you have the low ceiling, direct connection to the house, etc. Best regards, Alex