Irish house : basement :possible if so cost

mkdon

Hi,
 
For one toying with the idea of putting a basement in an Irish house how does one go about this and what is the cost?
 
Is it even possible/ feasible.
 
Majority of houses in north America have basements
 

Any advice of experience would be grateful:)

endacl

1. Your foundations will love sitting on nothing.
2. You’ll have a lovely basement level swimming pool.

Lumen

The two important questions are:

1. Has the house been built yet?, and
2. Are you rich?

In Ireland it costs a lot more to build below ground than above ground. And it costs a lot above ground.

Gumbo

mkdon wrote: »

Hi,
 
For one toying with the idea of putting a basement in an Irish house how does one go about this and what is the cost?
 
Is it even possible/ feasible.
 
Majority of houses in north America have basements
 

Any advice of experience would be grateful:)

Fairly common now in the plusher areas of South Dublin during extensive renovations. It these are on houses where upwards of 2-3m are been spent.

On a traditional Irish semi D, I would say forget about it due to the Close proximity of services, adjoining properties, foundations and costs involved.

Gravelly

Depends on a lot of things. If it is an existing house, it would be a very expensive process - like "cheaper to knock the house and rebuild it" expensive. If it is a new build, it's doable as long as the water table is low enough. I know of a couple of houses near me with basements - one that was built a few years ago by an American couple, which has lots of "American" features. I believe they had to tank the basement (basically build it like a swimming pool in reverse!) in order to keep it dry. Effectively there is no sense in building a basement in Ireland, as it would be cheaper to add a floor on top (or convert an attic) than to build a basement.

Effects

I got a quote for a basement on a 50 sq m footprint house. It was €100,000.
A house down the street built a basement this summer. The house cost them €130,000 more to build than it's actually worth at the moment.