Re: I wish I had a basement...

I love having a basement and would never consider moving to another
home without one. The best of all possible worlds is to build your
home to the specifications needed for a nice rec room. If not, then
try to find a preexisting home that meets them. For any home, my
suggestions, in order of importance, are as follows: 1) always build/
buy on a lot that sits high and has excellent drainage (this will
provide you a dry basement and eliminate flooding and dampness
problems - except for testing it my sump pump has never kicked on); 2)
build/buy a home with basement walls that have poured concrete (strong
walls reduce cracking problems) and make those walls an extra course
high to provide lots of clearance (by doing so you will be kind to
your tall friends, have superior clearance for taller games, and have
the ability to add a dropped ceiling when money permits: 3) make sure
the furnace, water heater, & water conditioner, are placed to give you
maximum open space (in other words keep these things away from the
center of your basement to provide maximum open space (i.e. crowd
these things together as closely as code permits slightly off to one
side)(you'll need a lot of open space if you ever want a pool table
down there); 4) make sure the pipes and electrical to these devices
are hung so as not to needlessly gobble up ceiling space - get them
mounted up high): 5) if building with an attached garage, then expand
the basement under the garage as it will practically double the size
of your basement - you can pour the floor of your garage (roof of your
gameroom) with spancrete (also makes for a very strong tornado/
hurricane proof room); 5) have an extra wide staircase going
downstairs with no sharp turn at the bottom - we all know how fun
sharp turns are when moving pins; 6) install lots and lots of outlets
for those games (I have outlets at least every five feet and have lots
of separate circuits to keep the load down - those games pull a lot of
juice when all lit). 7) carpet the basement floor (makes it warm on
the feet - when unheated, my basement is approx 62 degrees year
round); These are the basics. After that, go wild with personalizing
your gameroom to make it uniquely yours.
.

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