Nice Cookies

My fiancee and I have been house hunting, we found one has that we liked, its perfect except for the basement is not finished. The price is right though, so Im wondering how much it would cost to finish the basement? Right now there is a finished bedroom there, but the rest of the basement ~8-900 sq. feet would need walls framed, electricity ran, and of course a sheetrock and a ceiling installed. Im pretty sure that if we had someone frame the walls/run the electrical i could hang the drywall and put in the electrical outlets/etc. Basically I guess, I’d like to know the cost of framing all the walls and running the wiring. Im hoping it can be done for under ~10,000

Its also just a basic ranch house too, so its ~40ft wide by 100 Ft. long.
For $10,000 you should be able to get 800-900Sq ft. finished completely and very nicely.
One thing which folks often miss when planning a basement finish is the code requirement to add heat. If you have forced air, the basement likely wasn’t considered in the original calculation, so cutting in a return vent(s) and discharges may exceed system capacity. Ditto for hydronic. You can add radiant electric baseboard, if your panelboard has sufficient space to add the two pole breakers.

when you say completely, you mean they’ll hang the drywall/electrical outlets and lighting?

the bedroom that is in the basement has heat/ac, probably just run ducting over to the new living room down there?
10 grand and you should be able to finish it AND furnish it. Not sure how handy you are but you should be able to do the entire project yourself actually.

For about 900 sq ft, you would need about

500 bucks in studs and nails
about 1000 bucks in insulation (including insulating ceiling)
100 bucks – 100ft spool of wire
850 bucks for drywall, mud, and tape and screens and sponges
4000 for a nice hardwood floor or 2000 for laminate and underlayment

now you still need receptacles, breakers, electric wall heat (radiator), light fixtures, primer and paint,moulding, switches/dimmers etc. but you can rolly do all that for under 1500 bucks.

so that is under 8K and that is with estimating high. But I am in PA so your pricing may be different.

Have fun. I have been working on my house for about 2 years now.
i know i could do the work, but i work alot, and dont have tools, so id need to figure in labor, and how long should it take someone to do all that should i hire it done?

your gonna pay a lot more if you hire someone to do it, if you dont need it done soon it shouldnt take you more than a few months of weekends if your extremely busy

Well then, sounds like a good excuse to buy some good tools. Def. will save yourself a bundle if you do it yourself. Plus your already doing alot, running electric is easy.

ive wired up car stereos, that is the extent of my electrical knowledge i know i need to drill holes through the studs and then route the wiring, doesnt seem that hard

In all honesty, I think house wiring is easier. In car audio, black wire is ground, and in house wiring, black wire is hot. In car audio, you have hot and ground. And in a house, you have hot and ground. And Neutral, which is basically another ground. Only in house wiring, one is called the grounding connector and the other is called the grounded connector.

and Here is my take on paying labor becuase I do not have the tools – if the amount of money I am going to pay for the labor will exceed the amount of money the tools would cost, And I can do the work, then I do it and when it is all said and done, I got a bunch of new tools to use on possibly the next job.

plus it is a basement, not many people need a basement done by a specific date, so take your time and knock it out a few night a week and maybe on the weekend except during football season in shich you only work on Sat for a few hours.

and the tools you need will be cheap, really. You are only looking at mostly hand tools and the most expensive would be a circular saw, or better yet, a compound miter saw
sounds good, the hardest part should be the framing, I will have to call in a plumber to reroute some of the plumbing that is lower than the joists, also what about the ceiling, the joists are approx 7 1/2 feet from the floor, so I dont want to lose much by putting in a drop ceiling. is there a way to maximize the heighth, w/ still doing a drop ceiling ( I dont want to do drywall, so that we still have access to plumbing/etc)

theres a grid system that connects directly to the joist, cant think of the name right now but i believe it only took up like a 1in of space

since you said you are still wishing to have ceiling access so plumbing can still be reached, I say screw it with getting a plumber also and use PEX. It is super flexible and if you dont want to get the crimp tool to make teh connections, you can pay more money and get the pressfit connections. Just cut the copper of the existing wire and push on a connector and then on the other end of the coupler push on a peice of the PEX pipe and run it to whereever you need to go. It is nice and flexible with all kinds of connectors available and the pipe is like 45 bucks for 100 feet of 3/4 inch pipe. I despise plumbing but I despise paying a plumber even more. I have used this stuff for my bathroom and it works great. One word of caution though is that the press fit connectors (sold under the brand name Shark Bite made by Acme at Home Cheapo) are reletively new so I was not confident enough to bury them in a wall, just in case (ya never know) but you are not looking to bury them either so it makes good sense to use them.

You can do the framing and the drywall yourself. I would be really hesitant to do the electrical or plumbing myself. If you don’t have a tight schedule, try hiring very experienced skilled workers to do it after working hours. That should cut down on cost quite a bit. Also, hire someone to do the drywall taping. It’s not hard, but it’s a pain in the ass so hire someone.

If you have a time schedule… Hire someone.

good tips, the pipe im worried about is the drain from the upstairs bathroom, it comes down a good 3-4" below the joist, and is a fairly large pipe, it goes straight into the main sewer pipe for the house (I think)

yes, depending on where you live id say thats a very good estimate for only that much space.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.