Blaine, The issue with my basement, as most folks here are painfully aware, after my years of wining about it, is that the cement floor is dramatically sloped to a center drain. The basement is only 15 feet wide, and thus, in the 7.5 feet from the side wall to the drain, the floor drops a little over six inches. I can't put furniture down there with the floor sloping so much. It just wouldn't be practical. So, I am building a suspended floor arrangement.
There are three main beams, one at either end, and one in the middle. They span the basement from side wall to side wall, and encompass the middle third of the length of the basement. Forward of this area will eventually be my shop, and aft of this area is the mechanicles, the washer, dryer, furnace, water heater, blah blah blah. Imagine a 2X4 laying on it's face spanning the basement, it's ends just touching the cement floor at the walls. Then, under that is a 2X6 but the 2X6 is shorter than the 2X4. Then under the 2X6 are blocks of 2X6 and 1X6 and various other wedges and such so that the beam is nearly solid but follows the profile of the cement floor below. Then I laid 2X4 joists on their flat faces across the beams. I had to put blocks under the 2X4 joists because they really aren't very rigid that way. Now, as far as the pipes go. basically, I am just hoping to convince any water from an over flowing washer or exploded water heater, to go to the pipe entrance, rather than just flow under the floor, spreading out and wetting more than is necessary. The pipe will just lay under the floor and empty at the central drain in the middle of the basement floor. The middle beam is actually split at the center and I am building in a trap door over the central drain so that I can easily get at it if necessary. I also installed an external basement door last summer, so I intend on putting some drainage line from the door, under the floor to the central drain as well. Just in case the door well outside floods and water starts seeping in under the door. Luckily, the basement isn't all that submerged. Maybe 3.5 feet at the front of the house, and less than a foot at the back of the house. Oh yeah, there will eventually be walls enclosing this middle third of the basement, making a nice additional room in this very tiny house. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: d...@andrew.cmu.edu Tel: (412) 268-9081
