Building Permits And Your Property

You're either interested in purchasing a home that has had previous structural work done to it or you are interested in selling your home that has work done by you or a previous owner, the big question is: Was a building permit issued for the work?

The answer to this question is important for two reasons.
 
First, if you are looking to purchase a property and it's clear previous work was done, you need to be sure the work performed was done in accordance with the building code.

Second, you, the homeowner, will have to pay to have the work brought up to code and prove the work meets the building code requirements, even if it was the previous owner who did the work.

Let's take a look at what the implications of previous structural work done to the foundation of your home would mean.
 

Previous Structural Work

Underpinning or bench footings often indicate a problem area that had previously existed with the property. For most older homes this is either a result of inadequate footings below the foundation wall, poor soils, or some other equally important and significant structural issue.  The importance of discovering previous structural work like this, whether done by you or a previous homeowner decades ago, is the work needs to be backed up by a building permit and engineering reports too.

If it's found the structural work is non-compliant, you're looking at a significant cost to have the work brought up to the standards necessary. So if you are serious about making an offer on a property and are thinking the lack of a building permit is something you can ignore, better think again.

What Are Your Options?

If you own a property and are unsure if prior work on the home was done with a building permit, you have two options to exercise; both help you to discover if there was a building permit issued.  The first method is to conduct an anonymous search to determine what permits the municipality has issued for your property in the past. The other method is to contact the municipality directly to determine what work was done and under what building permit.

If you discover your home has unpermitted work and have no intention of having the work inspected by the municipality to determine if it meets the building code requirements, you must disclose the unpermitted work to the next buyer so they are aware of the risk they are assuming when purchasing your property. 

If you are looking to purchase a home and it has been disclosed there was unpermitted work done, the larger risk is you, as the buyer, may not be able to get financing for the house. That means even if you were interested and ready to buy the property because it has a great finished basement apartment perfect for your family's needs, you may not get financing.

If you want to bring the work up to code, then you will need to work with an architectural professional to help document the existing condition and open up portions of the covered work to show the municipal inspector how the structure was put together.  You will be responsible for all costs associated with bringing the work up to code.

So if you hear your contractor suggest you can do the work without a permit, contact your municipality to double check.  It's in your best interests to do so.

Finishing Your Basement

Back in April I wrote about the dangers of finishing your basement - the wrong way. Moisture, or water, was the culprit I said, and you needed to ensure you had bulk water management systems in place before doing anything.  Evaluate before you renovate, was and still is my message.

I also mentioned there were solutions out there and all you had to do was find the right person to ask. Well, since I've written that article I've been asked what the right way to do things is.  That means I'm the go-to guy for this type of information, so here is what you need to do to create a healthy basement.

Insulated Wood Frame Walls Need Two Sides to Dry Out

 

A typical method used to insulate basement walls is to build a wood frame wall, leave a 1 inch air space between the wood studs and the concrete wall, fill the stud bays with fiberglass batt type insulation, and then cover the interior side of the assembly with a sheet of 6 mil polyethylene vapour barrier. With the plastic sheet installed on the warm side of the wall, this limits the wall to only being able to dry out towards the exterior. 
 
Since basement walls are unable to dry out towards the exterior because the ground is damp, and with the tight film of plastic preventing walls from drying out towards the interior, the result is the small amount of water that does make its way into the foundation walls moves into the framed wall and stays there, trapped.

The Better Way to Finish

The better way to finish your basement is to create a wall and/or floor assembly that enables the walls and floor to breath. Using permeable materials allows moisture to travel through them and this helps both the foundation walls and/or floor slab to dry out. The excess water vapour is managed by using a dehumidifier. To construct wall and floor assemblies that help damp concrete to dry out will require you to use vapour-permeable materials like EPS for insulation, latex for paint, and cork for flooring, for example.

All of these finishes allow water to move through them. Although it’s impossible to keep your foundation and floor slab from getting wet because they are in contact with the ground, using a wall and floor assembly that allows the walls and/or floor to dry out is the better solution.

A Final Word Of Warning

A more common water issue impacting homeowners in developed areas in both the US and Canada is urban flooding. Paul Kovacs, executive director at the insurance industry's Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, points out that, according to his research, basement flooding has emerged as one of the fastest growing causes of losses and extreme damage in Canada, costing $2 billion just in direct insurance payments annually. You can read the full study here in Urban Flooding in Canada.
 
The Center For Neighbourhood Technology in the United States has published a case study on the Prevalence and Cost of Urban Flooding in Cook County, IL, and say “the economic and social consequences can be considerable: experts estimate that wet basements decrease property values by 10 - 25 percent.” For a home with an appraised value of $300,000 that’s a monetary loss of $30K to $75K.
 
So before you decide to finish your basement make sure your bulk water management systems in place work, understand the risks associated with flooding, and when making your finish material selections, chose permeable finishes that breath so things dry out when they get moist.
 

Keep It Dry. Keep It Safe.

Include This, Exclude That

Plans for finishing a basement are typically filled with lots of stuff to include. Maybe you want to include a media center, fitness studio, or a basement apartment for an aging relative.  These are important items to consider but even more important is what you need to exclude.

Moisture.

To help you do this you need to manage:

• Surface water
• Ground water

You have to admit, it's a small list, and if ignored or overlooked, the negative consequences for you, your family, and the health of your home are huge. Ensuring the exterior of your basement walls and floor slab are as dry as they can be is a big step in the right direction.

Your Mission - Impossible

Considering how impossible it is to keep your foundation walls and floor slab absolutely free from being exposed to wet or damp earth, wind driven rain, sprinklers, melting snow, or other interesting sources of water, accept the fact your foundation walls and floor slab will always be moist or contain some amount of moisture.

This means you also need to provide your walls and floor slab the opportunity to dry out, somehow.

That's Interesting

Enough talk about the exterior.

You've done what you can to manage surface and ground water to the best of your ability.  Let's take a look at the interior now. Are there major sources of moisture you need to manage there?

Surprisingly, enough, there are. There is one huge internal moisture source in your home you've probably overlooked and is a major reason you may have a moisture problem, if the bulk water systems are properly managed.

This major source of moisture is: air.

Unfortunately, because air is moist:

• Cold surfaces will form condensate when exposed to warm moist air
• Air is warmer than your concrete foundation wall
• Air is warmer than your concrete floor slab

So now you not only need a strategy to manage exterior water, but somehow prevent warm moist air from coming into contact with cold surfaces too.

There Is A Way Forward

Don't Do This!

How do you do that?

Simple, use thermal insulation.

How you implement or build this system this will either be a good thing or a disaster.  In other words, there is a right way, and many different wrong ways to do this, and it's up to you to decide which method to use. Fortunately for you and me people have made it their professional career to figure this out for us.

Unfortunately, most of the contractors or renovation "experts" are not those professionals which means you're likely to be told how to do things the wrong way, like the way this basement in the photo is being finished.  The end result of this project is you end up with a warm damp basement making you and your family sick.

Your next step is to discover what materials and methods are needed, how they need to be installed, and how to minimize or eliminate warm moist from contacting the cold surfaces of your basement's foundation walls and floor slab.

New Home? Wait Before Finishing Your Basement

Using The Test Of Time

You've just picked up the keys to your new home and are anxious to move in.  First thing on the agenda, finish your basement.

Is that the right thing to do? Have you really thought this through? Maybe you need to wait, live in the house a little, to ensure all is OK.

Your best plan of action after getting the keys to your new home is to wait, watch, and wonder to see what, if anything, will happen.

Why Wait And For How Long?

If you just moved into a newly constructed home it's recommended to wait at least two years before finishing your basement.

Two years? Are you crazy!?

Umm, why so long?

Well there are a number of necessary reasons for you to wait.  I'll review the top three reasons here.

The first has to do with the thousands of pounds of water trying to evaporate out of the walls and floor slab of your new concrete foundation. Water always moves from a wet to dry area and since your foundation walls are waterproofed on the exterior side, and the ground outside tends to be damper than the air inside your home, the only avenue of escape left for water to use is towards the interior of your home.

Mold in an insulated basement wall

The second reason is new homes need time to settle and show how their systems perform. What if something as random as a shrinkage crack appears as the concrete cures? The time and effort needed to remove the material to gain access to the area needing repair is significantly lower if there are no finish materials to demolish and reinstall.

The third important reason is to dive you time to determine how well the surface water is managed around your home.  Displaced earth, such as the backfill used around your home has voids in it and with time, settles and does so unevenly.  As a result, low spots form, puddling occurs, and you now have a surface water issue you need to manage in the yard or alongside your foundation wall.

There are a number of other reasons such as getting to know how your family lives, changing family dynamics, or the need to create an income property.  These are important to consider but they are independent of the systems used for your new home.

Before You Renovate Your Basement

Evaluate First, Then Plan

More basement renovation talk because it's important.

Before you do anything, and I mean anything, inside the basement in terms of planning, calling up someone for a Free Estimate (which is really a waste of everyone's time and effort), or measuring out spaces to be developed, you need to ensure your bulk water management systems are up to snuff.
Bulk water management systems?

Yep, bulk water management and guess what, lucky for you there are only two primary sources for bulk water and they are:

• ground water
• surface water.  

Your Basement Leaks Like A Sieve - Guaranteed

So why is the management of water important to your basement renovation plans?  

Think of your basement foundation this way and you'll see what I mean. Imagine how effective your foundation would be as the hull of a boat. 

Ground Water Leaking Through A New Foundation

Well, your foundation would be pretty leaky because water is able to seep through anywhere there is a joint or connection. The image shown above is of a foundation just a couple of weeks old.  In fact, this house is so new the plumbing rough-in has yet to begin.

Since you know your basement foundation makes for a very leaky boat, to keep things inside your basement dry you can exercise one of two options and they are:

• Build and bury a better leak proof foundation (which will cost you 10s if not 100s of thousands of dollars)
• Keep water away from your existing foundation (which will cost you hundred or maybe thousands of dollars).

You pick.

Since your foundation leaks like a sieve (because it's built that way), the most effective way to keep the interior dry is to keep water away from your home. As a first step, evaluate your surface bulk water management systems before you consider renovating your basement.
 

Renovating Your Basement?

It Only Makes Sense

More often than the basement is an area homeowners are itching to tackle as a renovation project and why not? When it comes to creating affordable livable space, the basement has a great deal going for it.

You're starting off with a floor, walls, and a ceiling of sorts.  The challenge is to develop the space into areas you and your family can use and enjoy and make the transition from the existing living space above seamless with the space below.

Compared to building an addition of the same size, your basement renovation makes perfect economic sense too.  There's a real incentive to make the basement renovation happen, especially when you consider how it will free up cluttered space upstairs.

Not So Fast...

Before you begin to even contemplate renovating your basement, you need to ensure the basement is fit for development.  What this means is the space needs to be evaluated to ensure the time, effort and money poured into the project is worth it.

Doing the project the wrong way can have catastrophic implications, and I'm not talking resale either. I'm talking the structural failure of your foundation and replacing your foundation will cost you 10s if not 100s of thousands of dollars.

Image 1 - Foundation Walls

Image 1 - Foundation Walls shows a classic illustration of foundation walls that are in imminent danger of collapse.  Actually, these walls were so unsafe they were demolished and replaced at a cost of $120,000 CAD.  These walls indicate there has been a long standing moisture problem because of the efflorescence and spalling that's visible.

Signs of Trouble

Efflorescence on a wall of this age and to this extent indicates the wall is continuously cycled through soaking and drying off periods.  Efflorescence isn't harmful, it's just what's left of the dissolved mineral deposits that were dissolved in the water that evaporated. The white coating on the wall directly above the laundry tub gives a good indication of the soaking pattern for the water.

Efflorescence isn't harmful.  It's just salt or mineral deposits on the face of the wall, but what they do when dried out is cause a chemical imbalance within the foundation material.  When the wall gets wet once again, water rushes in to rebalance system with such force (in excess of 5,000 psi) the water blows off the surface of the wall off causing another condition called spalling.

Some people think spalling is due to the expansion of the crystals, but it's actually the pressure from the water rushing in to negate the chemical imbalance.  The long term impact of spalling is it slowly micro blasts your wall apart until there's nothing of any substance left.

So before you decide to invest in your basement renovation, you need to evaluate your basement to ensure the time, effort, and investment you make is worth it.  Seeing signs of efflorescence and spalling means there's work to be done  before you can convert your unused basement space into a comfortable healthy living area for you and your family.