Damp dirt floor basement

[Rick Trlicek]

I have an old home with a dirt floor basement (about 6' between the floor and ceiling). The dirt is always damp, but there haven't been any issues with leaks/water. The floor also is uneven, almost hilly. We'd like the basement to serve as a reasonably tidy and dry space for storage, maybe even laundry. What would you suggest for leveling the floor and covering the dirt (concrete?). You've probably seen tons of these old basements. What do people do to get a handle on them?

[JacobPM]

Dirt floors can be tricky, depending on where the footing is relative to what you see. Moisture control will be needed regardless of the scenario in order to keep the basement dependably dry and usable.

One possibility - the dirt floor can be dug down a bit, a new concrete floor could be poured and you could have a full head height basement.

Second Possibility - you can't dig, and you have to deal with what you have.

This possibility can be worked several ways
1-you pour a concrete floor over it, loose 2-3 Inches of head height, and only use it for storage (of course you'd still need a moisture control system for this space as well).

2-you can treat it like a crawlspace and encapsulate it in order to fully control the moisture before putting a sub-floor and then a utility floor on top of it.

***NOTE - regardless of what you'd like to do with the space, dirt floor basements encourage a great deal of moisture and soil gas into the home. It's very important to have the basement properly inspected before trying to turn it into usable space.



ps: inspections and estimates are free at pioneer, so call if you'd like to meet with someone.