Yes, of all things, it takes a tornado to make me post.
Posted on 2013.05.22 at 17:08Current Mood:
angry
A little engineer's rant: So, well, 'people' are claiming that
(*) Nitty-gritty if you care: Excavation at about $50 per cubic yard, with haulage at about another $85 per cubic yard (w/ swell factor). So, say a typical suburban house has a 40x40 foot plan...that's a normal-ish house these days I think (of course, I live in a tiny apartment, so what do I know)...and that's including the garage...and an 8' high basement. We could make it 10' high f-t-f to simplify the math. That's 1,600 square feet x 10 feet high= 16,000 cubic feet. Divide by 27 to get cubic yards...593 cubic yards. Multiply by 1.2 as a swell factor (when you excavate the naturally laid soil, there's now more voids and the excavated mass is 'larger'. We have to account for this when ordering dump trucks and calculating haulage cost.) SO, 712 cubic yards! That's about $30,000 for the excavation and $60,000 for the haulage. In New York City. A place where we have to consider ALL soil is contaminated, so it can't be taken and dumped as 'clean fill' and where there are few dumps anywhere within 100 miles. Lots of our spoil goes to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We are also a place with permitting requirements that would probably blow the minds of most construction companies working elsewhere. We are a place where for construction estimating we cannot ever use R.S. Means Cost (a book put out annually for construction estimation in the US).
- The land's really flat in Oklahoma, so no one needs a basement;
- There's no frost so no one needs a basement;
- It costs a lot to excavate soil;
- The codes don't require them because
- Basements cost too much and it ups your assessment by 20%;
- Shelters cost about $4000 and would make houses unaffordable;
- But, up-market homes are being built with them.
- Wtf does flat land have to do with a presence or absence of a basement?
- The frost issue has to do with where you put your foundations, not if there is a basement or not. Of course, most private homes with basements have the footings integrated into the walls of the basement, so you get both at the same location. What's a bigger issue that can make a basement expensive is the presence of bedrock close to the groundsurface OR the presence of groundwater where you want your basement. Excavating rock is more expensive by a lot than excavating soil (although generally the basement wall construction is a little cheaper) and the groundwater will mean you've got to have a more expensive structural item called a 'pressure slab' in your basement. Essentially, the basement is going to be built like a bathtub to prevent it being a bathtub.
- Well, here in NYC, which I consider possibly the most expensive place to do construction in the Lower 48, I'd estimate soil removal at $90,000 as AN EXTREMELY CONSERVATIVE UPPER BOUND for excavating a basement.(*) If you can keep the soil on-site and use it for landscaping (not a bad idea), there is no hauling cost, so $30,000. Plus money to build the basement walls/slab.
- About building to code: when a contractor emphasises to me how they build to code, after a while I want to say "That is the bare legal minimum, if you want to brag, tell me how you are doing better than code."
- If you want a really low assessment, you buy a smaller house. I'd like the safest house I can get for my money, not the biggest. But, finished basements are useful, too.
- A $4,000 pre-made, engineered shelter is a lot cheaper than a basement. (And, you could dig a root cellar and sheet-n-shore it with 2" timbers and 4x4" posts and it would work pretty damn well...that's where lots of settlers used to shelter from a tornado.)
- OoooooOOOOOoooh! Up-market homes have 'em! So, rich people get them as standard and poor people get to be crushed.
(*) Nitty-gritty if you care: Excavation at about $50 per cubic yard, with haulage at about another $85 per cubic yard (w/ swell factor). So, say a typical suburban house has a 40x40 foot plan...that's a normal-ish house these days I think (of course, I live in a tiny apartment, so what do I know)...and that's including the garage...and an 8' high basement. We could make it 10' high f-t-f to simplify the math. That's 1,600 square feet x 10 feet high= 16,000 cubic feet. Divide by 27 to get cubic yards...593 cubic yards. Multiply by 1.2 as a swell factor (when you excavate the naturally laid soil, there's now more voids and the excavated mass is 'larger'. We have to account for this when ordering dump trucks and calculating haulage cost.) SO, 712 cubic yards! That's about $30,000 for the excavation and $60,000 for the haulage. In New York City. A place where we have to consider ALL soil is contaminated, so it can't be taken and dumped as 'clean fill' and where there are few dumps anywhere within 100 miles. Lots of our spoil goes to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. We are also a place with permitting requirements that would probably blow the minds of most construction companies working elsewhere. We are a place where for construction estimating we cannot ever use R.S. Means Cost (a book put out annually for construction estimation in the US).
excited
