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Paxton, IL | I'm probably only looking at a single story ranch style with a full basement in the neighborhood of 2000-2500 sq ft. I really like the idea of some type of storm shelter since my wife grew up in tornado alley so now any time there is a cloud in the sky she's thinking it's going to be a tornado. One thing I'm curious about is whether or not I should include any real living space in the basement or not. The wife wants to put a bedroom or 2 down there where I think I'd like to keep it just as utilities/exercise/workshop area type stuff. the soil around here is very poorly drained so the water table is very high. The house we currently live in built in the 1950's (not living on the farm right now) has never had water in the basement since we've lived here and it is only a single sump pump with no generator what so ever, but every year there's at least one person around that has some type of sump pump, generator, or some other related issue and the basement floods causing a lot of damage. My grandparents have had their basement flood 3 times that I can remember where they had to have professional clean up, new carpet, and so forth. They finally went to an automatic backup generator and he has 2 sump pumps (main and a second one higher in the pit as a backup) and he buys a new one every year to replace the main one and swaps that one to the backup position. He also pours water into the sump pit once a month to double check them. Trouble is they still are always fighting something about the system and spending money on new pumps and making sure the generator is working right. I see that very much as something I'd keep a really close eye on for the first few years and then probably get lazy. | |
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