New house: work required to open a cold cellar

[alligator4480]

Hi there,

My wife and I bought a new house, and one of the options was a standard concrete cold cellar. (This would be a concrete room underneith the front porch.)

when I asked the builder about the cold cellar, they said it was standard to close the "cold cellar" (fully concrete perimeter) and back fill it with dirt. We had the option to "upgrade" to have a cold cellar. (which would mean they would simply add a door separating the basement and the cold cellar), however it was a $1800 upgrade (yup.....i was shocked too!)

I hope Im not confusing anyone......

anyways, I then asked if the builder would just enclose the room and NOT back fill it with dirt. (they said the city would'nt allow that).

I'm now thinking that is such wasted space, (5'x15'). and i'm weighing out the "costs" to get it back.....

Anyways, my question is:

has anyone ever opened up a dirt filled cold cellar?

Im wondering what the costs (approx) would be to: drill into the concrete and create a door, and remove all the dirt. I know there would be lots of labour involed in moving the dirt..(id get a conveyer belt to move the dirt up through the basement window and outside......). i assume id now have to get a permit from the city.......

any thoughts would be appreciative...

(p.s. i'm in Ontario )

[Pokey]

My main question would be if the porch foundation walls are the same height as the house foundation walls. Most likey that $1800 charge is for the upgrade from a porch wall that is just below the frost line to a full height wall, the same height as the rest of the house. Also the i don't think that the time and effort would be worth the gain by doing this after the fact. cutting a concrete wall is dirty and labor intensive. hiring out the cut is a minimum of $500 around here.

[Thumper]

I don't think you really want to go that route! ;-) I've explored a bit on this very subject in prep for my new house and was given about the same $$ return... the cost involved accounts for quite a few things such as - a change on the plans/approvals filed with the city (after the fact of course), the additional structure required to "roof" the cold cellar (just pouring a porch slab over a filled in void is much less time consuming than putting up supports for the curing duration & then removing them) if your porch is going to be framed as wood/etc you still need to "roof" the cellar anyway. If you choose to dig out the cellar afterwards (not worth the effort in my opinion given the time & labor involved) you must make sure that they prepare for this during the initial construction - you need to ensure your moisture barriers are inplace on the outside parameter (you don't want the parging or sealants on the inside of your cold cellar) - often they skip over garage and porch foundation walls to save time/money as they don't seep anywhere, as well as your weeping/drainage system is also along the outer footer not what will become the inner wall. obviously the cost of the vapor tight insulated door & frame would be included in that so basically you're adding 5x15' living space @ $1800 that's only about $24 sq foot - might as well have it done by the builder. I had a neighbor who dug theirs out afterwards, only to find a ton of garbage, construction junk, old lunches and chicken bones in the space - they then had to pour a floor, refix the drainage & after two weeks of hauling buckets of mud & gravel through the basement time & materials was close to 3 times the original cost to have had the builder do it originally.

[alligator4480]

thanks for both of your replies.

i was worried that was going to be the answer. more than likely we wont go through with it..... but i wanted your opinion.

(insert vent here)
*%%@# me off that im loosing out on a cold cellar and that area is simply filled with dirt. cant believe they charge soooo much just for a door!
i know i sound like a winer..... just makes me go arrrr!

(end vent)

thank you for your quick reply. I do appreciate it.

Allen

[David]

Sorry I don't know what a cold cellar is. But, removing soil and placing a room could effect insulation of the basement, no? If you do it yourself, you could lose energy - thus you'd need to insulate that door well. Having an unconditioned "room" next to the basement is not as efficient as having soil. HTH.:D