What do you think of this idea

Basements and bomb shelters in my realm get flooded very easily due to the “high water table”. But they’re desired to avoid tornadoes.

yeah same here....dehumidifier and sump pump guys put their children through college with the issues we have here in Central Ohio
 
How about a small steel Quonset hut? You could sound proof it, but air circulation and condensation can be a problem, so you'd need to hire a contractor who really understands airflow. Also you would have to check with the town zoning laws etc...
 
I doubt I’ll ever build a home, but if I do. it will not have a basement, the end.
Better build in the south then. You need a basement to get below the frost line. If you dont, the expansion and contraction of land during freezing temperatures can cause the footings/slab to heave and this damages your house. Pipes especially dont like to go up and down.
 
I’ll have a heated crawl space. Lol
You could do that. Have footings like piers that go below the frost line, then build on top of those. No freezing damage, no basement. Just make sure your water line in is highly insulated.

For about 1 month when you get the bill lol
No doubt. Talk about serious heat loss.
 
Watching my parents suffer through repeated basement flooding when I was a kid put me off them forever. I doubt I’ll ever build a home, but if I do. it will not have a basement, the end.

I think I would do either half slab and a tornado shelter/room, or just crawlspace. We plan to stay north, so winter/frostline will be things we have to deal with...if we end up in Michigan, we might not have to worry about tornados as much

the next place we end up in will be our last, so we are planning all one level...no stairs. I HATE moving, so I plan on only doing it once more...
 
For the people who have the space to put a seperate above ground building for drums that needs to be soundproofed...Go ahead and chuckle but I was thinking...instead of doing the whole room within a room thing...Why not get a backhoe and a concrete truck. Maybe a dump truck or relevel your lawn. Dig a hole, Form it out, and pour your soundproofing mass in. I just think it's much less problematic to control environmental air than soundwaves. It may not need cooling in the summer. But it would need circulation and de-humidifying most likely. Heat in the winter. But again, it's starting from what 55 degrees instead of 32 or lower air temps. No drafts. A little crypt-like but when I'm in my basement I'm underground. Hide the concrete with nice stuff

The roof and the entrance...I figure the roof could stick up enough for an entrance, like an old spring house. With a Batpole, preferably. Then I'd be walking on a combo floor/roof that would somehow have an opening for the Batpole.

I know it's not perfect, I'm just spitballin' and wanted to hear your thoughts.

Instead of going underground would your neighbors be down with this?

DrumRoom.jpg
 
One word—insulation lol
Crawl space encapulation is a thing here. I'm considering it for the future, but I still have lots of work to do down there. In the winter, my floors are cold from the air under the house and it reflects in our heating costs. It seals the crawl space from the inside, dirt and all:
crawl-space-encapsulation.jpg
 
Crawl space encapulation is a thing here. I'm considering it for the future, but I still have lots of work to do down there. In the winter, my floors are cold from the air under the house and it reflects in our heating costs. It seals the crawl space from the inside, dirt and all:
View attachment 103064

I REALLY appreciate a clean, well-lit crawl space. Occasionally I have to go in those to run wire at work. Lol
 
Damn Brian that is THE nicest and certainly the brightest crawl space I ever saw and I've been in my share of them. Some crawl spaces are belly crawlers, maybe 18" high

So hey I have an idea to heat your crawl space for a one time purchase and no monthly bill.

You know those pillows you take to sporting events that warm your bottom when you sit on them? Line your crawl space floor with them and put heavy metal plates like the kind they put in the road to keep cars from falling into holes in roadways...on top of the pillows. The weight of the plates would cause the pillows to warm up and the heavy metal plates would radiate the heat. You guys should always expect wacky from me.

FYI I'm not allowed to staple wires of that size on the bottom sides of the joists. Bigger thicker wires are OK because they are problematic pulling thick wire assemblies through multiple holes in joists. The intention is so people won't hang clothes from hangers supported by the wiring. You could hang hangers on wires running through holes in the joists so IMO this rule doesn't really prevent anything. On the contrary, drilling holes in the structure isn't strengthening anything. I'm not allowed to drill in the middle 3rd of a joist but I see it all the time.

But it's a crawl space so no one will hang clothes on it. It's not unsafe IMO but technically it is a violation. I'm allowed to run the wire on the side of the sill plate right under the joist ends, but not on the underside of the joists anywhere else in the room. I have to route my wiring through holes in the joists, or on the side of the sill plate that the joists sit on.
 
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For the people who have the space to put a seperate above ground building for drums that needs to be soundproofed...Go ahead and chuckle but I was thinking...instead of doing the whole room within a room thing...Why not get a backhoe and a concrete truck. Maybe a dump truck or relevel your lawn. Dig a hole, Form it out, and pour your soundproofing mass in. I just think it's much less problematic to control environmental air than soundwaves. It may not need cooling in the summer. But it would need circulation and de-humidifying most likely. Heat in the winter. But again, it's starting from what 55 degrees instead of 32 or lower air temps. No drafts. A little crypt-like but when I'm in my basement I'm underground. Hide the concrete with nice stuff

The roof and the entrance...I figure the roof could stick up enough for an entrance, like an old spring house. With a Batpole, preferably. Then I'd be walking on a combo floor/roof that would somehow have an opening for the Batpole.

I know it's not perfect, I'm just spitballin' and wanted to hear your thoughts. It seems like it would be a lot less expensive for the structure part. No green glue, blah blah, 2 actual rooms, shingles, siding, soundproofing material, foam, bass traps, and every other little costly detail that has to be done for an above ground structure. Someone could rent a minidig machine and dig the hole themselves for cheap. Sell the clean fill or rent a dumper and haul it away. I'd want to frame it out with cedar, (not PT) and get that moisture proof purple sheetrock. I had some extra scraps of the purple stuff out in the rain for months after I redid my basement a few years ago and I couldn't believe how perfect it stayed.

The electric and heating and cooling are a wash, both structures would need climate control and electric in some form. Fiber optics for natural sunlight?
some places don't allow basements like that (when I lived in the Dallas metroplex (Lewisville to be exact) basements were not allowed nor were they legal to build, it had something to do with the quality of the soil. I agree it would be a lot better/easier to soundproof but the trade off is humidity you have to have a humidifier running constantly. I had a walk out basement in CT with mulitiple windows and sliding doors and I use to fill a 2 gallon container every 12 hours, I had it connected to a drain so I didn't have to worry about it filling up and stopping (which it does once it reaches certain level on the container if you don't have it directed to a drain). so it was literally about 5 gallons a day that would be creating mold if not drained, you shouldn't put carpet but that is what most places like that do, you can't use wood floors because they will warp... so a humidifier connected to a drain is a must on any basement. now for natural sunlight check out this guys's youtube called DIYPerks he creates a couple of lights that mimic natural sunlight but are movable and you can configure them to look like a window. I'm curious about the fiber optics how do you use them in that sense? now my idea was to build a dedicated room on top of a 4 car garage because bass drum travel through floors even with carpet and would bother someone underneath, soundproofing would be the same for the walls but of course you have to consider how many windows and if you have any close neighbors, I will get a property with the most acres possible and the least neighbors possible and forget HOA I shun that like the plague, I will not let a snooty comitte tell me what to do when I paid over a half a million dollars for my property. but since you already have your property and a basement seems like the option you like best then do a little more research to avoid future problems.
 
I like the idea, but location is key. I couldn't do that here. Our bedrock in this area is no more than 6" below topsoil. To dig a hole here is a monumental task.

When I lived in upstate NY I could dig a hole so deep I couldn't get out of it. Here I cant even plant tomatoes.
Same here I had to build a fence for my doggy and I used an auger to dig the holes for the poles and I would dig 6 inches and literally had to chip rocks for the remainder. (the holes had to be 2 feet deep) so it felt like a huge task where it would have taken me minutes on any other place). And my wife wanted to have a pool built, they wanted 200k to do it.... No way!
 
My house, being a new build, doesn't have a storied heritage, but evil always taints my impressions of older basements. My wife and I got married back in 2000 and moved to NYC. Upon our East Coast arrival, we lodged with her grandmother on Long Island for a while before getting settled in the metropolis. The house was quaint and charming, but the basement was ominous and uninviting. The washer and dryer were down there, and I hated making the descent to attend to laundry. Even with lights on, darkness dominated the setting, and demons mocked my every step. I was shocked each time I made it back upstairs alive.
When I was a little kid and got scared going to dark rooms, I imagined I had a light saber and if the demon/ghost attacked then I would just shash him in half... it helped...
 
I'm curious about the fiber optics how do you use them in that sense?
I did this for my physics project in college. You need a collector (I used a lens) for the light to enter. The collector focuses the sunlight to a single point on the fiber optic cable. The light travels through the cable to a diffuser (I used another lens) for the light to leave the cable and spread back out wherever you want the light.

In the old days pirates would use mirrors to reflect sunlight below decks.
 
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