Skip to content
Rehabbing & House Flipping

User Stats

1
Posts
0
Votes
Jesse McBride
0
Votes |
1
Posts

Gut & raise floor joists?

Jesse McBride
Posted Mar 14 2023, 10:15

Hi all, we are currently renovating my moms home built in 1900. It has a 1st floor with 12 ft ceilings and basement with 6 ft ceilings. We have party walls on both sides.

Our goal:

We are looking to make this 2 separate apartments. Mom will live in 1st floor and we will rent the basement. 

Our challenge:

A new bill was introduced in Jersey City last year that requires basement ceilings to be 9ft in height.

Our idea was to gut the entire home down to the studs, and raise the floor joists by 3ft so we have 9ft ceilings in both units. (We will be completely redoing the floors anyway).

If we do this, we do not need to do any underpinning work, (as per our structural engineers report).

A contractor was leaning towards digging down, but going down 3ft and underpinning the entire basement sounds more expensive and time consuming.

(I am pretty well informed on construction methods and technologies, but I am not an engineer nor am I trained in construction, so my knowledge is limited).

Any thoughts here? Thanks.

User Stats

566
Posts
382
Votes
Eric Greenberg
  • Investor
  • Philadelphia, PA
382
Votes |
566
Posts
Eric Greenberg
  • Investor
  • Philadelphia, PA
Replied Mar 14 2023, 13:46

Most folks in Philly underpin and dig down to accomplish that but rarely do we have such high ceilings on a 1st floor. Id first find the costs of both approaches to evaluate which is the best decision and confirm you do have the height to make it work after flooring/sheetrock. Do you also need an egress for living space in a basement in Jersey City?