Help – basement gaming room renovation (Brooklyn brownstone)

I might be getting mixed up, but I think I am actually thinking of a more modernized house more north in the neighborhood that was on the Prospect Lefferts Gardens tour. In any case, many homeowners have had this done, it is not cheap, and the more successful ones seem to be part of big renovations with architects and engineers. If you dig down, you need permits and a properly licensed contractor or your house and others attached to it could partially collapse. I get the impression that just a proper slab with a moisture barrier could be $40,000 (????) so depending on the scope of work, it might be $40,000 to $100,000 or so (????) to include French drains, pump or HVAC, and maybe more if you waterproof exterior walls from the outside.

cate

in Renovation 23 mins ago

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chloereed | 14 hrs ago

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Hey everyone,
Turning my dry but ugly basement into a gaming/media room.
Roughly 12×22 ft, 7ft ceiling, concrete floor, cinderblock walls, one egress window.
Main issues:

Gets humid in summer
Low ceiling + noisy floor above
Want it cozy but not dark/dingy

Quick questions:

Best cheap-ish flooring that handles a little moisture?
How to soundproof from upstairs without eating headroom?
Lighting tricks for 7ft ceiling that don’t suck?
Portable dehumidifier enough or do I need a mini-split?

Pics of the current mess attached.
Hit me with ideas, regrets, contractor recs — anything!
Thanks!

Brownstone Home Inspection | 7 hrs ago

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are you talking about a cellar or a basement? a cellar is at least 50% below grade at the curb. unless you do something to that floor, such as rip the slab up and have water proofing install UNDER it and pour a new slab, there is a good chance you will always have moisture problems there (which i suspect you know). ONE decent dehumidifier will take the humidity out of the air in a space that size but that does not mean you will still not have moisture coming in through the walls and up through the floor, through the concrete. so ultimately, you will not want to put a glue down floor in a cellar nor will you want wood (this is what a wood floor will do: the moisture will hit the underside of it and cause it to expand and the dehumidifier will dry the top out and cause it to shrink and the flooring will curl across the grain; i am not sure if putting a moisture barrier down on the concrete and setting wood off the ground on a grid will do the tick but somewhere, someplace, there is someone who knows). what we see in many cellars that developers convert into rec rooms is tile floors. the tile floors over concrete can handle the moisture.

a dehumidifier will handle that small space fine. it will be a pain in the neck to drain and they do make little pumps for HVAC condensate that can pump this water up and out through a waste connection or utility sink.

the pic from the current situation did not come through but if this space is unfinished at this point, be aware that if you intend to put rock walls up, unless the moisture is addressed from where it enters behind, on the foundation, you will have issues. even using “negative side” water proofing, you will still have issues at some point because that can possibly fail during the lifetime of a wall and then you will have issues with mold growing in the cavities between the wall and the foundation.

be aware that we are not supposed to insulate the ceilings in these spaces because it can trap moisture (insulation is how you would deal with the noise). BUT I BELIEVE if you intend to “condition” the air by dehumidifying it or running a mini split (and i was on a home inspection where a minisplit had been running for some time in a cellar and the moisture content of the drywall down by the floor was 7% in some spots which is super low for anywhere in a house, let along the cellar) and you leave that humidifier (or mini split) on day in and day out indefinitely, you SHOULD be safe with insulation in the joist bays of the ceiling/floor above. But if you turn that dehumidifier off for some reason, you could end up with moisture in the insulation and that will be bad. you can also put a moisture barrier over the insulation but i am not sure how well that works.

cate | 7 hrs ago

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I second what Steve is saying about needing a moisture barrier and new slab. You could go on some house tours and talk to homeowners with finished cellars about what they did. Also while I think you could probably do this yourself, it might make sense to at least talk to and possibly end up hiring an architect (and through them an engineer) who’s done a lot of cellars. On the last Prospect Lefferts Gardens tour, there was a house with a finished cellar that was just like an above-ground space. Obviously they had a moisture barrier, probably French drain in case of emergency, constant HVAC, and maybe they even did something to the walls. It was impressive.

cate | 6 hrs ago

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I also toured the cellar of a house in Bed Stuy that had been dug out and a moisture barrier installed. It appeared to be utterly dry. It wasn’t finished. It seemed really clean. The owner was in the building trades so he was an expert.

cate | 6 hrs ago

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You might want to add windows too, and some kind of air exchange, if it’s feasible.

maggie.oldfather | 2 hrs ago

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Not sure where this falls in your “cheap-ish” request but I have had great success with luxury vinyl tile glue-down installations on concrete slabs where there’s ongoing leaks. Definitely cheaper than ceramic tile!
If you do the dehumidifier, definitely recommend one that can be piped into a drain somewhere so you’re not constantly emptying.

BobMarvin | 44 mins ago

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The PLG house Cate mentions certainly isn’t a
“chespish” renovation. It’s next to my house snd I was stationed there during the house tour. It is the most wonderful renovation I’ve ever seen, but a contractor was working there for well over a year.