Sunken Basement?

[SEMichSteve]

Has anyone sawcut a portion of the basement to increase available depth? Just wondered if anyone is willing to share what the approximate cost might be.

I would prefer to have no swing restrictions for anyone who may use the sim, right or left-handed. I currently have 8'-8" clear to underside of joists in the basement. Joists are 10" deep. Modifying the joists still wouldn't be enough height for a full swing with driver, after adding sound attenuation to the ceiling and hitting mat.

So, I'm looking at digging out the basement between the hitting area & the screen. I have an available egress window that could be utilized to remove concrete/dirt.

I'd like to cut an area approximately 15' wide (I'm right-handed, my son is left-handed so I'll proceed with a double wide mat with center ball strike location) x 13' long. I would add approximately 18" (293 cubic feet of concrete/dirt to remove), giving me approximately 10'-2" clear height. Anything deeper than that might look out of place, won't mesh well with the rest of the basement. I'll lose a good 6-8" of that with sound protection & sub-floor/hitting surface. I'd end up with approximately 9'6" clear swing height.

I don't have a bunch of sim experience. I'm looking at the protee system. Does that area seem like enough area for a double wide hitting mat? I will make it thinner than 15' if possible, so what would be the minimum? 9'-6" seems to be the minimum ceiling height in other threads around here. There would be 2 stairs down to the hitting area, so standing 10' from the screen, with 13' total length between the screen and the edge of the sunken area, I think I'd still be able to clear the stairs.

Thanks, looking forward to the experts' feedback.

[goodmatt78]

This looks great....if you don't mind sharing...total cost?

[voodoo_ca]

He added some of that information in one of his comments

[Frozen Rope]

Thanks. I have documented things but I have not yet received the cement bill. I did all of the cement floor removal and 70% of the digging and sand removal. I hired out the recent cement pours. I will share all of the costs when I get the bills in. I think I'm going to be under $10,000.

[voodoo_ca]

Frozen,

I was thinking of this idea.
Did you talk to someone about the idea of water below the concrete slab? I noticed you are adding a sump pump.
Are you in an area where sump pumps are common?

I was afraid of removing the concrete, digging out a hole, and ending up with a spot where water can make its way in to my basement - maybe my own basement swimming pool.

[Frozen Rope]

I dug a small test hole first to confirm water depth. I live on the lake but it is all sand so water drains quickly. The sump pump is just for insurance. The basement itself never had a sump pump.

[Joko]

Very cool. That room looks about the same size of the room I'm hoping to do this in. I'm hoping I can go just a pinch wider because there isn't a foundation wall on one side of the pit. Thank you for documenting this a bit.

[Frozen Rope]

My pleasure.

[Joko]

Any update on this? I'm tetering on doing this or redoing the garage setup. My wife is actually for me putting it in the basement as she wants the garage back. But the price is a tough pill to swallow. Then again, long term it might be the better idea.

Worried about water, cost can be figured out unless it's totally unreasonable. My son is 8mo old and I would love to get him into golf and with a practice area like this I can't imagine he wouldn't.

[Boo Radley]

I thought long and hard about digging down myself. Ultimately I decided the risk of jeopardizing the foundation of the house and potential water problems was not worth it. Happy with the garage setup.

yes, me too, I made my garage set up work and modified it so I can now get 2 cars back in

[Joko]

Yeah I could do something similar to this, however having the screen up against the wall takes away from potential shelving. If only we could have found a place with a 3 car garage.

[Joko]

Buehler? Really interested to know about the final product. Also where you are from, as the area will effect cost. Thanks!!

[Frozen Rope]

Hi Folks,
These pictures are not up to date as we are at the mudding stage of drywall. I will do a full report including pictures and cost when it is done. I did the majority of the physical digging and dirt removal which saved me. There is no way to eliminate the physical aspect of the job but it is very doable. The engineering is very simple. You can go down a foot for every foot of bench that you leave between the wall and the pit. We went down 26" and left 26" between the pit and the foundation. As I said earlier, you need to dig a test hole to confirm the water table depth. If it is too high this might not be worth doing. If it is low i would still recommend a sump pump in the pit. Good Luck Frozen Rope

[Wundej]

Buehler? Really interested to know about the final product. Also where you are from, as the area will effect cost. Thanks!!

Sorry to bring this back from the dead. Curious if you ever went this route.

Frozen Rope,
Also curious to see pics of how yours finished up.

[Joko]

Sorry to bring this back from the dead. Curious if you ever went this route.

Frozen Rope,
Also curious to see pics of how yours finished up.

I did not. Maybe in 5-10 years I'd consider it, but by then we might be buying a new house anyway. Too many unknowns, definitely seems doable, just not ready to jump in to that.