My childhood home has a basement. Mom said it wasn't part of the original plan to have one. Tito Bert, the architect of our house, said that it was cheaper to put up walls than to cover it. Basements were also common during the era that our house was built (over 50 years ago).
The basement was put to good use. We had several sets of relatives who lived with us. Miggy and I moved to the basement also and lived there for a few years. I had the opportunity then to fix it up a bit and it became my part of the house where I would entertain my guests since it had it's own living room. We stayed there until Miggy and I moved out to live with Sweetie.
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| Basement birthday celebration, c 2008 |
The area was spacious. It's even bigger than some apartments we lived in. It was not without issues though since it would flood whenever the weather gets bad. Water either comes in from the toilet or when the creek overflows. I almost drowned during Typhoon Ondoy and was just rescued when the water suddenly gushed in.
I'm now thinking about what to do with the basement. I've been consulting with Architect Wansi for a few years now to figure out how best to solve the flooding issue. He brought several engineers to look at it and the solution is for a house to be built on the property behind us. The house would effectively block the water from rushing down to the basement.
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| c2008 |
Without a house though, the only solution is to build a firewall and properly waterproof it. We don't want to experience flooding again though, so we're really thinking about how best to use or not use the basement. Probably better to just leave it open and just have "abangs" for any future development.
What would you do if you have a basement that's prone to flooding?
#BeKind #StaySafe
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