Basement Design in 3D
Almost everything you pay for in a basement disappears behind drywall. This is a finished basement you can turn, and take apart. Drag the model to look around it, then step back through the build to see what is inside the walls.
Drag to rotate, scroll or pinch to zoom. The buttons step back through the build, from the framing up. The ceiling is left off so you can see in.
What is behind the drywall
A basement wall in Central Alberta is built in layers, and the order matters more than any single piece of it. Rigid foam goes against the concrete first, because that is what keeps the framing away from a cold, damp surface. The bottom plate is treated, because it sits on the slab. Studs run at 16" OC with batt between them, and a vapour barrier covers the whole face before a sheet of drywall goes near it.
Every one of those layers is finished work that nobody sees again. That is the honest difficulty with quoting a basement: two jobs that look identical when they are done can be built very differently, and the difference is entirely in the part that is now covered up. A drawing is the one point where all of it is still visible and still cheap to change.
The model above is a development we drew to show the sequence, not a job we built for somebody. If you are planning a basement and the layout is still open, we are happy to talk it through. Get in touch or call (587) 447-9009.
Questions we get asked
- What makes a basement window big enough to count as an egress window?
- Two things, and both have to be true of the part that actually opens: at least 3.8 sqft of clear opening, and no dimension under 15". The catch is in the hardware. A crank window opens the whole hole, so the glass size and the opening are close to the same. A slider or a hung window only ever opens half of itself, so a unit that looks generous on the wall can fail on the measurement. Any bedroom below grade needs one, and it is the requirement most often missed on a basement.
- What actually goes into a finished basement wall in Alberta?
- Working out from the concrete: 1 1/2" of rigid foam against the foundation, a treated bottom plate, 2x4 studs at 16" OC with batt insulation between them, a vapour barrier over the whole face, then 1/2" drywall. That is five layers and a plate, and once the drywall is on you never see any of it again. You can strip the model on this page back through every one of them.
- Why does the vapour barrier matter so much here?
- Because of where the dew point sits in a cold climate. Warm indoor air holds moisture, and if it reaches a cold surface inside the wall that moisture turns to water in the stud bay where nothing can dry it. The barrier keeps that air out of the assembly. It goes up in an afternoon, it is invisible ten minutes later, and it is the single layer in a basement wall that is hardest to put right afterwards.
- How low can a basement ceiling be?
- The showcase on this page is built at 8'-0" from slab to underside of joist, which is a common height in a newer Central Alberta home. Older houses are often lower, and the height you have left after the floor goes down is what decides whether a dropped bulkhead over a duct run feels like a design choice or like a low spot you keep noticing. It is worth measuring before anything is planned.
- Do you draw every basement in 3D?
- Not every one. The design phase is its own piece of work, and where it earns its place is when the layout is genuinely undecided: you are weighing where a bathroom goes, you want to see a bedroom with and without a walk-in, you are trying to picture how a stair landing eats into a rec room, or there are two of you deciding and you are each imagining something different. While it is still a drawing, moving a wall costs nothing. On a straightforward development where you already know the layout, we are glad to skip it and get building.