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Old 11-27-12, 10:24 PM   #2
Ryland
Master EcoRenovator
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: Western Wisconsin.
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Your whole house ends up being a basement with all of the basement problems, like you said humidity is a big one and sure you can pull humidity out of the air but you still have it in your walls, floor and now ceiling!
Insulating with 2" or more of ridged foam will help this a great deal, but also a layer of 6Mil plastic over the foam is a good idea to help keep the foam dry.

The other problem is that you end up with no windows and any sky light you put in has the problem of being a sky light that is on the ground, where it will rot the quickest and is always at risk of being covered up by snow and blowing leaves.

I did work on one house that was a walk out basement with the upper level being nearly on level with the ground at that back side, the whole thing pointed south too, it still had R25 insulation in the earth berimed wall (R40 for the rest of the walls) and it seemed to work ok, if you don't insulate your underground walls then they act as a heat sink, a slow heat sink but still a heat sink, sitting next to a 50F degree wall will feel cold in the winter and you have the whole mass of the soil behind it pulling heat away from that wall, forever.
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