vivamario

vivamario t1_jaesc5v wrote

Reply to comment by turp101 in Viewing homes in the area by Ar30la

I've turned Pittsburgh basements into living space. It's brutal, expensive work but possible. You have to install perimeter drains/sumps, reroute the utilities into the joists, cut in egresses, demo the interior concrete slab and then dig until the floor is low enough. If the foundation is too shallow, then you have to underpin. Then you have to set new center supports and pour new foundations for those, pour a concrete slab, and waterproof.

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vivamario t1_itzu7hu wrote

I'm not in PennDOT, so I can't say for sure, but I think it's that no one thought about engineering. Those guys have the fancy offices downtown and in the surrounding towns and were all shut down pretty quick.

I stayed busy all through Covid, but actually go laid off last year because of the lettings all getting pushed. Engineering needed to be working on designs during Covid so that there were projects to bid, but they didn't so end of 2020 through 2021 barely had any lettings and they all got pushed to earlier this year.

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