Finished Basement Questions, Answered Directly

Most finished basements in Lehigh County run $35,000 to $75,000, depending on size, whether you add a bathroom, and the level of finish.

The three things that move the number most are square footage, plumbing, and ceiling work. A straightforward open family room with LVP flooring, recessed lighting and trim sits at the lower end. Add a full bathroom, a wet bar, a theater soffit or a coffered ceiling and you move up.

Work that is sometimes needed and sometimes not: an electrical service upgrade, an egress window, a sewage ejector pit if there is no gravity drain, or moisture remediation before we start. We price those as separate line items so you can see exactly what is driving the total.

See what a finished basement includes

A typical Lehigh County basement takes six to ten weeks from the first day on site to the punch list, with permitting adding two to four weeks before that.

The schedule is mostly driven by inspections. Framing, electrical rough and plumbing rough all need to be signed off before drywall closes the walls, and those inspection dates are set by your municipality, not by us.

Because we self-perform the trades, we do not lose the week-long gaps between subcontractors that stretch these projects out. Adding a bathroom or an egress window adds roughly one to two weeks.

See our process step by step

Yes. Finishing a basement is permitted work in every Lehigh County municipality, and adding electrical, plumbing or an egress window requires inspections.

Permits are pulled from your municipality — Allentown, Bethlehem, Emmaus, Macungie, Whitehall and each township run their own code offices with their own timelines and fees.

We pull the permit and schedule the inspections as part of the job, and you get the closed-out paperwork at the end. That paperwork matters when you sell: unpermitted finished space can be flagged in an appraisal or an inspection.

You need an egress window if the finished basement will contain a bedroom or sleeping room. A basement with no sleeping room usually does not require one.

The requirement is an emergency escape and rescue opening with a minimum net clear opening, a maximum sill height, and a window well big enough to climb out of. Your local code official confirms the specifics for your municipality.

Many homeowners add one anyway for the daylight, which changes how a basement feels more than any lighting plan does.

How egress windows are installed

We test for moisture before we quote, and if we find a problem we tell you to fix it before finishing rather than selling you a renovation over top of it.

Sometimes the fix is simple and inexpensive — regrading soil away from the foundation, extending downspouts, or servicing a sump pump. Sometimes it is interior drainage or exterior waterproofing, which is real money and a different scope than finishing.

Finishing over an active moisture problem is the most common and most expensive way these projects go wrong. Drywall, insulation and flooring all fail, and you pay twice.

Often yes, but it depends on the height at the lowest obstruction, not the height at the joists. We measure that first and tell you honestly what is possible.

Code generally requires a minimum finished ceiling height for habitable space, with limited allowances under beams and ducts. If the lowest duct in a walkway leaves you under that, the options are rerouting the duct, relocating the walkway, or accepting that the space stays unfinished.

We would rather tell you at the walkthrough than frame a room you cannot legally call living space.

We do the work ourselves. Framing, electrical, drywall, flooring and trim are all in house, start to finish.

The same people who lay out your basement are the people building it, so nothing gets lost in translation between trades and there are no dead weeks waiting for the next crew to become available.

We also photograph framing, wiring and insulation as we go and send it to you, so when the drywall closes up you still have a complete record of what is behind your walls.

More about how we work

We are fully insured, and all permitted work is pulled and inspected through your municipality.

Pennsylvania registers home improvement contractors through the Attorney General's office rather than issuing a trade license for general remodeling. Electrical and plumbing work is permitted and inspected by your municipality's code office on every job we do.

We are happy to provide a certificate of insurance before any work starts.