Alburtis, Pennsylvania
Finished Basements in Alburtis, Pennsylvania
Alburtis is the only place we serve where attached housing is the majority, and on a borough lot with a twin next door the basement is usually the only room you can add.
- Town
- Alburtis
- County
- Lehigh County, PA
- Typical range
- $75 to $125 per sq ft
You cannot build out and you cannot build up
Alburtis housing is 53.2 percent single-family attached, twins and townhomes, against 41.7 percent detached (American Community Survey 2019 to 2023, table B25024). The borough covers a small footprint and the lots reflect it.
That constraint is the whole argument for finishing. An addition needs side yard you do not have, and going up on a twin means structural work against a shared wall. The basement is already built, already under roof, and already inside the foundation you paid for.
Party wall detailing is the Alburtis-specific work
On a twin or a townhome the shared wall has to maintain its fire separation wherever we open it or route new services through it. That is not optional and it is the detail most commonly missed on a basement finished without a permit.
Sound is the other half. A theater room or a gym against a party wall transmits straight into the neighbor's finished space unless the assembly is designed for it. We detail for fire separation and for sound transmission on every attached home, and both appear as their own line in the written price rather than as an assumption.
Two different houses under one borough name
Alburtis housing is sharply bimodal. 17.9 percent predates 1940, a further 23.7 percent went up in the 1990s, and there are only sixteen units in the entire borough from the 1980s. So a job here is either a 1990s twin with a poured eight foot wall and a party wall to detail, or a pre-1940 village house with a stone cellar and real headroom limits. Those are different scopes and different prices.
The borough was formed in 1913 by merging the villages of Alburtis and Lock Ridge, and Lock Ridge Furnace is on the National Register. Schools are East Penn, the only town we serve in that district. Median home value is $242,300, the lowest in our service area, against a median household income of $102,946, which is well above the county's $77,493 (ACS 2019 to 2023). Neighborhoods such as Hills at Lock Ridge West carry much of the newer twin product.
What it costs
$75, $125 / sq ft
The published rate in Lehigh County. $50,000 project minimum. A bathroom and a designed ceiling move you up the range.
Plan My Project- On site
- 6 to 10 weeks
- Permitting first
- 2 to 4 weeks
- Price
- Fixed, in writing
Most relevant for Alburtis homes
Everything we include in a finished basement is on the finished basements page. Other Lehigh County towns: Allentown, Bethlehem, Emmaus, Macungie, Whitehall, Salisbury Township, Trexlertown, Breinigsville, Fogelsville, Orefield, Schnecksville, Coopersburg.
If you are still weighing it up, read how a build runs from first visit to final walkthrough or the answers on cost, permits and moisture.
Planning a basement in Alburtis?
A walkthrough and a written line-item price come before anything is demolished.