We are doing an elevation certificate for a truck shop. The shop will have on oil change pit below the concrete slab (for the tech to go below and change oil). Is this considered a basement? DOes the bottom of the pit need to be above BFE?
It won't have to as long as there aren't any mechanical's in the pit.
Mark Flora, post: 430611, member: 12401 wrote: It won't have to as long as there aren't any mechanical's in the pit.
I have to disagree with Mark. I just did an elevation certificate on a car wash which has a "pit" just like an oil change shop and had the same question. I was directed to go to FEMA's website and look up their definition of basement which is:
"Basement. Any area of the building, including any sunken room or sunken portion of a room, having its floor below ground level (subgrade) on all sides"
Also on Page 2 of the certificate instructions, "Purpose of the Elevation Certificate" paragraph 5:
"This certificate is used only to certify building elevations"
The information we provide and certify is the elevations of the building. The elevation of the bottom of the pit is what I would enter in Section C, Item C2a, "Top of bottom floor (including basement, crawlspace, or enclosure floor). If there is any machinery or equipment located in that area, I would use the same elevation for Item C2e.
It didn't work out well for my client with the car wash. They had designed and built the building with the "floor" being 2 feet above the BFE, but then had a 4 foot deep pit in the middle. I was called everything but a child of God but the contractor, but in the end the adjusters and the "FEMA guy" the contractor called in to meet with us to "straighten me out" agreed with me. Made a huge difference in the clients insurance costs because whomever designed the building didn't have clue.
Joe W. Byrd, post: 430636, member: 10015 wrote: I have to disagree with Mark. I just did an elevation certificate on a car wash which has a "pit" just like an oil change shop and had the same question. I was directed to go to FEMA's website and look up their definition of basement which is:
"Basement. Any area of the building, including any sunken room or sunken portion of a room, having its floor below ground level (subgrade) on all sides"
Also on Page 2 of the certificate instructions, "Purpose of the Elevation Certificate" paragraph 5:
"This certificate is used only to certify building elevations"
The information we provide and certify is the elevations of the building. The elevation of the bottom of the pit is what I would enter in Section C, Item C2a, "Top of bottom floor (including basement, crawlspace, or enclosure floor). If there is any machinery or equipment located in that area, I would use the same elevation for Item C2e.It didn't work out well for my client with the car wash. They had designed and built the building with the "floor" being 2 feet above the BFE, but then had a 4 foot deep pit in the middle. I was called everything but a child of God but the contractor, but in the end the adjusters and the "FEMA guy" the contractor called in to meet with us to "straighten me out" agreed with me. Made a huge difference in the clients insurance costs because whomever designed the building didn't have clue.
I read the same thing on the FEMA website about the basement. This one is a before construction certificate, so at least they will have the option to change the elevations if they want to.
Jeff, if they had done that with my project it would have saved a lot of trouble and aggravation. We did the initial topo survey for the project and supplied the contractor with the information to forward to the person designing the site. We weren't contacted to do any layout. Bad thing is the "plans" went before the City Engineer and were approved and the city issued them a building permit. When the contractor got about $400k in this $1m car wash (yes, that's a m with the dollar sign), the client needed to get money released from the bank to pay him. Bank needs EC for loan. Surveyor gets called to save the day. Surveyor becomes bad guy because he does what he is supposed to do. Everyone involved can't believe how stubborn and mean the surveyor is.
After I delivered the EC and the bad news to the client, even the insurance adjusters were calling me suggesting that the "pit" should not be considered a basement. (Client owns several car dealerships and is a huge client for them) When I suggested that they could write the policy to only insure to the next higher floor (2' above BFE), she said they couldn't do that because it would open them up to a huge liability if it flooded. When I responded that obviously she didn't care about my liability because I was being asked to "look at it a different way", she hung up on me.
Now for the rest of the story: Have since done 2 surveys for the client on property he purchased and have 3 boundary and topo surveys to do for the contractor. Sometimes being stubborn and standing your ground when you know you are right pays off.
I did an EC on one of the nationally owned oil change chains shops.. My local FEMA floodplain rep. told me to consider the pit as the basement.
Jim in AZ, post: 430660, member: 249 wrote: I did an EC on one of the nationally owned oil change chains shops.. My local FEMA floodplain rep. told me to consider the pit as the basement.
I agree with what has been posted (bottom of pit is C2a) but lets take this to an extreme.
You have a basement FF 1' above BFE but there is a sump pump in an enclosed concrete well say 1' below bfe. Really no different than a oil change pit just smaller. I give the basement FF floor elev in C2a then give the bottom of sump pit elev under the comment section. Another way to look at this is for water to get in the pit (from the flooding source, not random groundwater) it would have to overtop the basement floor.
Is the pit substantially floodproof if it's surrounded by slab that's above BFE? There's a FEMA form for that. Look for non residential floodproof certificate, and have client check with their architect/engineer about it. We did one like this recently. We did an EC, just as y'all have described, but also filled out the elevations for the floodproofing cert, then passed along to engineer for his signoff. Made a difference in flood insurance rate.
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Joe W. Byrd, post: 430636, member: 10015 wrote: I have to disagree with Mark. I just did an elevation certificate on a car wash which has a "pit" just like an oil change shop and had the same question. I was directed to go to FEMA's website and look up their definition of basement which is:
"Basement. Any area of the building, including any sunken room or sunken portion of a room, having its floor below ground level (subgrade) on all sides"
Also on Page 2 of the certificate instructions, "Purpose of the Elevation Certificate" paragraph 5:
"This certificate is used only to certify building elevations"
The information we provide and certify is the elevations of the building. The elevation of the bottom of the pit is what I would enter in Section C, Item C2a, "Top of bottom floor (including basement, crawlspace, or enclosure floor). If there is any machinery or equipment located in that area, I would use the same elevation for Item C2e.It didn't work out well for my client with the car wash. They had designed and built the building with the "floor" being 2 feet above the BFE, but then had a 4 foot deep pit in the middle. I was called everything but a child of God but the contractor, but in the end the adjusters and the "FEMA guy" the contractor called in to meet with us to "straighten me out" agreed with me. Made a huge difference in the clients insurance costs because whomever designed the building didn't have clue.
Good to know.
I had the same issue with an EC that I had completed for a client and I did exactly what as you and showed the bottom of the pit as the item C2a. After completing the EC and delivering it to the insurance company I get a response from a gentleman that only works on EC's and flood insurance. He told me that it wasn't needed to show the bottom of the pit as long as there isn't any type of mechanical's in it. I guess sometimes you get bad information from people that should be in the know.
If there is nothing in the pit to insure, why should it be listed as the lowest elevation? Just posing a question.
Dry-floodproofed basements & ??internally flooded enclosures below the lowest floor?
Federal regulations and state law give communities the authority to issue conditional use permits for a few floodproofing options for the lowest floor if:
(a) the community??s floodplain management ordinance includes those options,
(b) the space will be used for a limited number of specific uses (usually only for parking, limited storage, and access to upper levels),
(c) the floodproofing proposal meets all the other limitations for that floodproofing option (i.e., dry floodproofing is allowed for non-residential structures only, unless the community is one of the communities with a formal exception from FEMA for dry floodproofing of residential basements), and
(d) specific technical standards and legal requirements are met.
See the floodplain information sheet ??Conditional Uses in the Floodplain? for more information.
andrewm, post: 430786, member: 10888 wrote: If there is nothing in the pit to insure, why should it be listed as the lowest elevation? Just posing a question.
it has to do with hydrostatic pressure on the surrounding walls and therefore the floor above, or so I have been told
