Exterior Stairs to Basement

[SamanthaSkidmore]

I have created a basement but it is not a daylight basement.  It is on s flat terrain but I want exterior stairs for an exterior entrance to the basement.  I'm not finding a lot of information for this particular design.  Very new user here.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Chrisb222]

One way to do it is to draw a room for your stairwell at ground level using Exterior Walls. Turn on "Auto Rebuild Foundations" or draw foundation walls under these new exterior walls.

 

Select the room you created with the exterior walls, open it and make it "Open Below" room type. Under the Structure tab, uncheck "Roof over this room."

 

Select the walls you drew to create the room, open them, go to Wall Type > Define and hit Copy to make a copy of that wall type. Delete all layers except the main layer, and change its Material to "Insulation Air Gap" (an invisible material). Make this layer 0 thickness.

 

Return to the foundation and draw a foundation wall to separate the stairwell from the main foundation. This will defeat Auto Rebuild Foundations.

 

 

 

 

[SamanthaSkidmore]

Thank you so much.  Makes total sense.

[MarkMc]

If you are using a Bilco door on it there are some threads with symbols on the forum, one cuts the terrain and has stairs, just add a doorway- real easy. The other way I've done it is with a terrain hole and retaining walls and make stairs. With that one you have to adjust the retaining walls in section.