Basement finishing in Aurora, CO, across seven decades of houses

Match the plan to the decade the house was built

A basement plan for Aurora begins with the build year, because the questions shift with it.

Original Aurora and Hoffman Heights

Aurora began in 1891 as the town of Fletcher, took the name Aurora in 1907 and grew up along East Colfax, the area now known as Original Aurora. Its postwar boom started in Hoffman Heights, where about 1,700 three-bedroom brick and frame ranches went up between 1950 and 1953 before the neighborhood was annexed in 1954. Houses that old earn a close look at drain lines, the electrical panel and any basement windows before design.

Saddle Rock, Tallyn's Reach and the southeast

Southeast Aurora is a different city again. Saddle Rock and Tallyn's Reach are largely homes built after 2000. A basement of that age usually arrives as open concrete with the builder's mechanical layout exposed, so the questions turn to layout, sound control and where a bathroom can drain.

Aurora's permit path runs through Aurora4Biz

The City of Aurora Building Division runs permits citywide, and Aurora4Biz is its online portal for applications, plan submittals and inspection scheduling. The city currently enforces the 2021 International Residential Code. Its home improvement handbook is clear about who may pull a permit: homeowners can obtain permits for work on their primary home, and any contractor you hire must be licensed by the City of Aurora. Here is how our design phase prepares drawings for review.

What needs a permit in an Aurora basement

The handbook's project table settles most questions. A basement finish always needs a permit and a plan submittal. Installing an egress window always needs a permit. A window well needs one unless it is a direct replacement of the same size. A radon mitigation system needs none unless new electrical is run for the fan. Every permitted job gets at least a rough and a final inspection, and city inspectors offer free consultations on what they will look for.

Water below grade: sumps, ejectors and frost

Two pumps get confused in basement plans, and Aurora treats them very differently. A sewage ejector lifts wastewater from a bathroom or bar sink below the sewer line into the building drain. A sump pump moves groundwater. Aurora Water's wastewater rules make it unlawful to discharge groundwater, subsurface drainage or other unpolluted water into the sanitary sewer; it belongs in storm drainage or an outlet the utility approves. We draw the sump discharge on the plan with the same care as the drain lines.

The handbook also lists a design frost depth of 36 inches for Aurora. Footings for exterior work such as a new areaway or stair have to respect that number, one more reason egress work is drawn and inspected like the structural work it is.

Clay and radon

Aurora sits within the Denver metro area that the Colorado Geological Survey describes as widely affected by swelling soils, so interior walls on the slab float. Radon is settled by a test, not a guess. In Arapahoe County, one of the three, county public health reports 48.84 percent of home tests above 4.0 pCi/L.

Basement rooms that fit an Aurora house

Where an older ranch has a basement, it tends to be one long room under a central beam. That suits a game room or family lounge with a compact wet bar placed near the drain stack. Newer southeast houses with more ceiling height can take a dedicated home theater, and a guest bedroom becomes realistic once an escape opening is planned; our guest suite and egress concept study shows how the window fixes the bedroom's place in the plan.

Start planning an Aurora basement

Tell us the address, the year built and what the space should do. We will confirm which handbook items apply, flag water and egress questions early, and show you what the basement can hold. Tell us about your basement. Owners near the south edge of the city may also find our pages on Centennial and Parker useful.