Tutorial: Building stairs from the basement up through a foundation

[Twinmum]

OK, sorry if the answer to this is on the site somewhere, I have looked at various posts and can't find what I'm after!
I really enjoy building - sometimes I get in a building mood and forget about playing my families and just build. I also like houses on foundations, but it seems I can't build a stairwell down to my basement through the foundation. If I remove the center foundations and just leave the outline of the house, when I try to put stairs in, they just go up to ground level (if I'm working from the basement up) or just down to the ground (if I'm working down)
The strange thing is, that I was showing my daughter in her household what it does and it put some stairs through the foundation to her basement!
Now I'm back in my game and remodeling my house to include a foundation and when I try to put the stairs up from the basement it says they can't be placed inside a foundation! I can get around the problem by having a garden shed on ground level with the stairs to the basement in that, but I really would like to have stairs inside the house.
Am I missing something here - probably something very obvious lol
I would really appreciate a little guidence on the matter.

[kat]

I would like to know the answer to this too, as I have tried to put stairs through a foundation to the basement, and it wouldn't let me do it - I have had to have the stairs coming up to the outside...

[Twinmum]

OK, have done some more experimenting and I have a work around.
It can be done in two stages and you can have L shaped stairwells as well. And it is easy to do!
All I did was take out two squares of foundation (because of this, the stairs can't be right at the edge of the building) Build stairs down to the ground. From here you can have the stairs going straight down in the same direction, or you can turn them to the left or right. If you chose to go straight, remove another 3 squares of foundation in line with the first 2, if you are turning, remove them in the direction of how you want to go. You should now be able to add stairs from that landing down to the basement floor (or go down to the basement and build up) Of the last three bits of foundation you removed, you can add flooring over the last one (you can actually floor over all three, but when your sim uses the stairs their head goes through the floor!)

Hope this is easy enough to follow.. if anyone wants, I will do a proper tutorial with a few pics later on. I can't at the moment, because one of the Twinkids is on the good computer (playing Sims3!)

[Marklo4]

Holding shift while placing stairs, makes it easy to build steps from the upper levels down to the lower levels. As long as there is a basement below, it will click to it. It even does it from the foundation level down to the basement. However, the foundation has to be covering the part of the basement where you want the stairs, or else it will just go down to ground level and stop.

[Saltypaws]

Yes, it is kind of unfortunate that you can't build the stairs directly from the foundation level to the basement.  I finally figured it out too.  You have to have a small platform and then the stairs, so it is not too bad, just have an extra click, but that is fine with me.  If I buy a house with an existing foundation, I usually go outside and make my stairs for my basement and then build around it too, that usually comes out pretty nice.

[Twinmum]

LOL, funny how I asked this question then later, I put up a tutorial about stairs through foundations http://www.carls-sims-3-forum.com/index.php/topic,1409.0.html

Norma

[Saltypaws]

Yep, that is the one, lol.  The shed outside was a cool idea because basically, I just put some stairs and then made a nice fence.  At least with the shed, you can put stuff in there, like the shovel, chainsaw and a few other things from buy mode.  Good idea.

[Bryndis]

This is really, really useful.  If I tried to collect the clumps of hair I've torn out just from wrestling with making basements, I'd have the biggest hairball *ever*.
Any pointers on doing a basement while remodeling?  Sure, you have to move all the stuff away and tear down most of the walls surrounding it, but when it comes to messing up the layout of my houses, basements are pros.  I'll make mental calculations according to what would supposedly work within the parameters of the game (terrain level, stair height, etc) but often times the game just rejects my efforts. 
"Ahhh, but there's something in the way."  "What?  What is it?!"  "Nooo, I can't tell you."

I'm always adding on to a house, so it's a constant war I seem to be waging against build mode.  I lose a fair share of the battles. XP

[Pam]

I've recently been able to add basement stairs without tearing down half of my house.  I place them outside the house, as close to the wall as I can get.  Then I just drag the wall of the house over the top of them.  It leaves a nice little hole for the stairs and everything is good.  So, if your houses can handle a stairway on the edge of the current house, it shouldn't bee too difficult.

[caliban]

Any pointers on doing a basement while remodeling?  Sure, you have to move all the stuff away and tear down most of the walls surrounding it, but when it comes to messing up the layout of my houses, basements are pros.  I'll make mental calculations according to what would supposedly work within the parameters of the game (terrain level, stair height, etc) but often times the game just rejects my efforts. 
"Ahhh, but there's something in the way."  "What?  What is it?!"  "Nooo, I can't tell you."

I am so there with you, Efrosin. I was doing one today and trying to fill the foundation back in around the stairs and it wouldn't like it if i came in from one direction, but it would take it if i started from the other direction. SO. FRUSTRATING.

I haven't tried the wall-drag trick before, will have to give that a go next time.

What seemed to work most consistently was:
 - clearing everything away from overhead, including 2nd story
 - leveling the terrain around where I was going to put the stairs.
 - making sure moveobjects, constrainelevation and  all other cheats are OFF

And I still had to fiddle with it to get it to work in the foundation. Hopefully EA will update this function so putting basements in houses with foundations feels less like a kludge.

[Bryndis]

I've recently been able to add basement stairs without tearing down half of my house.  I place them outside the house, as close to the wall as I can get.  Then I just drag the wall of the house over the top of them.  It leaves a nice little hole for the stairs and everything is good.  So, if your houses can handle a stairway on the edge of the current house, it shouldn't bee too difficult.

That... would work amazingly well!  I am so trying that out once I get back from China.  I'm thinking of adding a(functional) third story to my already huge victorian, but I'm going to have a heck of a time trying to find the optimal place to put the staircase.  I really miss those easy-to-make broken up stairs you could wrap around a wall from S2.  It's like a bizarre game of tetris.

Caliban:
It really is laughing at us.  As much as I love building houses, I can really hate it, too.  As for your checklist, I make sure to do everything except turning off the cheats... maybe that will help preserve my sanity?  Who knows!

[malkiot]

I was thinking of making stairs too... but I scrapped the idea because of the space they take up - and I fail at making modular staircases inside.

I don't know whether you have Late Night or not, but if you do there is a way to get elevators working with foundation instead of the stairs.

To build an elevator through the foundations of the house choose the place to put the elevator and delete a 4x4 area of the foundation.


Using the "moveobject on" command place one of the 'inbetween'-pieces (no idea what they are called in the english version) in the middle.
If you cannot get the location exactly right, maybe because of it snapping to slots anyway use the "disableSnappingToSlotsOnAlt off" command,
hold down the alt-key and position the object.



Now go up to the ground floor and down to the basement - place you elevators:




I know these aren't stairs, but maybe you will opt for this comfortable method  



I had the terrain raise up suddenly and had to use the "constrainfloorelevation off" or false command and level tool to smooth it out again. (no screenshot of that though)

EDIT: The pics don't show? And this was shown to me as a new thread for some reason... and I didn't check the date - sorry about this.

[CarlosLordofTacos]

I know this is a very old thread, but I feel my question is relevant enough to revive it. If you do not personally feel so, then I apologise. Has anyone experimented with foundations and the new spiral staircases. I know the new stairs can be continuous through out all floors, but I do not know if they 'stretch', like the 'regular' staircases. Can they touch the top of a foundation and go all the way down into the basement (and still be stacked upon)? If this is possible, whether normally or with cheats, it would be very useful indeed.

[Seabody]

Reviving an old thread to say:

Holding shift while placing stairs, makes it easy to build steps from the upper levels down to the lower levels. As long as there is a basement below, it will click to it. It even does it from the foundation level down to the basement. However, the foundation has to be covering the part of the basement where you want the stairs, or else it will just go down to ground level and stop.

I confirm this. It works really well. I've been meaning to post this here, but I finally remembered!

[Twinmum]

oooh, I know this is an old thread... but I have just discovered a way to renovate pre-existing houses with foundations to add stairs down to a new basement below! I need to do some more testing, but already I've done it easily on two EA built houses without having to tear down a great chunk of wall. Stay tuned for further updates coming to a guide near you 

Norma