Basements
 

I notice when I'm in the US that houses usually don't have basements. At least ones built in the last 40 years or so.

I was just wondering if there was any reason for this or whether it was just a cultural phenomenon.

My house here in Calgary is modern and it has a basement and everywhere I've been in Canada houses have basements. It is in fact a major Canadian thing to have your basement done up and have a wet bar, walkout (I call them "break in") basements, etc.

However I was in Austin recently visiting a friend of mine and I had a look around the houses being built, in fact I went to one estate where the houses looked totally identical to the ones around me here, the only major difference externally was an AC compressor and instead of being occasionally brick clad they were clad with the local limestone rock or whatever it is called - but... no basements.

I asked the sales people and they were a bit vague but said something about the ground not being suitable for basements. Which turned out to be total bullshit as my friend lives in a house near downtown which was built in the 1950s and it has a basement, plus he has his own home improvement business and couldn't really figure out what they were on about (moreover he works from his basement).

I can understand why a house in Florida wouldn't have a basement but generally...?

Got another friend who moved from OKC to Houston and she thought the reason houses in Oklahoma all had basements was for protection against tornadoes!

To me it just seems to be a cost cutting measure. Even bungalows for oldies in Canada have basements, which I always think rather defeats the "no stairs" purpose of them.

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The bit about the ground is partially true. My understanding is that the foundations of the house have to go low enough to get below the frost level or to bedrock otherwise the frost can heave up the foundations.

Here in Phx there isn't really a frost issue so most houses will not have a basement.

Perhaps building techniques have changed so rather than building a full basement, they just sink piles down to the required depth and build on them.

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I think pretty much every house in the New England area has a basement of some kind.

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I've lived in three houses in CT and each has had a finished basement. The current house is built on three levels to accommodate the terrain, so the basement is of the "walk out" variety, leading to the garden.

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So it is a cost cutting measure because they could put in basements but they don't have to.

But do any of them have a basement? I've never come across one in Phoenix. Actually the reason I was given by a realtor in Phoenix was because of termites. Which sounded a bit ridiculous as you can surely protect a concrete basement just as well as a concrete pad.

But you could do that in Calgary. Thereby avoiding the frost issue. But no-one does.

I've been in plenty of houses in the Fraser Valley that have basements too and it doesn't get that cold there and they're at sea level. Moreover, it's an earthquake zone.

Some sort of cultural thing that was perhaps at some previous point in time rooted in the prevailing construction method?

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I agree. All our New England relatives have basements, and the three houses we've lived in so far this time have full basements. In all the many, many houses we looked over in our househunt (PA, CT, RI, MA), we only saw one without a normal cellar--that was a brand-new build that for some odd reason had a half-height basement, i.e. around 4 feet high, that you had to crouch down to walk around. (Needless to say, we were not interested in buying that house.)

When we lived in Houston many years ago, our house had no basement. Just a (very small) crawl space under the ground floor. My husband had to do something down in the crawl space once, and he said it was truly claustrophobic--more a "slither space" than a crawl space. Our present place has a nice large cellar with a walk-out door. The house is built into a slope and has three levels like Nutmegger describes.

My husband loves our basement. And I must say I like it too. It's not finished at all, but it's good for storage, for the washer & dryer, and is deliciously cool in the summer....

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There are some with basements, it's basically a time and cost issue to put one in. Why bother if code doesn't require you to dig down.

I can personally tell you how small the crack needs to be for termites to find their way through the slab and to start munching on your bamboo floor.

I wish I had a basement. That said we'd probably just fill it with junk.

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In the threes house we have had here, one was an un-finished basement, MA, one was a fully finished basement, CO, and this one has no basement, CA. I did like the fully finished one best as we could hide down there when the tornado sirens went off. No basement here because of possible earthquakes.

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Can't say I have ever seen a house in So. California with a basement, my dad's house and sisters house and every other family members house certainly don't, they were built anywhere from the mid 1940's to recent.

WA state older homes tend to have basements where newer homes tend not to have basements, doesn't seem to be an agreement as to why they don't, some say because of rain, soil, and liability, so who knows.

They are more common in the US in the midwest and east coast, So. California tends not to have them according the article below, because most were built post-WW2 and were tract homes, and builders could build them faster without a basement, so that is what they did, and builders just kept it that way over the decades.

The article says the earthquake issue for no basements in CA is a myth and that having a basement is apparently safer.

Why basements are scarce in Southern California - LA Times

"In addition, fear of earthquakes was often cited as a reason for the dearth of basements in the Golden State. But that, architects and contractors say, is something of a myth. In fact, says Jonathan Weinstein of basement-retrofitting specialist Weinstein Construction Corp., "Now we know the opposite is true. Building a basement to code upgrades your home to the safest level of protection for earthquakes, because you have a much stronger foundation for the whole house. A basement will have poured concrete walls and strong foundations set very deep.""

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Half-height basements are usually so you can get at the furnace.

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Hmm, so it's a tradition. Which is what I suspected.

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Ha, I always thought California didn't have basements due to earthquake risk.

I have a full basement and it's finished other than the laundry room.

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House I live in 9 years old and it has a basement. At first I thought basements were great but now I am leaning towards not wanting 1 if I ever build a new house. Rather have the ground floor act as the basement and the 1st floor and above the living areas.

1 positive of a basement is how cool it is in summer .

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I've always assumed that houses in the northeast in the US usually have basements so that you can get the water in and the waste water out more easily, in a climate where it is way below freezing for months at a time. Although whether this really applies to older ( pre plumbing era) houses I'm not sure. Our house was built in 1865, and I'm pretty sure they didn't have indoor toilets then, in a rural farmhouse, and not sure what the well and kitchen tap situation was then.

We have a cellar under the whole length of the house, that keeps well above freezing since the furnace and hot water heater are there. The water from the well enters below ground level, and the waste water leaves to get to the septic tank below ground level. All the water pipes and waste pipes are easily accessible, throughout the cellar.

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I voted no but wish I had voted "yes". My house has a "walk in crawlspace", which means that about 80% of the volume needed for a basement exists under the house, but it needs a little more digging, and a concrete slab laid. To achieve this is a little tricky, though not impossible, when the house has already been built on top of it. It would likely be cost prohibitive to do this now. :( Curiously two neighbouring properties have exactly the same issue, including one that has part of the crawlspace so high (deep?) that the owner needs a ladder to work under the floor at one end of the house - it was built on a knoll and the crawlspace is 9-10ft high at one end. :blink:

To answer Steve_'s question, the depth to which foundations have to be dug is dependent on the frost line, and the frost line also determines how deep the water and sewer lines are buried. In Canada and the northern US states the foundations have to be so deep that you might as well have a basement because much of the digging has already been done and you also have most, if not all, of the walls required for a basement, so the marginal cost of adding a basement is quite small.

In some parts of the US, most notably Florida, a house with a basement would very quickly develop an indoor swimming pool without perpetual pumping. :rofl:

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I voted no but wish I had voted "yes". My house has a "walk in crawlspace", which means that about 80% of the volume needed for a basement exists under the house, but it needs a little more digging, and a concrete slab laid. To achieve this is a little tricky, though not impossible, when the house has already been built on top of it. It would likely be cost prohibitive to do this now. :( Curiously two neighbouring properties have exactly the same issue, including one that has part of the crawlspace so high (deep?) that the owner needs a ladder to work under the floor at one end of the house - it was built on a knoll and the crawlspace is 9-10ft high at one end. :blink:

To answer Steve_'s question, the depth to which foundations have to be dug is dependent on the frost line, and the frost line also determines how deep the water and sewer lines are buried. In Canada and the northern US states the foundations have to be so deep that you might as well have a basement because much of the digging has already been done and you also have most, if not all, of the walls required for a basement, so the marginal cost of adding a basement is quite small.

In some parts of the US, most notably Florida, a house with a basement would very quickly develop an indoor swimming pool without perpetual pumping. :rofl:

Well deduced! :thumbsup:

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Yes, I use mine to store rainwater after particularly heavy storms and/or rapid snowmelt. It's quite handy for this as it doesn't take much effort at all to get it in there.

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I always assumed that was why in my part of Texas there were no basements, because of the flood risk.

All we need is 2 days of tropical rainfall and we go into panic mode. Houston is known as The Bayou City for a reason;) It is hard enough keeping a one storey house dry without worrying about the basement area.

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I've never seen a basement in Houston. But most houses have large attic spaces. We have one above the second floor, which has a lot of space, including the water heaters, plus a smaller one above the garage, accessed via a door upstairs in the house.

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:blink: Only a very short person would be comfortable working on the furnace in that cramped basement. (My immediate thought on seeing that half-height basement was that I'd probably have to pay a plumber extra to do any work on the furnace there.)

Any normal sized worker would much prefer to access the furnace in a basement like the one we have now....

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I've seen them in BC, it's so you can do furnace maintenance, e.g. change the filter. One I saw was in a retirement bungalow and I couldn't help thinking that a significant number of retirees would end up getting trapped down there.

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Well I went to realtor.com and banged in Phoenix and anywhere within 20 miles and value up to $500,000 and of 18,654 results, 206 have a basement (1.1%). And they appear to be all over the place e.g. Gilbert which is not exactly upmarket.

This rather unstunning house in Mesa for example: 3227 N Saffron St, Mesa, AZ 85215 - Home For Sale and Real Estate Listing - realtor.com® (Didn't it flood in Mesa recently?)

If you do the same for various places in California and Nevada they're sometimes described as a "bonus room" :lol:

I'm sure there are logical reasons to have a basement but I can't think of any overpowering reason why e.g. in Victoria you absolutely need one, but there aren't any houses listed on realtor.ca that I can see that don't have one.

I suppose I could sit and look through all the relevant building codes but yawn...

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wealthier people in the Western and Southwestern US sometimes have basements in their homes for wine storage, but that's the only deviation I've only ever seen.

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What's your point, I think I answered all that already - when winters are cold the frost line is low and foundations and utilities have to be deep, hence basements are common. When winters are mild and/or short the frost line is much higher, and foundations and utilities can be much higher (even if you have a well and septic system), and then basements are rare unless the original home owner is willing to cough up for the deeper foundation. As your statistics prove, only a tiny percentage of homes have basements when winters are short and/or mild.

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Agreed and they leak like ***k after a decent snowfall has melted.

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Not if they are properly finished. In my three finished basements, the only one that ever leaked had a small, separate, unfinished area off to one side, and if there was excessive rainfall, yes, it did come into that section. The others -- and the rest of that basement -- have been completely dry.

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I just visited the Capitol in Austin this week. They've extended their floor space by digging in four floors below ground level - Everything below 6 feet was solid limestone that needed to be removed.
Possibly why Austin is short of basements!

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I am not sure what you mean by "finished" (I usually associate that with the walls and trim inside a house), because the tendency of a basement or crawlspace to leak is almost entirely a function of the grading and drainage. Our home has been graded on a slight knoll (slopes down hill for at least about 8ft in all directions even though it is at the bottom of a fairly steep slope from the road. Even in the most torrential rain, about 9"-10" overnight, there has never been a water problem under our house.

On the other hand a house my in-laws used to own in Virginia had a basement that had been excavated about about half way down a slope with no drain or grading to stop water on the uphill side reaching the house and then filling up the hole that the house had been built in. Water then penetrated the slab concrete floor from the bottom up, as the hole filled with water. Mrs P and I were living in it at the time and we spend several days afger that digging a drainage trench and installing a pipe covered in gravel that carried water sideways around the end of the house and emptied below the house where the water could carry on downhill. :)

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I'm assuming "finished" means having drywall up instead of seeing the concrete walls and some kind of flooring on the floor versus concrete. My laundry room has concrete walls and a concrete floor. The rest of the basement is "finished" with flooring and dry wall.

My basement hasn't leaked in the 10 years I've been here.....but I did have a frozen pipe bust and flood some of it.

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I mean that the walls and floors are finished to the same quality standards as the rooms on the upper floors and if it wasn't for the lack of windows one might not realize that it was a basement. Many people use such a room as a playroom, a TV room, or a music studio, for example.

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OK, as I suggested in my preview post. ...... So I am fairly certain that people "finish" their basement because it does not leak, rather that the process of finishing it preventing leaks.

Conversely if a finished basement leaks it makes an unholy mess, requiring demolition and tear-out to find, remove and/or prevent potentially dangerous mold.

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Most basements I have seen in the US so far would not be up to scratch in the UK regarding water ingress/damp.

From our perspective in design (Architect) basements are rarely included provided primarily due to the cost of construction and waterproofing. Insurance warranties can also be fun to contend with.

Had one recently where we needed the space in the basement to hit the sqm required but had to de-water the ground at a cost of over £40K. If it hadn't had a final price tag of £1.3mil it wouldn't have happened.

Given the choice I'd always put basements in as it seems like a no-brainer for maximising land value/living space but as mentioned above: cost nearly always plays the defining part.

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Just about (if not absolutely, can't remember for sure) every house I've been in in Illinois and Wisconsin has had a basement of some sort. Our current house has a full basement, of which the garage is a part, but due to the grading it's not fully underground - only about 4' at the deepest part is below grade, and less than 2' at the shallowest. We've been there 6 years, the house has been for 15 and so far no sign of leaks, though :)

One of these days, ours will be like that. Hopefully we can avoid having to put in a drop ceiling as well ...

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Not sure if this is what you mean or not, but with regard to the houses that I have lived in, the basements were completed as an integral part of the living space when the house was built, this was not something done after the fact. (Though obviously companies advertise every day that they will waterproof your basement and give you added living space!)

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Correct. The only part of my basement left unfinished is where the water pipes are.......the time it flooded due to a frozen pipe the water went down a drainhole in the unfinished laundry room floor, though apparently there was enough water to drench the carpet at the bottom of the stairwell. There is also a small 3/4 bathroom that does have drywall and tile floor. That part was also flooded but obviously was easily mopped up.

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OK, so that it slightly different because if the intention at the outset (prior to the foundation being dug), was to "finish" the basement then the grading, drainage, and waterproofing would (should) be to a higher standard. It is not uncommon though for houses to be built with a basement not dissimilar to a garage - concrete floor, concrete block walls, and then to later "finish" it, and if there is later a leak it can cause a big problem.

The later finishing of basements become more common in areas where the price of housing has skyrocketed and people have been tempted to take what had originally been intended only as a cellar or utility space and turn it into "living space", or even a self-contained living unit.

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That's the other "finishing" aspect I should have mentioned -- our basement has a completely "normal" ceiling like the rest of the house; it was constructed with everything hidden in the way that is usual between the formal living and sleeping levels.

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I think 99% of the conduit and piping running along the ceiling of our basement is 'above' the bottoms of the studs, and those parts that aren't can, I believe, be moved. It looks like, apart from framing around the I-beam, we should be able to have a normal ceiling in ours and take advantage of the fact that that built the house with the same 8' ceiling they have upstairs down there too.

Plus, we plan to add a 4th bedroom in the basement as well, and who wants a manky old drop ceiling in their room?

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You can only have a bedroom in a basement if there is a means of escape other than the door, in the event that there is a fire that blocks the usual doorway/access.

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It'll have a window. Our basement is mostly above grade.