The "raised ranch" style always has a finished basement, but it is kind of half and half -- not totally underground, with some windows. As I posted earlier, every house I have had in CT has had a basement living space that was part of the original design of the house, not the product of reclaiming a wasted utility/storage space.

That's exactly how ours is - the 'raised ranch' style. Main living area on one (the upper) floor, but a fully usable windowed basement on the lower, a big chunk of which is taken up by the garage, however.

Pretty decent I'd say....though you'd probably want a decent sum pump tucked away in the thing.

So why do houses in Anchorage not have them then?

But on the other hand, about 40% of houses in Fairbanks appear to have them.

That just seems completely random. It just seems to be a function of local custom.

That is one of the factors I listed.

Without knowing anything about the depth of the subsoil over the bedrock, or the depth of the water table In Anchorage I have no idea why houses in Anchorage don't have basements.

So, if you don't have a basement, where does it go to put the lotion on it's skin?

I just saw your question about water proofing. That was a big issue with me and I went with two stand alone methods. I used Dryloc and tar over block, then covered with a 24 mil plastic membrane called Platon. Another important point was to back fill with gravel and not dirt. The gravel will not hold water against the wall. I also placed a French drain on both sides of the footer.

I think around here a lot of it is to do with tornadoes. Without a basement, you'd have nowhere to take cover if one is in the area.

That, of course, is 100% anecdotal and not even slightly scientific. Merely thinking out loud.

So intuitively you'd expect basements to be common in west Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, ........ when in fact homes there are almost always built on a slab foundation. The reason is apparently a combined problem of high water table and high bedrock.

And made out of sticks. Which also confuses me.

Oi, Statto, you did read my disclaimer, didn't you ... ?

I disagreed originally with what you said in post #16, which did not mention that, and you then put it in as a bit of a throwaway.

I reckon it's done mainly out of custom. Unless someone has got some other information.

Which I think is the main reason why houses in Canada appear to have basements more frequently, it's not the weather, the frost or anything else, Canadians just expect to have a basement.

You can build a house with or without a basement pretty much anywhere (on land), the only limitation I can think of is if dry ground doesn't go down far enough and even then you could set up pumps. Conversely there are ways of dealing with frozen ground and utilities without having a basement. If 60% of houses in Fairbanks don't have them, that's clearly the case.

28 WINZE PLACE, Whitehorse, Yukon  Y1A0A9 - 9683 | Realtor.ca - basement.

Down the street: 24 HAYES CRESCENT, Whitehorse, Yukon  Y1A0E1 - 9834 | Realtor.ca - no basement.

This house in Tampa appears to have a walkout basement: 31111 Ashley Pines Pl, Wesley Chapel, FL 33543 - Home For Sale and Real Estate Listing - realtor.com®

And here's a house in Sarasota with a basement! 4431 Ascot Cir S, Sarasota, FL 34235 - Home For Sale and Real Estate Listing - realtor.com®

Somewhere in Hawaii: 98-1862 Nahele St, Aiea, HI 96701 - Home For Sale and Real Estate Listing - realtor.com®

Yes it's not intuitive, which is why I asked the question in the first place, it makes the point there that you could put in basements, it's just harder because the ground is harder or wetter. And bear in mind that does say new homes in 2005 - like I said my friend in Austin has a basement in his 1950s house.

Mountain is listed as the area which is closest to 50/50 and Pacific has hardly any basements, which is probably why I noticed it because in Canada they do have basements, across the border they don't.

If you Google "percentage of basements by state" almost all the hits on the first page site code/climate necessitated depth of foundations leading to a low incremental cost of completing a basement. Which is what I said at the outset, but that wasn't good enough for you.

Even by the standards of BE this has been a singularly pointless thread/discussion, becuase the reasons are well researched and documented, and really not debatable.

I'm done.

That's literally just down the road from my wife's place - I would be very surprised if that house has a basement (there's certainly no pictorial evidence of one), everything round here is built on concrete pads on banked up earth to keep stuff above the water table. The Benderson Park that is mentioned is a very fine rowing venue on a huge manmade lake recently created when soil was removed for the huge new mall to be built on. The water table may be as deep as 2 feet below the surface in most places here, but I wouldn't count on it being that deep!