Choosing a house - How Big a Deal ls a Basement?

[usedtobe]

I was raised in a real house (1915) - still had the coal chute and one wall of the coal bin; furnace had gotten a gas burner.
It also had an old cistern (go ahead, I'll wait ).
I was raised to loathe slab construction as being beneath contempt - if you're too damn lazy to dig a real basement, at least have a crawl space (having one's furnace BELOW the living space makes TONS of sense).
Now, the surviving pre-WWII (when basements were the norm) are either in places I don't want to live, or are priced out of reach.

So Dopers:
Love/hate/yawn?

I suspect this is a guy thing - we still love our caves . The last time women had much use for such things, they were called "root cellars" (yea, go ahead...). Since the advent of factory-canned goods, the food storage angle is kinda moot.

and who the hell is the genius who decided to put the friggin' furnace in the ATTIC? Brilliant!

[fessie]

When my daughter and I both developed asthma, I started getting interested in home construction issues. If anyone in your family is sensitive to mold, you might be wise to avoid basements, they can really exacerbate allergies. Jeffrey Mays' book My House is Killing Me explains it better than I ever could.

Our house is built over a crawl space.
Our furnace has its own room.

[ParentalAdvisory]

I would say it ultimately depends on the square footage of the first level. If it's large enough, probably no big deal. If small, you may find your self overwhelmed with stuff you want to keep, but may not be willing to pay for storage. I'd get the basement myself for the utility space, and man cave reasons.

[dolphinboy]

In some part of the US having a basement to run to may be important, but on the west coast it's hard to find a basement anywhere. So unless I am living someplace where there are hurricanes or tornados... meh

[Spoons]

I'd say it depends on where you live. In areas that get cold winters, basements are a must--you don't get heaving from autumn frosts and spring thaws if you go down far enough and create a good foundation. I spent some time in a place here (Canada) that had no basement, and the floors weren't level, the windows and doors were out of true, etc. The only straight and solid thing was the stone fireplace. Which reminds me--if you live in such a climate, you need a place to put the furnace. A basement works well for that.

Needless to say, I like them.

[squeegee]

I grew up in Illinois, and every house had (and had to have -- see Spoons frost line comment above) a basement. Some home owners fixed them up into living space or such, some did not and it was a place for the furnace and storage. I moved to California, where basements are at best unusual in a home. I miss the option of buying a house with that extra space.

One potentially large drawback of a basement: if your basement is below the water line if there is a flood, or generally in a wet area where there is seepage into the foundation, you will have issues with either a) sealing the foundation so water will not run into the basement, or b) pumping water that seeps in out of the basement. Or both. It depends a in a huge way what your local soil/drainage is like.

Overall, if seepage is not a concern or is manageable -- basements are a great "found" space in a house for pretty much whatever you want to use them for.

[Cat Whisperer]

I would just assume a house has a basement. I don't think I'd buy a house without one.

[ASAKMOTSD]

Basements are really handy places when you hear tornado sirens around here.

[GingerOfTheNorth]

Originally Posted by featherlou

I would just assume a house has a basement.

I was exactly the same way until I moved away from the prairies - lots of places in Kingston, Ontario, didn't have basements due to their proximity to Lake Ontario. I was sort of shocked to see that.

I won't even consider a house without a basement. I'm close to the Chesapeake Bay, but far enough away that our neighbourhood has basements.

[kambuckta]

There's no such thing as a 'basement' in Australia. If yer' really lucky (and rich) you might get yourself an historic home with a wine-cellar. but that's about it really.

[Harmonious Discord]

I want a room to shelter from tornadoes. I'd prefer above ground for anything else.

If you don't have a basement you likely have to no place to shelter from a tornado. They can say take shelter as much as they want, but people can't lay in a ditch all night in a thunderstorm.

[Omniscient]

It's worth noting that in Illinois, at least the part where I grew up, basements were free from property taxes. As a result you essentially could double your square footage by finishing your basement without any change in your taxes. That detail was particularly good for resale value.

[Queen Tonya]

I grew up in a slab home, oh so envious of all my friends that had basements to play in.

I wound up buying a home with a crawlspace instead, and the furnace is on the first floor not under. Sometimes I'd sure like the extra space for storage, or to furnish as a family room but having seen basements in my neighborhood flood over and over again, I don't regret my decision.

[Student Driver]

Originally Posted by Harmonious Discord

I want a room to shelter from tornadoes. I'd prefer above ground for anything else.

If you don't have a basement you likely have to no place to shelter from a tornado. They can say take shelter as much as they want, but people can't lay in a ditch all night in a thunderstorm.

Tornado protection is the big one for me. When my ex-g/f and I were house-shopping, she asked me why I kept insisting on having a basement (I had been saying a basement would be the ideal place to put my stupid-guy-stuff like arcade games). She was from Pennsylvania and hadn't yet gone through a tornado season. After that spring, she was on my side.

So, tornado protection first and foremost. Beyond that, I prefer basements (with a raised floor, sump pump, and a dehumidifier) to keep my "collections." Books and arcade games are heavy-- my library actually damaged the floor of an apartment I used to live in-- and I have plenty of both. Into the basement they go. The games are less of an eyesore down there, and the book stacks won't sag the floors.

[NinetyWt]

Originally Posted by featherlou

I would just assume a house has a basement. I don't think I'd buy a house without one.

You'd be hard pressed to find one here *with* a basement. If you don't have a slab house, you have a "conventional foundation" which is the crawlspace mentioned above. Some of the older houses in hill country have what they call a "walkout basement" but that's not a true basement.

I've managed to live here almost fifty years with no basement. If you've never had one you wouldn't miss it.

We have one furnace in a closet and one over the master bedroom.

[Mahna Mahna]

Originally Posted by GingerOfTheNorth

I was exactly the same way until I moved away from the prairies - lots of places in Kingston, Ontario, didn't have basements due to their proximity to Lake Ontario. I was sort of shocked to see that.

Weeeeeird. My sister's house in Kingston has a basement, but I didn't realise that was the exception rather than the rule. Travel 3 hrs west to Toronto and a house without a basement is pretty much unthinkable.

We love our basement. We lucked out in that 80% of it is fully finished, with the exception of the furnace/laundry room - we even have a half-bathroom and a room with a door, so that area doubles as a guest suite so that our overnight guests can have a little privacy when they come to visit.

I'm seriously considering excavating the crawlspace under the porch to make a cold room too, because I'm old school like that.

[DeadlyAccurate]

I've never even seen a basement. Houses around here are definitely not built with them by default. It's possible they're not even allowed to build them.

[XJETGIRLX]

Unless you want an indoor swimming pool downstairs, a basement in Florida isn't really the greatest idea

[Zsofia]

I've never seen a basement either. I've never lived anywhere where the water table wasn't too high for a basement. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I had one. Probably fill it up with crap.

[Solfy]

In western Pennsylvania, most houses have basements. When my cousin relocated to Atlanta (like half of the rest of western PA) they built new on slab. Two years later the lack of basement was driving them nuts as they had a lack of storage space. Property values in the area had increased such that they were able to build new again, and the new house has a basement.

I grew up in a house with a basement so wet that it was suitable only for storing plastic things that wouldn't rust and you could wash the mold off of. Mushrooms grew in the floor. We had a huge walk-up attic for storage instead. As long as I have some dry, easily accesalbe storage space somewhere, basements don't really interest me.

My husband, however, is obsessed with the concept of a fixed up basement. The dry, half above grade, partially finished walk-out basement of our current house was a real selling point for him. The house he grew up in was small, and the basement was his "play" space, so he's comfortable down there.
Blah.

[ZipperJJ]

I grew up in a slab ranch in Ohio. Only about half my friends had basements, and I can't think of any that were "finished." I don't have any fond memories of playing in basements.

I bought a house in the neighborhood that I grew up in, a house WITH a basement. To be honest, I am not a huge fan of it. I've already spent a bunch of money to keep it dry and am still pretty paranoid about water. It's just cold and depressing down there. I don't have that much stuff, so other than my washer, dryer and doggy bathtub everything stored down there is other people's stuff.

If I ever want to enjoy the space, I have to put a ton of money to make it livable. It doesn't have a bathroom or even proper electrical outlets (aside from the one for the laundry area).

I think basements are over-rated.

[LurkMeister]

The house I just bought has a "crawlspace basement". The property is so sloped that the front of the house is just a few feet off the ground but in the back there's a door at ground level that opens into a walk-in basement. About 10-12 feet of the basement has a concrete floor and the rest of the space under the house is bare earth (covered with plastic) with the furnace about halfway up the slope. Someday I might close off the floored area and turn it into a workshop.

[Malthus]

Basements are great. They are the perfect place for your furnace, water-heater, washing machines, long-term storage, etc. etc. when you live in an urban environment with a lot of houses packed close together.

[GingerOfTheNorth]

Originally Posted by Mahna Mahna

Weeeeeird. My sister's house in Kingston has a basement, but I didn't realise that was the exception rather than the rule.

Only 20% of the houses on the military base have basements. We were given storage sheds in the back in lieu of basement, because most people had come from areas of the country where basements are the norm.

[chappachula]

may I add a GQ question to this thread?:
What's a crawlspace for?

Basements --I can understand.**
But a crawlspace? Huh? What's the point?


**(but I don't really like 'em. They're often cold, dirty, ugly, depressing places with a noisy sump pump, full of spiders and icky stuff. Unpleasant places. Sure you can pay a lot of money to turn it into a kid's playroom or extra space to mount deer antlers on the wall, but why do it underground? )

[Sunspace]

Basements seem to be chosen, or not, based on local climate and water conditions.

Basements are the norm in the Greater Toronto Area and Southern Ontario. Yet even here, many "cottages" don't have them. Technically, cottages are buildings not intended for year-round habitation, which means that they don't have the proper adaptations for winter use: good insulation, good heating systems, double doors and windows, water pipes located in inside walls so as not to freeze, etc.

I know someone who lived in a former cottage that had been winterized in Keswick, one of the old beach town on Lake Simcoe north of Toronto, and their place had no basement. It had a crawlspace. My friend had to go down there once and came out covered in spiders.

I'll take a slab before a crawlspace. (Many commercial buildings are built slab-on-grade here, though.)

[masterofnone]

If the ground freezes where you live, a basement is a must unless you're in a floodplain, for the reasons Spoons noted.

If a basement is built by a competent builder, there's no reason anyone has to feel they are dark, damp, cold, spider-infested, etc. The only difference is that there are no windows, or the windows are up by the ceiling.

chappachula - crawlspaces are to hide all of the mechanical stuff that belongs in the basement. That way instead of walking up to your furnace/water heater/etc to fix it in a well lit room, you get to low crawl across a dirty, cold, spider infested concrete slab to do so in the dark. Good times.

[Nikki Tikki Tavi]

I love basements so much that I have TWO. When the previous owners built a two story addition on to the back of my house they dug underneath it and expanded the basement. There's a big main room with the laundry stuff, some workbenchs, and a toilet, then under the addition there are two more rooms. Neither one has a light fixture, and one of them has a very mysterious dark splatter on the wall. Weird.


I believe we told our buyer's agent that we wanted a either a basement or an attic when we were looking at houses. Lucky us, we got both!

[Cat Whisperer]

Most basements do have windows, though. They are part of the house here, no doubt about it. Another factor is the lack of air conditioning in most of the Prairies - for the month of the year that it would be nice, most people don't bother with it. A lot of people, however, spend their summers in their basement where it stays cool year round. It is quite common to have a media room, bathroom, and extra bedroom down there. Those of you who think basements are icky places just haven't seen them done right.

[Zsofia]

Originally Posted by masterofnone

chappachula - crawlspaces are to hide all of the mechanical stuff that belongs in the basement. That way instead of walking up to your furnace/water heater/etc to fix it in a well lit room, you get to low crawl across a dirty, cold, spider infested concrete slab to do so in the dark. Good times.

Down here we put a lot of that outside. The advantage of a crawlspace in an area where you can't have a basement is that if something goes wrong with a major thing that's under the house you can actually fix it if you have a crawlspace.

[AuntiePam]

Basements are common here. My cousin's house didn't have one, so they dug out the crawlspace and made one. They actually dug it themselves -- buckets of dirt passed out a small window. When finished, it was split level. They put a pool table in the lower section, and the higher level was a family room with a foldout couch, TV, bookshelves, etc. The laundry and furnace were in the basement, and a toilet and shower.

Our basement is partly finished -- it even has a small kitchen and a half bath. The other section is a workshop, and where we keep the catboxes. The house is a hundred years old and the bedroom closets are small, so the extra storage space is appreciated.

I could live in this area without a basement, if some other (comfortable) storm shelter was close by, but I wouldn't like it.

[Max Torque]

Basements are not common where I live (Texas panhandle), although I have no idea why. If I had to guess, I'd say that omitting the basement keeps construction costs low. That's not to say that homes with basements don't exist, but those that do have basements tend to be larger and more expensive homes that use the basement for media rooms and the like. "Unfinished" basements are definitely not the norm.

Water heaters go in the garage, and winters are sufficiently mild that we don't need "furnaces", so there's no need to put any such equipment in the basement; the outdoor heat pump unit is sufficient. I'm guessing that one reason for having a basement and putting a furnace in it is to prevent frozen pipes, correct? Even on slab foundations, it just doesn't get cold enough here to have much of a problem in that area.

Another factor in this area might be space; we have tons of it. So, you can spread things out horizontally over a larger lot and have a good-sized home, whereas in other parts of the country you have to go vertical.

Not once have I seen a house with a crawlspace in my city. They may exist, but I haven't seen 'em. We did have a crawlspace in the house I grew up in, though, in New Mexico. Which reminds me: while we were living there, my parents dug out an area next to our house, created a new entryway down to it, and made a sort of downstairs rec room, plus another bedroom for my brother. It wasn't under the house, so I'm not sure that it qualified as a "basement", which may have been the problem. Anyway, in many ways it was kind of a nightmare. It got really cold down there in the winter, and the only heat was provided by a woodstove. I have no problem with woodstoves, but the smoke wouldn't draw well until the chimney warmed up, so you'd basically start the fire and clear out for an hour or more while the smoke cleared (took forever, since there really wasn't anywhere for it to vent from the room). And the roof leaked something fierce, despite multiple attempts to seal it; the pool table had to be covered religiously, because the cover would often have little puddles on it from dripping water. So, my early experiences with underground rooms have not been very positive. Still, I'm not opposed; I'd love one of those media rooms I see every year at the Parade of Homes.

[delphica]

I was also raised in a house with a basement, and always imagined buying a house with a basement.

Of course, as these things go, we ended up with a house that doesn't have a basement. Now I love it, we never have to deal with the annual flooding that I remember from childhood (and I see our neighbors struggling with this every year). And we have a storage shed in the back to keep things that most people keep in basements.

[Bridget Burke]

There are very few basements in Houston.

Here on the Coastal Prairie, within reach of tropical weather, floods are all too common. I think 2001's Tropical Storm Allison caused more damage to the city than Hurricane Ike. (Not so for Galveston & other nearby areas within reach of storm surge. They're still in bad shape.)

And our mild winters don't demand heavy duty furnaces. One of the more exotic scenes in most This Old House series is Richard's trip down to the basement, to explain why the giant monstrosity of a furnace has to go.

[Baal Houtham]

Mixed emotions here, because our basement walls leak in heavy rain or when the gutters overflow. But other than that little drawback...

A basement makes wiring a lot easier.
If I need multi-room speakers,
or TV cables in multiple rooms,
or new electrical outlets,
or new phone outlets,
or hardwired ethernet,
the basement makes it pretty easy.

I've run wiring through the attic and it's not as much fun.

My house is fairly small, and the basement holds the main bookshelves, the furnace, the washer/dryer, the holiday decorations, a pingpong table, an art room, a dartboard, a photo studio (with a low ceiling), an emergency restroom, the sewing table, the ironing board, our luggage, the archived clothing.

And a dehumidifier to make it all usable.

The outdoor potted plants winter in the basement, as well.

So, yeah, overall a thumbs up on basements.

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by XJETGIRLX

Unless you want an indoor swimming pool downstairs, a basement in Florida isn't really the greatest idea

Or in Louisiana. Our house there didn't have one. Our house in California doesn't either - no houses I know of here do.

The house I grew up in in NY did, and the house we had in NJ, where it was standard. It had a sump pump which worked. Before we closed we made sure to drop in right after a big rainstorm.

My workbench is in the garage, not the basement, as is the junk we stored there. Finished basements give you some more bonus living space, but either way is fine with me.

[Tastes of Chocolate]

Tornado shelter, furnace/water heater room, cool in the summer, warm in the winter, stable foundation below the frost level, extra storage, and still space for a media room (where a lack of big windows isn't a problem).

As for flooding, I've had to deal with more roof leaks then basement leaks.

[kathmandu]

Originally Posted by featherlou

Most basements do have windows, though. They are part of the house here, no doubt about it. Another factor is the lack of air conditioning in most of the Prairies - for the month of the year that it would be nice, most people don't bother with it. A lot of people, however, spend their summers in their basement where it stays cool year round. It is quite common to have a media room, bathroom, and extra bedroom down there. Those of you who think basements are icky places just haven't seen them done right.

I agree with all of this. We just finished our unfinished basement last year and essentially doubled our living space - two extra bedrooms, a full bath with steam shower, and a giant media room/playroom/office with a 60 inch plasma TV and surround sound. It's great for guests - they get their own room with bathroom, and great for the kids, because they can play with their toys to their hearts' content and I don't need to worry about constantly tidying our upstairs. It's not "basementy" at all - the windows in the bedrooms are dug down below grade so there's lots of light, and the ceilings are standard height. It was worth every penny we spent on it.

[Caffeine.addict]

I don't have a basement now and I really wish that I did just to hold the furnace and the laundry and to have storage for stuff like boxes, luggage and tools.

[HeyHomie]

It would depend almost entirely on a) the square footage of the house above the ground, and b) the presence or absence of a garage (and the storage space within). I gots to have my storage space.

No garage + small square footage + no basement = dealbreaker.

[Anne Neville]

Originally Posted by chappachula

Sure you can pay a lot of money to turn it into a kid's playroom or extra space to mount deer antlers on the wall, but why do it underground?

Because it's cheaper and less disruptive to living in the house than building an addition would be.

Originally Posted by Harmonious Discord

If you don't have a basement you likely have to no place to shelter from a tornado. They can say take shelter as much as they want, but people can't lay in a ditch all night in a thunderstorm.

If you don't have a basement, you should go to an interior room with no windows, or a bathroom (the pipes reinforce the walls somewhat), on the lowest floor of your house. You shouldn't leave the house- it's almost always worse to be outside than inside in a tornado.

[NinetyWt]

Originally Posted by AuntiePam

Basements are common here. My cousin's house didn't have one, so they dug out the crawlspace and made one. They actually dug it themselves -- buckets of dirt passed out a small window.

How did they deal with the foundation walls? Wouldn't this have dug down lower than the footings?

[Harmonious Discord]

Originally Posted by Anne Neville

If you don't have a basement, you should go to an interior room with no windows, or a bathroom (the pipes reinforce the walls somewhat), on the lowest floor of your house. You shouldn't leave the house- it's almost always worse to be outside than inside in a tornado.

Which still is not adequate shelter when tornadoes are about.

[Zsofia]

Believe it or not, the majority of humanity doesn't live in a place where there are ever tornadoes.

[Czarcasm]

Moving thread from IMHO to The Barn House.

[Waenara]

I don't think I'd ever want to buy a house without a basement, but I'm from Alberta and I'm just used to them.

I currently rent a basement suite - about 500 square feet of living room/kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. It's definitely nice in July/August when it gets more hot and humid. It's finished really nice so it doesn't feel too much like a basement (other than the small windows). I have nice ceramic tile flooring through my entire suite, and it's heated by an in-floor hot water system, which is nice and warm in the winter.

[Renee]

We did have a crawlspace in the house I grew up in, though, in New Mexico. Which reminds me: while we were living there, my parents dug out an area next to our house, created a new entryway down to it, and made a sort of downstairs rec room, plus another bedroom for my brother. It wasn't under the house, so I'm not sure that it qualified as a "basement", which may have been the problem. Anyway, in many ways it was kind of a nightmare. It got really cold down there in the winter, and the only heat was provided by a woodstove. I have no problem with woodstoves, but the smoke wouldn't draw well until the chimney warmed up, so you'd basically start the fire and clear out for an hour or more while the smoke cleared (took forever, since there really wasn't anywhere for it to vent from the room). And the roof leaked something fierce, despite multiple attempts to seal it; the pool table had to be covered religiously, because the cover would often have little puddles on it from dripping water. So, my early experiences with underground rooms have not been very positive.

What were they thinking? Really, I don't get it. Why dig a hole in the ground to create a detached living area? I can't imagine the reasoning here.

As for the OP, I come from an area (Arkansas) where basements are rare due to water table issues and lack of need. Heat pumps work fine for heating, and it would cost the same to just build a larger house as to construct a basement, so why put that extra space underground? I'd much rather have my laundry upstairs than down--in the house we're building in a couple of years we plan to have laundry facilities in the master bedroom closet--why drag laundry baskets up and down stairs?

As for the advantages of crawl space: In a slab foundation, your pipes, etc are burried in concrete. This makes it difficult to fix them when they break. It also limits your flooring choices (you can't install hardwood directly on a slab) and walking on concrete is much less comfortable than walking on a raised wood platform.

[elfkin477]

There was a tornado this summer, and it was huge news. I think there have been two noteworthy tornadoes my entire life. Yet most houses have cellars (we do use the term basement too, but usually that refers to a finished living area). I've only lived in one building, a two-story apartment, built on a slab and it was constantly damp and awful. The rest of the houses and apartment buildings I've lived in have had cellars, so I would be very surprised to see a home for sale without one.

[usedtobe]

Guys, what's not to love? Me want WANT!

http://mlsmedia.metrolistmls.com/big...0043561_11.jpg

[Cat Whisperer]

Flooding in basements can be a problem here, too. We got lucky with our house - basement stayed dry as bone through some of the worst spring flooding in ages here. There are neighbourhoods here that are built on filled-in swamps; as you can guess, I'd be putting all my stuff on shelves in a basement in *those* areas. There are others very close to the rivers; yup, they flood sometimes. It's something I'll be looking at when we look at new houses next year.