Is it possible a house built in 1950 would have dirt under the floor (on the first floor)? Let’s assume the basement (if there is one) does not go under this part of the house claimed to have a dirt floor. Is it possible they did not always lay a cement pad (or, plywood maybe)? If it helps, this house is a single family home (of 850 sqft) somewhere out in the countryside. It’s highly likely it was on a farm, but not the main farm house I’d wager.
I doubt it. I would expect there would be a crawlspace a couple feet deep or so.
Sure it is. But the part of the floor you would be standing on would be raised above the earth by a post-and-pier support system. A roughly trapezoidal concrete block about eight inches tall (and ten inches square at the bottom) would hold a 4x4 or so post which supports all the rest of the floor, and perhaps even the perimeter walls.
Now, if you mean would the wood (or whatever) floor be resting directly on the ground; answer no. Builders knew thousands of years ago that wood rots when in contact with earth. So raise it up a bit.
PastTense expressed it in conventional terms.
In California, it’s practically guaranteed that they didn’t lay a solid concrete pad to build the house on, just the trapezoidal blocks sitting on top of cement pillars sunk into the ground, with the framework of the house built up from that. On the other hand, here in St. Paul, it’s practically guaranteed that they DID dig a full basement (and line it with concrete).
Whereabouts are you?
There are 1950s houses around here that were built directly on the concrete slab. A friend of mine discovered that when her sewer line collapsed and the plumber had to literally jackhammer through her floor to fix it.
But directly on bare earth (or maybe bare earth with a membrane)? Not in these parts. My mother grew up in a 1920s Ozarks farm house without indoor plumbing, and even it was on post-and-pier.
Slab-on-grade construction was very common for mid-century modern homes, especially so-called prefab or low income housing. I grew up in one.
Slab foundations are still pretty common in the south. I’m not a fan.
I think what the OP is talking about is a crawl space, which is also quite common and a perfectly fine way to build a house. Some of the ones in older homes especially don’t give you much room to crawl, though, which is a pain when you need to get under there to fix something. We were recently working under my sister’s 1950s house, and had about 12" of clearance. Sucked.
In a lot of the country, the water table is too high to do a basement, and no one is going to pay to pour a slab under a house that will be sitting off the ground.
Thanks, all. I am sorry for the slow reply. I can’t get back to check in to the SD as often as I would like.
The stumps only really have to be tall enough to support the bearers that support the floor. And I’ve been in a house that had settled enough that the bearers were now lying directly on the dirt. At which point it was time to replace the floor.
remove floor,excavate to down to around the stumps level , repair other issues with stumps and bearers, and then install floor…