# Are basements required or just customary? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 23, 2005, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101 "2005-09-23T18:47:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/21 "2005-09-24T00:55:50Z")
Here in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the City zoning code **requires** basements, unless you substitute a insulated, heated, thick slab. Such a slab costs nearly as much as a basement, but provides no useful space. So builders go right ahead and provide the basement. It’s so culturally ingrained that most buyers wouldn’t even look at a house without a basement! “If they were _that cheap_ when building it, what else did they cut corners on?” In a climate with 120ºF swings in temperature over the year, the risk of additional maintenance will also scare people off. As will the increased heating cost. I just can’t imagine living in a house without a basement! ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/22 "2005-09-24T01:06:17Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Don’t have a basement at our house. Love the house. Hate not having a basement. > > Our lot, on the side of a mountain doesn’t lend itself to a basement. It could have been done, but would have been very very wet. > > A basement makes it much easier to work on a house. It gives you a place to run wiring and plumbing. > > I’m adding a 2 story 500 square foot addition to the side of the house. The main reason is to get the mechanical room out of the house, and the washer dryer out of the kitchen. > > I have a 10x12 shed. It’s mostly just a big tool box. Er, you don’t have houses on crawlspaces? I’d say houses here are maybe half and half - half crawlspace, half slab. I mean, sure, a crawlspace is harder to work in than a basement, but not if your basement would be below the water table! ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/23 "2005-09-24T01:29:31Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > It sort of weirds me out that all those people up North have basements. Like a room under your house, not your house but in the ground _under_ your house. And you have to go down a bunch of stairs to do the laundry? And this room under your house isn’t full of _water_? Crazy, just crazy. What do you need it for? Don’t you have a shed? > > Some newer houses here are built with “daylight basements”, but that just means you come in on the second floor and the lower floor is built partly into a hill. I don’t believe I’ve ever been in a building here with a true basement unless you count academic libraries, and I’m not entirely sure how they’re dry. Basements rock the cock. There’s nothing bad about a basement. Sure, some get a little wet, but if you build it right, it can stay pretty dry. Put in some insulation, or heat it a bit, and there you go. And a shed? A shed is for the lawnmower and rakes. The basement is for storage, tools, and a small woodshop. And not everyone does laundry there. Our washer and dryer were on the first floor in the laundry/mud room (please don’t tell me I have to explain a mud room to you people?) I wouldn’t dream of having a house without one, and now that I know many areas of the country don’t, there are on my list to never live there. My house had a basement, first floor, second floor, and attic. Only the first and second floor were liveable, though. We also had an unattached garage. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/24 "2005-09-24T02:05:29Z")
No, full basements are not required in Ontario, except under local zoning laws should a municipality wish to do so. Basements are very common. Crawl spaces are common. Slabs are not common, but do exist. Pilings are rare (our canoe club is presently erecting a building using pilings – not a home, though). Yes, prefab homes can be built in Ontario, provided they are up to code. That is unrelated to whether or not a home has a basement, provided there is a foundation of some sort. And then there about a decade back there were are a few folks living just to the north of Sudbury who started building their homes with basements but ran out of money, and ended up living in their basements for a few years (how they worked that out with the building inspector I don’t know). ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/25 "2005-09-24T02:13:15Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > . . . if your basement would be below the water table . . . As a child, I lived in a home that had a basement below the water table. It required a sump pump running 24/7. That was all well and fine until the occasional power outage, that would quickly lead to the basement filling up. Rub-a-dub-dub. It was a big adventure for my sister and me, but it sure frustrated my parents. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/26 "2005-09-24T02:21:02Z")
Basements are the bees knees for teenagers. Need a place for a garage band when the neighbours are complaining? Head for the basement. Need a place to party with your friends (or a private place to be with a particular friend)? Head for the basement. Need a place to crash when things are a too tense at home? Head for a friend’s basement. All in all, basements give kids a bit of living space of their own. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/27 "2005-09-24T02:34:01Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > . . . nobody is going to blast out a hole in the rock just to put in a basement . . . I had a home in Sudbury where a basement was blasted in. Most of the homes in the neighbourhood (Wembley/Kingsmount) had blasted in basements. What some folks won’t do to have a basement. 🙂 A few folks in neighbouring Lively had a bit of trouble for a couple of years in the mid-80s with their basements – occasionally the busy little miners below would pop a hole through a basement floor when drilling to put in rock bolts. ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/28 "2005-09-24T02:49:37Z")
I don’t know of one house – old or new – around my way that doesn’t have a basement. The only place where I’ve seen houses without basements are down South. There are a couple of houses in my immediate neighborhood that have _cellars_ rather than basements. The difference? A cellar has a dirt floor. Needless to say, the houses in question are more than 90 years old. Living in a house without a basement would weird me out. I echo what a lot of people have already said – without a basement, where would the washer/dryer go? The second fridge? The workbench? The oil burner? ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/29 "2005-09-24T03:00:55Z")
What’s an oil burner? Is that for heat? Our washers and dryers go in our laundry rooms. Or in the garage - I think maybe we build bigger garages than you do, which is funny because it doesn’t snow here or anything. My parents have a garage with a workroom, chest freezer, etc. in it and they still park both cars in there. Their washer and dryer go in the laundry room, without which life is sort of inconceivable. Some people in older homes have laundry porches, though. Also I think we all tend to have more lot, on average, than people in Northern cities. That might have something to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/30 "2005-09-24T04:06:29Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > Here in my little neighborhood in NE Ohio, which was built in the early 1960’s, most of the homes are ranches. Some of them are 2-stories. > > I haven’t been in ALL the homes in the neighborhood (there’s probably about 50) but I only know of 3 ranches with basements. One 2-story I know doesn’t have a basement. > > There’s a street of a dozen or so newer (80’s-90’s) 2-story houses in the neighborhood that DO all have basements. No basement in NE Ohio? Where did you cower when tornados came? I know that when I was raised in southern Michigan, we cowered in our basement every spring during tornado season. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/31 "2005-09-24T06:59:52Z")
Basements used to be pretty much a requirement here to give a house stability. Newer building techniques have made that unnecessary, but many developers still prefer them, and a great many people having a house built to order still request them, because it’s a relatively inexpensive way to increase the usable area of a house. Even if all you ever use it for is storage, that’s less storage space you have to have in the living areas of the home. **Zsofia,** the current trend in Norge appears to be to put the laundry room next to the kitchen or first-floor bathroom or powder room. Personally I think it should be on the second floor, with the bedrooms, where most dirty laundry starts and most clean laundry is headed - but eliminating one set of stairs is at least a big step in the right direction. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/32 "2005-09-24T13:30:02Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Er, you don’t have houses on crawlspaces? I’d say houses here are maybe half and half - half crawlspace, half slab. I mean, sure, a crawlspace is harder to work in than a basement, but not if your basement would be below the water table! Oh sure, we have crawl spaces around here. Or at least in Denver. Most houses in Denver are on full basements. My case is a little different. The house is built into the side of a hill. Mountain really. I have spent a lot of time and money just trying to keep that buried wall from leaking into the house. At one point, I had to rig up a hose to drain the water running in that wall through the living room and out the front door. The foundation was done very poorly. It has a cold seem in it. In that the concrete pour was stopped in the middle of the job. When we excavated to fix that problem, we found a concrete pump hose burried next to the house. It must have clogged during the first part of the pour. Hence the cold seem in the concrete. They had to come back and finish the job. With today’s tech. I’m pretty sure a basement would be do-able on this lot. When my house was built some 22 years ago, I don’t think there was a building department or building codes in this County. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/33 "2005-09-24T13:32:32Z")
> [@flodnak](#): > > **Zsofia,** the current trend in Norge appears to be to put the laundry room next to the kitchen or first-floor bathroom or powder room. Personally I think it should be on the second floor, with the bedrooms, where most dirty laundry starts and most clean laundry is headed - but eliminating one set of stairs is at least a big step in the right direction. I guess for us a one story house is a bigger luxury, a basement notwithstanding. But you have to have a bigger lot. Modern developers seem to offer nothing but mini-lots, so of course you have to build up. But given a half an acre, are you going to build 2000 ft^2 on one story or two? Two is cheaper, but one is better. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/34 "2005-09-24T14:58:39Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > What’s an oil burner? Is that for heat? > > Our washers and dryers go in our laundry rooms. Or in the garage - I think maybe we build bigger garages than you do, which is funny because it doesn’t snow here or anything. Garages, however, are either not climate controlled at all, or if they are they tend to be insanely bad for letting the heat out. If you live somewhere where it gets cold, a house with a basement is the only economical choice. > [@](#): > > Also I think we all tend to have more lot, on average, than people in Northern cities. That might have something to do with it. Absent some evidence to support it, there’s no reason to believe that’s true. And even if that were true, people in northern climes would tend not to have basements when they had big lots, but that’s not the case. ---
**Author:** ![StuffLikeThatThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@StuffLikeThatThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StuffLikeThatThere)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/35 "2005-09-24T15:14:17Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > No basement in NE Ohio? Where did you cower when tornados came? > I know that when I was raised in southern Michigan, we cowered in our basement every spring during tornado season. Thank you. I’ve lived most of my life in NE Ohio, and I would not consider building a house in this area without a basement. Tornados are very scary. Basements are very comforting. Besides, you have to have somewhere to send the kids (mine are as yet theoretical) on a rainy day, or they’ll drive you insane. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/36 "2005-09-24T17:15:31Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > Basements are the bees knees for teenagers. > > Need a place for a garage band when the neighbours are complaining? Head for the basement. > > Need a place to party with your friends (or a private place to be with a particular friend)? Head for the basement. > > Need a place to crash when things are a too tense at home? Head for a friend’s basement. > > All in all, basements give kids a bit of living space of their own. Basements also free the occupants of the house from an amazing amount of clutter. The washer and dryer usually go there, as do the furnace, tools, fitness equipment, and all sorts of odds and ends. Practically no houses built after WWII in California have basements. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/37 "2005-09-24T19:19:24Z")
Nobody’s going to tell me what an oil burner is? (That wasn’t a joke, I really don’t know.) ---
**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/38 "2005-09-24T21:29:46Z")
In areas of the U.S. which participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, the city/county/parish must NOT allow basements to be constructed within the Special Flood Hazard area. Meaning that, if you are proposing to build a house within the mapped floodplain, you will not be allowed to build a basement. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/39 "2005-09-24T22:20:19Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Nobody’s going to tell me what an oil burner is? (That wasn’t a joke, I really don’t know.) An oil-burning furnace, I presume. ---
**Author:** ![StuffLikeThatThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@StuffLikeThatThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StuffLikeThatThere)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/40 "2005-09-24T23:44:33Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > An oil-burning furnace, I presume. Yes, that’s correct. Sorry, **Zsofia** , didn’t mean to ignore you. > [@NinetyWt](#): > > In areas of the U.S. which participate in the National Flood Insurance Program, the city/county/parish must NOT allow basements to be constructed within the Special Flood Hazard area. Meaning that, if you are proposing to build a house within the mapped floodplain, you will not be allowed to build a basement. I don’t understand why anyone would build a house in a floodplain anyway, so this is not a detriment to my love of basements. However, I do understand that the people who build in floodplains can probably not understand why I continue to reside in a tornado-prone area. To each his own natural terror, man. 🆒 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101.md?page=3)