# 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:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/41 "2005-09-24T23:46:46Z")
In Norfolk, Nebraska (at least the last time I was there) there’s more than one house that’s _only_ a basement. There’s a flat roof except for the stairway coming up to the entrance door above ground. I assume they ran out of money after they got the foundation/basement built. Or maybe their would be hobbits but could only afford a lot in the flats. ---
**Author:** ![kiz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7feea3/32.png) [@kiz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kiz)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/42 "2005-09-25T02:36:41Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Nobody’s going to tell me what an oil burner is? (That wasn’t a joke, I really don’t know.) Whoops, a couple of other people answered before I could return here. Oil burner = oil-burning furnace. Oil is the major heating fuel in my neck of the woods. Oil’s also the reason why we’re hanging on tenterhooks as to how much the price is going to rise (thanks Katrina) come winter. If your house uses oil, no doubt you also have an oil tank lurking somewhere in the basement – usually an elongated black oval monstrous thing on legs that with a gauge attached to its top. In older houses the tank may lie on its side in a crawl space. In really old houses the tank may be outside. …come to think of it, Zsofia (and please excuse the ignorance), what sort of heat, if any, do you use down your way? I know it can sometimes get cold, albeit not as cold as up here, but nevertheless…brrr… ---
**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 25, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/43 "2005-09-25T02:46:11Z")
> [@zagloba](#): > > I assume they ran out of money after they got the foundation/basement built. Not necessarily. Sometimes houses are built completely underground because of the great savings on heating/cooling costs over the lifetime of the house. The University of Minnesota has a Civil Engineering building (built in 1983), the main school bookstore underground, and the state’s major archival library completely underground, built into the side of a ravine overlooking the Mississippi River. See [http://www.pci.org/pdf/journal/library.pdf](http://www.pci.org/pdf/journal/library.pdf) (pdf) for details. ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2005, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/44 "2005-09-25T03:18:06Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Not necessarily. > > Sometimes houses are built completely underground because of the great savings on heating/cooling costs over the lifetime of the house. > > The University of Minnesota has a Civil Engineering building (built in 1983), the main school bookstore underground, and the state’s major archival library completely underground, built into the side of a ravine overlooking the Mississippi River. See [http://www.pci.org/pdf/journal/library.pdf](http://www.pci.org/pdf/journal/library.pdf) (pdf) for details. Possibly. But these houses have been there since the mid 60s. They’re designed exactly like the basements of the other houses in the neighborhood; they extend about 2.5’ above grade on level lots. I suppose the energy costs may be somewhat less than the same square footage above ground (though their design seems to offer less opportunity for insulation). However, these homes are clearly not desireable residences according to the many people I know in the community and judging by the neighborhoods in which they are found. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/45 "2005-09-26T14:19:26Z")
> [@kiz](#): > > Whoops, a couple of other people answered before I could return here. Oil burner = oil-burning furnace. Oil is the major heating fuel in my neck of the woods. Oil’s also the reason why we’re hanging on tenterhooks as to how much the price is going to rise (thanks Katrina) come winter. > > If your house uses oil, no doubt you also have an oil tank lurking somewhere in the basement – usually an elongated black oval monstrous thing on legs that with a gauge attached to its top. In older houses the tank may lie on its side in a crawl space. In really old houses the tank may be outside. > > …come to think of it, Zsofia (and please excuse the ignorance), what sort of heat, if any, do you use down your way? I know it can sometimes get cold, albeit not as cold as up here, but nevertheless…brrr… I’ve got a gas pac, which is a gas furnace and electrical air conditioning as I understand it. Some people have heat pumps, all electrical. I’ve never in my life heard of oil heating - how do you get the oil? Does it come in a pipe from the city? I’m guessing no, is this a rural thing? Do people in cities have gas furnaces like us? I don’t know what kind of furnaces we used to have around here, but in old homes (like the one I just bought) there’s always a little hallway in the middle of the house that has or used to have (meaning there’s a sheet of plywood under the carpet somewhere or somebody really put the money into fixing the floor) a floor furnace with a grate that sucks to walk on. I always sort of assumed these were coal-burning, but now I guess maybe they could have been oil? I just never put very much thought into it. I’ll have to call my Yankee relatives and ask them what kind of heat they have! Always just sort of assumed we all had the same heating options. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/46 "2005-09-26T15:17:16Z")
> [@CBCD](#): > > I live in New Jersey, in Monmouth County, not far from the ocean. > > As far as I know, everyone around here has a basement, even if it was just for the coal chute. Having a slightly damp basement is not a big deal. > > My basement is big - so big that it has a front and a back stairway. I’m in Monmouth also. My Parents had a Basement with 2 extra BR, a playroom and a large workshop/storage area. Laws changed and the BR are no longer legal BR so get advertised as Dens/office space. This was in Northern Tinton Falls. My first house was only a crawl space and I hated it. This was in Howell. My current house was bought with the Basement being a mandatory part of the house. We ended up with a long ranch with a huge basement. I love it and have been abating the seepage/dampness problem over the 3+ years we’ve been here. We’re in Southern Holmdel, very close to where I grew up. The basement is has my workshop, my den, 2 large storage areas and a space for a full size pool table with no spots where the cue hits the wall. I even have both internal steps and walkout storm doors. I couldn’t stand not having one. Most new houses seem to be slabs now. ---
**Author:** ![Waenara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/50afbb/32.png) [@Waenara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waenara)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/47 "2005-09-26T15:26:39Z")
Another supporter of basements checking in from the North. (Well, relatively north - Edmonton, Alberta). I think I’ve _maybe_ been in one house here that doesn’t have a basement. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t have a basement if flooding isn’t a concern (we have a sump pump, but we almost never have to use it). Upthread someone mentioned that in New Jersey a basement cannot be habitable (no kitchen, no suite, etc…). The basement in my house is probably 30-40% of the habitable space in our house - spacious laundry room (not just a washer/dryer in a closet), exercise room (bike, treadmill and weights), a home office, extra bathroom, den/extra living room, and kitchen with extra fridge and full fridge-sized freezer. Not to mention the crawl space that’s probably 300-400 square feet (great storage space). Before we moved there the house was a rental property with a tenant on the main floor, and another in the basement suite. In general, rental basement suites are fairly common in Alberta. ---
**Author:** ![Scruloose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Scruloose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruloose)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/48 "2005-09-26T15:59:57Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I’ve got a gas pac, which is a gas furnace and electrical air conditioning as I understand it. Some people have heat pumps, all electrical. I’ve never in my life heard of oil heating - how do you get the oil? Does it come in a pipe from the city? I’m guessing no, is this a rural thing? Do people in cities have gas furnaces like us? You get the oil from trucks that visit your house. Specifically, the oil tank (generally 250gal I believe) will have a fill pipe extending to the outside of the house somewhere. The truck drives up, runs the hose to the pipe and fills her up. How you arrange that oil sometimes varies. You can enter into a contract with a company that will track your consumption and fill you up automatically, or you can shop around for the best price, and call a company everytime you need oil. In the US Northeast, dependency on home heating oil is the norm. I spent 3 years on a small ice-breaking tug and our primary mission in winter was keeping waterways open that ships and tugs used to transport home heating oil. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/49 "2005-09-26T16:13:46Z")
I lived in Kansas as a young child, and I seem to remember adults talking about some kind of law regarding basements–that new construction had to have them, or that they had to have windows (to make living in them nicer, after your house gets blown away?) or something. Does anybody know what I’m talking about? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/50 "2005-09-26T16:22:48Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > Another supporter of basements checking in from the North. (Well, relatively north - Edmonton, Alberta). > > I think I’ve _maybe_ been in one house here that doesn’t have a basement. I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t have a basement if flooding isn’t a concern (we have a sump pump, but we almost never have to use it). > > Upthread someone mentioned that in New Jersey a basement cannot be habitable (no kitchen, no suite, etc…). The basement in my house is probably 30-40% of the habitable space in our house - spacious laundry room (not just a washer/dryer in a closet), exercise room (bike, treadmill and weights), a home office, extra bathroom, den/extra living room, and kitchen with extra fridge and full fridge-sized freezer. Not to mention the crawl space that’s probably 300-400 square feet (great storage space). > > Before we moved there the house was a rental property with a tenant on the main floor, and another in the basement suite. In general, rental basement suites are fairly common in Alberta. In Jersey the Basement just cannot include Bed Rooms or Kitchens. It can have dens, offices, workshops, laundry rooms and everything else. They can even be BR if there is an easy fire escape route and the Sheet rock has to be fire rated to a level I am not sure of. NJ also apparently has a high level of Radon and that is a good reason to pass on Basement sleeping areas. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/51 "2005-09-26T16:26:45Z")
> [@Scruloose](#): > > You get the oil from trucks that visit your house. > > Specifically, the oil tank (generally 250gal I believe) will have a fill pipe extending to the outside of the house somewhere. The truck drives up, runs the hose to the pipe and fills her up. > > How you arrange that oil sometimes varies. You can enter into a contract with a company that will track your consumption and fill you up automatically, or you can shop around for the best price, and call a company everytime you need oil. > > In the US Northeast, dependency on home heating oil is the norm. I spent 3 years on a small ice-breaking tug and our primary mission in winter was keeping waterways open that ships and tugs used to transport home heating oil. I had no idea! So even in the cities, a truck drives up and pumps oil into your house? It’s not common to heat the house on something there’s a city line for? ---
**Author:** ![Scruloose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Scruloose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruloose)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/52 "2005-09-26T17:01:39Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I had no idea! So even in the cities, a truck drives up and pumps oil into your house? It’s not common to heat the house on something there’s a city line for? I had no idea either. I lived in Pittsburgh, Chicago and Two Rivers Wisconsin, and I’d never heard of heating by oil until I got to Maine. I’m in rural Maine and heating oil is the standard. How many homes are heated by other means? I have no idea, but I’ll bet the number is very small. As far as the cities go, well the biggest city is Portland, and Portland is downright rural compared to most big US cities, so I’d bet that the majority of homes within the city limits use oil as well. According to the 2000 census: > [@](#): > > The 2000 U.S. Census found only about 6 percent of Maine homes heat primarily with wood. Seventy percent of Maine households use oil as their primary heating source, with 10 percent using kerosene, 5 percent using propane, 5 percent using natural gas and 4 percent using electric heat. We are bracing for a brutal winter this year with regards to oil prices. We locked in a few weeks ago at about $2 a gallon. I really miss having a wood stove, and if I had the room in my current house, I’d be putting one in right now. Some interesting articles: [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002488555\_oil12.html](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002488555_oil12.html) [http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050908/SPNEWS01/109070182](http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050908/SPNEWS01/109070182) ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/53 "2005-09-26T20:14:21Z")
Wow. I love it when ignorance I didn’t even know I had gets fought. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/54 "2005-09-26T20:27:33Z")
I’m originally from Texas and now live in New England. None of my relatives’ houses back in Texas have basements. All of the houses were built directly on a concrete slab. Heat (and A/C) are generally provided by electric heat pumps. Here is New England, all of the houses I’ve lived in had basements (except for Navy housing in Rhode Island, which was built on a slab). Most heat in New England is provided by oil-fired furnaces located in the basement, along with the typical 275-gallon heating oil tank also located in the basement. If natural gas is locally available, that is often used instead of oil. If natural gas is not available, many newer homes being built these days in New England are using propane for heat and hot water. My new home I just built in Connecticut has a 500-gallon propane tank buried in the back yard. The propane-fired furnace and hot water heater are located in the basement. I get propane deliveries via a small tanker truck just like I used to get oil deliveries. I much prefer natural gas (or propane) to oil. Despite the hype, having an oil burner is like having a diesel truck idling down in your basement. They are filthy and they stink. Incidentally, electric heat is not typically used in the Northeast due to the prohibitive cost. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/55 "2005-09-26T20:37:27Z")
> [@robby](#): > > …snip… > I much prefer natural gas (or propane) to oil. Despite the hype, having an oil burner is like having a diesel truck idling down in your basement. They are filthy and they stink. Incidentally, electric heat is not typically used in the Northeast due to the prohibitive cost. I would prefer a natural gas furnace also but it is not available. My 2 year old Peerless Boiler with a high efficiency burner however is extremely clean and there is no odor anymore. The 40 year old boiler was reminiscent of a diesel truck however. Gas is still cleaner but Oil has often been cheaper and can be fairly clean compared to days gone by. ---
**Author:** ![spingears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@spingears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spingears)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2005, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/56 "2005-09-26T22:57:43Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Not a requirement, and in these parts they can be considered a hindrance: Basement space cannot be considered living space. Basements cannot legally hold apartments, bathrooms, or even kitchens. Basement appartments, offices, neighborhood stores, etc. etc. exist in Chicago! But then that is not in Joisey. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2005, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101/57 "2005-09-27T00:21:07Z")
Here in Michigan, basements are very common. Some of the post-WW2 tract housing sits on slabs, but these are highly undesirable houses that have a hard time selling. The house where I grew up had only a small partial basement, with the rest of the house sitting on a slab. It wasn’t large enough for any real living space, but that basement still had the furnace, water heater, washer, dryer, dad’s tool bench, the cats’ litter boxes, and a pantry area. Plus, the space under the basement stairs was our house’s long-term storage (read: junk) area. My brother’s house has a full basement, and in addition to all of the above, he and his wife have a spare bedroom, an entertainment room (TV, stereo, couch, chairs), and a bar. Their basement is party central, complete with the spare bedroom if you need a place to crash 🆒 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-basements-required-or-just-customary/323101.md?page=2)