Just like residents of Upstate New York try to find the exact boundary line in the state where those on one side day “pop,” and those on the other say “soda,” I’m trying to figure out the boundary line in the United States where hosues on one side tend to have basements, and those on the other side tend to be built on slabs. Here’s what I’ve gathered so far …
New Mexico – houses in Las Vegas and points north along I-25 have basements, those in Santa Fe and points south don’t.
Texas/Oklahoma – no basements.
Georgia/Florida – houses in Atlanta tend to have basements, those in Florida don’t. (“Basement Line” somewhere between Atlanta and Jacksonville.)
California/Nevada – no basements in Southern California or the Las Vegas area. Don’t know about Northern California or Reno.
Has anyone mapped the “Basement Line” across the country?
Are you referring to places where they are/aren’t being included in new developments? Oklahoma has tons of basements in older homes. I grew up in several of them.
: I always thought it had to do with the water table
Las Cruces, New Mexico – areas close to the Rio Grande have a very low water table, and the houses don’t have basements. However, up on the dry mesas, there the water table is far below the ground, houses still don’t have basements.
Meanwhile, my parents live in Amherst, New York, on a house that was built in wetlands back when such things were allowed. The sump pump runs every few hours, struggling to keep the foundation and basement dry.
A lot of it has to do with how deep the frost goes in winter. In general, a continuous wall foundation should have its footing below the frost line to avoid frost heaving. The bottom of the piers of a pier foundation should also be below the frost line. A slab-type foundation need not be anywhere near as deep because the forces tend to even out. In places like northern Maine and northern Minnesota, the ground may freeze to a depth of 6 feet or more. It only makes sense to have a full basement in places like that. (I have seen slab and pier foundations in both places, though.) In somewhat milder climates like upstate New York, the frost may reach down 4 feet (this is from memory, so I could be wrong). If you’re digging down that far, you may as well go a few feet farther and get the usable space a basement provides. In yet milder places like Maryland and West Virginia, the frost rarely reaches more than 2-3 feet (again, this is my memory), so a full basement doesn’t make as much sense. Most new houses in these states have crawl spaces. Another advantage to having a basement in a cold climate is that they are quite warm, and pipes in a full basement will rarely freeze even when the heat goes out, unless they are near an outside wall. Older homes throughout the country are more likely to have full basements than newer homes.
The southernmost basement area I am intimately familiar with is southern Connecticut. The northermost non-basement area I am intimately familiar with is northern Maryland and northern West Virginia. I would guess the line runs through Pennsylvania somewhere.
Speaking strictly for my town (in southeastern Massachusetts), the vast majority of homes have basements. As far as I know, every home built before 1965 or so (haven’t found one yet that doesn’t have a basement). In 1970, though, a large housing development (something like 700+ houses) was built in a very swampy area of town. Not a single house in this development has a basement, all are slabs. It seems that if the ground is wet where the house is being built, its a slab. Otherwise, its a basement.
For a really good picture of that development (courtesy of Microsoft Terraserver), click here.
It isn’t just water table or frost line, it is also ground type. Sandy soil isn’t that great to dig in, and doesn’t stay hole-shaped to long without a lot of support. Add earthquakes and basements are more of a liability than an asset. I don’t have first hand knowledge of all of the southwest, but in most of So Cal., Arizona, New Mexico, etc., sandy soil is the norm. You still can have a basement, it just takes lots more concrete.
Bibliophage pretty much said it as I learned it. Custom (and later, building codes) dictated how deep one should dig to lay a foundation, based on soil type, frostline depth, etc. Personally, living in the western edge of “tornado alley”, I’d prefer to have a basement, an amenity my house does not possess (if only for shelter purposes).
I would tend to think that most of the houses in southern Louisiana(particularly around New Orleans) would not have basements. Seeing as they can’t bury their dead below ground around that area, I believe that basements would be pretty much non-existent.
‘Just a tradition’? Trust me, bud, there is no place in construction for a ‘tradition’ that adds five thousand bucks to the cost of a home. If there’s a basement, there’s probably a reason for it. The reason may be as bourgeois as wanting to double one’s floor space, or it could be more utilitarian.
Up here in the ‘frozen’ north, for instance, we still like our running water. But if the ground freezes to four feet, that means they have to lay the water pipes five feet deep. And that means that your basement has to go five feet down so you can hook up your pipes.
Oh yeah, and there’s that little matter of frost heave too. But bibliophage already covered that pretty thoroughly.
As for basement furnaces, well, once you have a basement for the other reasons outlined above, it becomes an eminently sensible place to locate one’s heat source, seeing as hot air has this tendency to, how shall we put this, rise?
–
MrDeath, whose house has a six-foot-deep concrete basement containing a furnace (natural gas of course!)
I love basements! Where do people who don’t have basements store all their extra jun…er…stuff? Where does your hot water heater and water softener go? How about the washer and dryer? I wouldn’t be able to walk through my house if I didn’t have all the storage space in my basement.
There are a multitude of options:[list=1][li]Ground-level basement (also referred to as a “garage”). If it’s roomy enough, some people even keep one or more cars in there.[/li]
[li]Über-basement (sopranoment? Also known as an “attic”). This variety of basement utilizes oitherwise wasted space above a house.[/list=1][/li]
~~Baloo
: Where do people who don’t have basements store all their
: extra jun…er…stuff? Where does your hot water heater
: and water softener go? How about the washer and dryer?
In Las Cruces, New Mexico:
The hot water heater was located next to the furnace, which was usually in a closet-sized room off the garage, or close to the middle of the house.
The washer and dryer were located close to a common bathroom that was located near the bedrooms, or in a “utility room” between the kitchen and garage.
Storage – most people either had “tuff sheds” set up in their back yards, or they rented a unit in a mini-storage warehouses. Las Cruces has a lot more mini-storage warehouses than similarly sized northern cities. (They were also much uglier than in most other cities, thanks to the lack of architectural regulations in the city’s zoning code.) I also noticed that houses in Cruces have much larger closets than houses in northern cities.
Here in Denver, most houses don’t have walk-up attics as commonly found back East, but basements are common. It’s beyond the means of mortal men and women to build an addition or “pop the top,” since there’s a shortage of skiled tradesmen, and all the rich folk are making major additions to what were little bungalows. When folks want to add living space, they often take the cheaper option of finishing their basements. Despite the presence of basements, folks in Denver have a problem with storage, too, and mini-storage warehouses are popping up everywhere.
The interesting thing is, that many “newer” houses in southeast New York State (where I live and work) seem to be slab houses. I can think of no other reason than that they were cheaper, and were most likely built during the “housing boom” of the '50s and '60s. Faster to build, cheaper to buy.
I don’t like 'em, myself. I much prefer a basement and an attic. Fortunately, my house was built sometime in the 1920s, and I have both.
Frost line in these here parts is 3.5 to 4 feet, so that assertion (whoever made it) is correct. Still, the water table can be a problem, and a lot of houses have either sump pumps (e.g. mine) or French drains.
Here in Norther Virginia, it seems that houses that are built outside of group developments and older homes have basements, or at least are built into hillsides.
But subdivision houses generally are built on slabs, sinces they’re faster and cheaper to build.
Also, townhouses are a popular style around here, even if they’re not in a town per se. A 3-4 story house with a 5th floor as the basement seems like overkill.
Earthquake-proof basements are not easy to build. Thus, the situation in California. I saw the occaisional home there with one, but it was VERY rare, and I’m not sure but what they didn’t much exist after the building code changes following the 1932(?) Long Beach earthquake.
