When we moved here from Ohio, I noticed very early on that few in any homes down here had basements. When I pressed my engineer neighbor, he said that the high water table would leak into your basement and you’d have a below-ground swimming pool (and not a basement) after awhile. Well we lived on the river, so for our neighborhood that made sense I guess; do people build basements in any part of Florida at all (or other locale with a high water table)?
A basement generally results from needing to dig wall foundations down below the frost line. By the time you’ve dug the wall footings down 6 to 8 feet below the ground surface, you might as well put in a floor and use the space (plus it’s easier to dig a hole than to dig four narrow trenches). That’s why we build them in northern states, but they’re mostly unknown in the Sunbelt. Old houses there were up on brick pillars or similar foundations a couple of feet off the ground for termite protection. New ones are on concrete slabs for the most part.
The water table is certainly an additional consideration in Florida, though.
I’ve lived in South Florida for…35 years or so. I’m TOLD there are a few houses with basements, but I’ve never seen one here.
-D/a
If I read this chart(warning pdf) correctly, the average water table depth in Florida ranges from 1 to 1.5 meters below ground level. And, of course, south Florida is basically a swamp. So there doesn’t seem to be a lot of places in the state where you can dig an eight-foot deep hole and not be worried that it will fill up with water.
if you have a basement then the alligators find it and nest there. it makes playing ping difficult.
I’ve lived in SE Georgia most of my life. Not quite as bad as Florida regarding the water table. Still, I can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of actual basements I’ve seen around here over the past 42 years. (I’m not counting so-called daylight basements built into houses on hills or underneath raised homes on the water.) Expensive engineering required for an actual underground basement, due to the water table and the sandy soil.
As a further-north datapoint, I live in Tidewater Virginia. A few of the older houses have basements, but they are a frequent source of misery for the homeowners. After every big storm, they have to spend a lot of time getting to know their sump pumps.
My brother lives in Lake Wales, one of the highest points on the peninsula; none of the houses have full basements.
I asked this question a little while ago, too, since I have spent my entire life in houses with basements, and it never occurred to me until I started watching real estate porn that there were places in the world that didn’t have basements. One of the reasons I got for it was from areas that are built on bedrock, too - it’s hard to build a basement if you have to jackhammer it out of solid rock.
I love having a basement in my house, though; in our bungalow, it doubles our usable space, plus we can go down there in summer and stay nice and cool without using any energy at all (we don’t have AC in the house since we only need it for one week of the year).
My wife’s family is from Lake Wales. Hi!
Never heard of a basement in Florida. There are probably some spots in Ocala where you could do one. Don’t know about the Panhandle.
Having visited Houston, I know basements are very uncommon there. Some local dopers told me they had never been in a house with a basement.
Mr Downtown nailed it in the very first reply. Frost line in Northern states requires digging 5 or more feet down for footings. Doesn’t cost much more to put in an unfinished basement.
Southern states have one foot footings. It’s a big investment to put in a basement.
Water table isn’t too big of an issue. They use Sump pits & pumps to collect the water and get it out. French drains all around the foundation divert the water into the sump pit. Plus they have high tech rubber membrane they use to seal the foundation with. It is a big pain in the butt to deal with water seepage. Another reason basements are not built in the South.
Holmes on Homes has filmed several episodes that dealt with wet basements. Mike always had a foundation sub-contractor dig down, install the membrane and if needed, a sump pit & pump. It’s a huge issue in Canada when you have piles of melting snow draining water into the foundation.
Sun belter checking in here. NC, to be more exact. Homes built on sloping land very often have basements. The water table in these parts can be hundreds of feet below the surface. Wish I had one. I need a man cave.
I grew up in the Tidewater region. When we visited our relatives in the mountains I was surprised to learn they had an whole nother floor UNDERNEATH their house! Incredible. And somehow it didn’t even fill up with water when it rained. I was so smitten with this mole like way of living that I can’t do without a basement now, so it’s a good thing I don’t live in a swamp anymore.
I grew up in Northern Louisiana. There are hardly any basements there (as in there must be one somewhere but I never saw it in person). They are even more rare in Southern Louisiana. You can’t even bury people below ground in the New Orleans area.
Someone please fight my further ignorance and explain why foundations need to extend below this strange thing you call a “frost line”. I mean this as a serious question. The only frost line I know personally is the one on the beer mugs I put into my freezer.
We only have two seasons here – rainy, and not so rainy. During the former, newly dug post holes fill with ground water before you can dig to the needed depth. During the other season, they fill with water before you can stick the posts in them. Anything like a basement would be highly problematic.
You have to extend the foundation below the frost line so when the ground freezes in the winter your house isn’t pushed out of the ground.
Let me elaborate on this because to the person who really has no idea what a “frost line” is, this may be an insufficient explanation.
- When it gets cold enough, the ground itself freezes, to a depth dependent on the coldness of the air.
- As you probably know, water has more volume frozen solid than it does as liquid. So when the ground freezes, it “heaves” or shifts via the expansion of the water inside the dirt. This very powerful force can literally buckle concrete and shift entire buildings (seriously, in Michigan I worked in a 30-stall horse barn that would heave such that in the winter, some of the stall doors couldn’t close). Then in the spring it “settles” again. Over time this process causes damage throughout the structure.*
- The frost line is the depth to which the ground freezes hard during the winter.
- You must place the foundation of the house below the frost line, on a solid, unchanging base, otherwise it will be heaved out of place.
*frost heave is the cause of the fallen wall stones in the Robert Frost poem, Mending Wall.
Same here. Without a basement I wouldn’t have my man-cave.
Basements are not that common in the UK, either - at least not in modern homes. We don’t have the frost issue here (the ground may freeze in winter, but only a few inches down), so I’m not too sure what the reason is.
Victorian houses often had cellars, and older townhouses have basements (often now converted into “lower-ground-floor” flats, in estate-agent speak), but I don’t recall being in a house built in the past 40 years or so that has one. I presume it’s a matter of cost - most houses are just built on a concrete slab, which is much easier than digging a big hole.
I suppose the real question is why they used to be common over here?