The ideal location for a house used to be on a hilltop for that reason. Digging into the side of a hill can be an issue, but raising the land for the house can give you a basement anywhere. But is it worth it or necessary? You can sound proof regular construction pretty easily. Do something like a split level with the lowest floor partially submerged with block or concrete walls and minimal windows, then you can still have plenty of windows on the upper floor. Put some bushes around the exposed part of the walls to further block noises and provide more privacy.
My uncle lives in a house he built himself, that’s literally right on the beach… but he still managed to somehow include a basement. So yes, it’s possible, but I shudder to think of how expensive it must have been.
As mentioned above, there are none here in New Orleans.
Just to be clear, Radon is not an issue everywhere (it depends on the underlying bedrock in the region, and then the particular details of the ground under the house as well as ventilation). If you’re in an area with radon concerns, you should test your basement to see if radon abatement is needed (and obviously, do it if it is needed). But not every area has radon concerns, and in those areas not every basement has a radon issue.
I’ve heard of empty in-ground pools being buoyed up out of their holes. If the shell is surrounded by water, then the buoyant force is about equal to the weight of the water that used to be in the pool, which is a lot, and the empty shell doesn’t weigh all that much.
But how much does a house weigh? The basement is essentially an empty swimming pool, but with a whole lot of lumber, drywall, shingles, and sundry household goods stacked on top. Are there actual cases of houses with basements that have been floated up out of their holes?
tl, dr;
Did note that the issue of creating a boat has been broached.
In certain areas, draining an in-ground swimming pool will cause it to pop up out of the ground.
You can fight water if you want, but know this: Water ALWAYS wins. If it wants to occupy the space you want for a basement, it will occupy that space - either by flooding the space or by lifting the box out of the way.
The sides built into the hill may still need a waterproof membrane and certainly a foundation perimeter drain leading to a downhill outlet. If there’s groundwater or surface drainage on the uphill side it won’t stop at the foundation wall. We’re fighting this exact problem right now.
It’s a funny image, but an exaggeration. The actual damage is more like cracks in walls and the foundation, stressed window frames leading to cracked windows, and s on.
Basements are rare in Arkansas. My parents requested one when they built there house. They only found one builder with any experience and he had only built a couple houses with basements.
Lack of experience can lead to all sorts of issues. Cost overruns. Leaks. Cracks in the walls.
Fortunately my parents haven’t experienced any problems with their basement. They built into the side of a hill.
They are rare here in this part of Taiwan for the same reason, high water table and flooding from typhoons.
One friend didn’t investigate properly and wound up in an area where the first floor flooded at least once a year from typhoons. The friend on the uphill side of the road was fine.
When I was a teenager I had an uncle who was a civil engineer. He took me to see a project he was working on where they were building houses on sand with no foundation.
What they did was to build a concrete box above ground the same size as the house, with a broad flange at the top. I saw one being sprayed with black stuff to waterproof it.
Once it was complete, they used vibrating rods to sink it under its own weight until the flange was level with the surface. On top of this they then built a single story brick house with a big cellar.
I made a detour to look at them many years later and they looked fine.
Because it’s a totally different problem, and being able to solve the one has no bearing on whether it’s possible to solve the other.
Snow thaw can be a big problem in Canada and extreme norther US.
They talk about damp proofing basements a lot on Holmes on Homes. Big snow drifts dumps a lot of water along the house’s foundation during the spring thaw.
That’s why you have a sump pump! I think probably every house in the city I live in (Edmonton, Canada) has a basement. I’m always confused when I travel to places where people don’t have basements. Where do you keep all your junk? 
I think that’s the reason we don’t have basements up here in Dallas either- even though I live near the top of a low ridge with little to no risk of flooding, there’s still a LOT of ground movement with rainfall and the seasons (my pier & beam house shifts enough to where doors stick and tiles sometimes crack), and I suspect basements would suffer even more than the houses do.
So lining my walls with Kevlar won’t help?
Maybe.
Forgive me! We don’t have basements here, as noted above. But we also don’t really have many hills either. Southern Florida is rather – well, we prefer to call it topographically challenged, but outsiders call it flat. So I don’t have much experience with dirt and rock piled up high, in its natural wild state.
But I’m given to understand that places with actual hills also have water inside the ground. It flows, and it congregates, in mysterious ways inside all that hard material. Something to do with the kinds of rock/dirt, and the layers, and how they are folded up. So I assume that getting a property with a hill probably means having additional hills and other appurtenances referred to as terrain right nearby. So there may still be water issues if you just dig a hole in the hill.
What I was describing is a terrainless (or terrain - neutral) location where houses are built at grade level. There may be some water management structures (ditches, canals) in the general area, but not surrounding every single house. The default is that houses built at grade level are dry. Then create an artificial hill surrounding the house. Water that falls on the hill will mostly run off. Whatever small amount soaks into the fill will still eventually run off when it gets to grade level, just as water would if the artificial hill wasn’t there.
Oh, there will certainly be a need for a moisture barrier for the buried walls, same as for the floor. But that’s just because there will always be some dampness in the soil. Not, however, enough to give you a flooded basement.
That sounds interesting. Can you tell me where that was, and what you mean by “vibrating rods” that make a box sink into the sand?
That sounds like it might be the way to go. Like you said, it should be applicable anywhere (given a large enough lot), and it would eliminate the bathroom problem mentioned above.
I had a home inspector once tell me that relying on a sump pump to deal with water issues is a bad idea. If you lose power for a significant length of time during a storm (which is probably when you most need the pump), you’re going to have a big problem. I suppose adding a generator mitigates this somewhat.
–Mark