Something occured to me while watching King of the Hill. All of the homes on Rainey Street are single-story ranch-style. The Gribble’s house has a basement lair for Dale. I can’t recall any sight or mention of a basement in the Hill’s house. Do they even have one?
I doubt it. Few houses of that era in that part of Texas do. It’s a concrete slab, all the way. Dale is an exception; his paranoia really requires a basement lair!
In one episode Dale dug a “Friendship Tunnel” under Hank’s house and Hank fell through the floor into it, revealing he had no basement.
Yeah, wherever exactly it is in Texas doesn’t really matter. Few houses have basements and almost no ranches do.
I think the closest thing the Hills have to a basement is that little room Peggy keeps her computer in.
Especially the Alamo.
A fact that still haunts me after moving here from the Midwest 2 years ago. My garage is now the storage area my basement used to be.
Although I live in the midwest…I have a basement while most of the other ranches in the neighborhood do not. I think there’s just 4 of us out of 80 or so. So, not all houses mirror the neighboring houses.
And no…no basement in the Hill house.
Ah bet Hank could build one with his butt flange, I tell you whut.
As I understand it, basements are so rare because in most of TX the bedrock is only a few feet below the surface.
Dang. I forgot about that.
Having spent most of my life in and around Garland, Texas (aka Arlen), I can report that I’ve never known anyone with a basement, and I don’t see how a basement would survive the clay soil we have. The soil here is extremely affected by variations in moisture.
It’s threads like these that make the subscription worth it every year.
And KOTH is a great, great show.
Question regarding ranch-style homes: do they at least have an attic? I mean, my God, where are you supposed to put all your stuff? I grew up in a two-story house that originally had an attic AND a basement AND a cellar (for those not in the know, a cellar is an “underground lair,” similar to a basement, but typically does NOT have access from inside the house, only outside. And it doesn’t have to be below the house, it can be just near it, though ours was underneath the house.) In my teens, the house was renovated/had an addition built, and the original basement was expanded to be as large as the whole house (which as now one room bigger.)
Oh, and there was also a two car garage (not attached) for storage, which also has a loft area for even MORE storage (and yes, my parents have pretty much every inch of all those spaces being used.)
And why no basements in those areas of the country? If it’s built right, especially with modern construction techniques/technology, the soil moisture/make-up/etc… shouldn’t be a big deal, right?
All of the techniques to dig out a hole in bedrock (short of using dynamite) is costly. So they just build the house directly on a slab of foundation instead.
KOTH has never been specific about where Arlen is, but most of the evidence points to it being somewhere around Temple (near an Army base, on the Brazos, about three hours from Houston, etc.). Personally, I never knew anybody in Central Texas that had a basement, except for some older homes in East Austin.
We store our stuff in one side of the two-car garage and in the attic space. Texans are big into those outdoor sheds, as well.
A Texas “ranch style” house would not have an attic, either. Well, there would be a crawl space under the roof–useful when the owner finally got rid of the window units & went with central air. At which time more insulation would be installed & the attic fan (dating from before the window units) would be removed. But nothing big enough for real storage.
I believe there are storm cellars in Tornado Alley.
Down here near the Gulf, the bedrock is farther down. But basements aren’t a good idea, what with our occasional flooding. Many houses rest on concrete blocks, which add a few inches of security. Beach houses & places along the rivers might be up on stilts.
Right now, even parts of Texas that rarely flood are pretty wet. I doubt you could convince many of these people that they really need basements.
Basements are common only where they have to be built — the foundation has to be sunk lower than the frost line, and the frost line can go several feet down in the northern parts of the U.S. and Canada.
Here in South Carolina we have no basements for the opposite reason - the water table is too high. Also, the ground never freezes, so we don’t need deep foundations. The closest thing you’ll generally see to a basement here (the Upstate may be different) is a “daylight basement” that’s usually a den or something on the bottom of a house you build on a hill.
We do have attics, though, in almost every house.
If you’re three or four hours from the Houston (or Corpus, or Brownsville) area you’re in Hurricane Alley.
This does not present an ideal area for basements.