Basements

[DawnM]

We currently have a basement (NC) but they aren't super common here.  We would like one in our next house as well, but it isn't that easy to find.  I see 140 houses available in my area where we are looking, but only 14 with basements.

We owned 3 houses in CA.  One has a basement.  That was beyond unusual for SoCal.  People thought it was so cool that we had it.   It was more of a cellar, but was accessible in the house.  We had our laundry down there, as well as storage.  We thought of finishing part of it off.  

I know they are very common in the mid-west and the Pacific Northwest.....many I know in these areas have basements.

 

How about you?

[Chris in VA]

I answered as if we still lived in VA--so yes to basements. We couldn't have one in FL because of the water table, and the style of construction of our TX home did not allow for basements. 

Interestingly, to me, anyway, many buildings here have basements--but they are called "bomb shelters." 😉 The school I visited yesterday has one--they hold music down there, and have two recording studios there--pretty soundproof...

[HomeAgain]

We have one here.  I don't know of a home without one.  Our last place, though, the houses were built on incredibly tough ground.  I think only a few buildings had "basements", meaning the first floor was sunken or it was a very old, historical building from when cellars were more necessary.

[purpleowl]

Florida - no basement. Don't know anyone here who has one. 

[Kassia]

1 minute ago, purpleowl said:

Florida - no basement. Don't know anyone here who has one. 

 

I grew up in FL and had never seen a basement until I went to college in OH.  I was at a party and everyone went through a door to go downstairs and I couldn't figure out where everyone was going because I had never seen or experienced going downstairs from the main floor before! 

 

 

[Annie G]

Our house in Illinois has a basement and they are very common there. Most people finish them and live in them, often using the basement more often than the main part of the house. It took us a while to get used to it. 

Our house is very old so we didn’t finish it. 

[Carrie12345]

I have more of a crawl space, but it’s high enough to stand up in. It would not be high enough if we finished it off, which stinks.

Basements are relatively “normal” here, but there are still plenty of houses that were built without them in order to save money.

[historically accurate]

I live in a mobile home, so no basement. However, I live in IL and just about every stick built house has a basement. 

[Bluegoat]

Yes, it's very very rare not to have a basement here.  Because the frost goes so deep, even without one you have to pour the footings really deep, four feet or more down, so it just makes economic sense to have a basement at that point.  The exception would be cottages only meant for summer.

My neighbourhood is a bit weird though, as it has quite a few bungalows that were called California bungalows when they were built.  The developer came from California and just built what he built back home.

[JustEm]

We have a basement currently. The house we sold last year didn't have a basement and that was weird for me. Our next house has a basement. Doing a quick search, out of 242 homes for sale in our city, 147 have basements.  So, they are pretty common here.

[Pawz4me]

We're in NC as well. Basements are very common here. In our immediate neighborhood about 2/3 of the homes have basements. All of our close family members who own homes and live in this area have basements. My three best friends all have basements.

Not having a basement was one of our biggest priorities when we were looking for this house, and one reason it took us over two years to find it.

[MEmama]

Growing up in California, I had never seen one until I moved to the Midwest.

We haven't owned a house without one. Our first house had a river that ran through the basement (not literally, just unstoppable water flow. I do know someone here who does have a literal river that flows through the basement of their 1700's home; the house was intentionally sited that way but I can't remember the purpose).

Our last house had a daylight basement, really just a second lower story, that was set up as a full apartment.

I don't know of any homes around here without basements or cellars, depending on the age of the house, maybe for the frostline reason Bluegoat mentioned. Even houses built right on ledge have cellars, as far as I know. 

Summer camps are an exception, of course.

[Selkie]

I am also in Illinois and pretty much every house has a basement. We have a big walk-out basement with two rooms that we use as offices, a large storage room/tornado shelter, bathroom, sauna, laundry room, kennel room, furnace room, and rec room with a pool table, ping pong table, etc.

The old farmhouse I grew up in had a creepy basement. It was dank and dark with stone walls and wood beams and gigantic spiders. I hated when my mom would send me down there to get something out of the freezer.🕷️

[wendyroo]

We are in Michigan, and almost all homes have basements.

We have a large, walk-out basement.  It is mostly finished (other than the small utility room), and has a large den/play room, an exercise/workshop room, a bathroom, and a bedroom that we use as a Lego room.

Wendy

[gardenmom5]

PNW - basements are common where I am - especially in hilly areas where people have daylight basements.  mine is unusual in that it is a "true" basement.  iow: not a daylight.

 

other things to consider is water table.  some places, you just can't because the basements will flood.

[May]

We live in NOVA and most houses have basements. Unfortunately, our basement isn’t a walkout so I don’t like spending a lot of time down there. It is completely finished with a storage area and a living area. If one had younger children, it would make a great play area. 

[Arctic Bunny]

Canadian Prairies: Only war-time houses don’t have a basement, and they usually have a sort of half-basement (bigger than a crawl space, but definitely not finished).

Edited January 31, 2019 by arctic_bunny

[shawthorne44]

I live in Texas were the frost line is basically ground level.   Therefore basements aren't needed.  Foundations are slab or pier-and-beam (older houses).   

I remember in the 80's a development was built in DFW with basements to appeal to the yankees moving down who wanted basements.   It did NOT turn out well at all.   The problems were:

    a)  our dirt is really crappy clay.   I remember digging post holes once and I literally could not tell the difference between a big clot of dirt and a rock.   To tell, I had to throw it on the ground and if the 'rock' broke it was dirt.  

   b) Absolutely no one on the construction crews had ever built a basement.   Most had never even SEEN a basement.  

The basements started to fail almost immediately and the development was never finished.  I wouldn't live in a house in this area with a basement unless:
a) It was an older house and the basement showed no sign of problems, or
b) My husband built it.  

[shawthorne44]

42 minutes ago, MEmama said:

.... I do know someone here who does have a literal river that flows through the basement of their 1700's home; the house was intentionally sited that way but I can't remember the purpose)....

My guess is someone who had really really hated the long walk to get water where they lived before.  

[MercyA]

Indiana here, and just about every house has a basement, including ours. Where else would you go when the tornado sirens go off? 😊Funny story: when I was in high school, my brother managed the local public pool, which was near our house. When the sirens went off one summer, he brought everyone still left at the pool to our basement. Including my ex-boyfriend. 😬

I actually didn't want a basement, because I didn't want another floor to clean. However, that would have been 1. incredibly hard to find and 2. rejected by DH. I'm actually glad to have it now, so DD has a place to run around and be noisy. 

[Bambam]

I too live in Texas - absolutely no basements here that I have seen. Sometimes the multiple level houses are built on a hill, but the bottom level still isn't what I would consider a true basement since only 1-2 sides are covered by dirt. I've lived in several states (Texas, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Illinois) and we never lived in a house with a basement (that I recall, maybe when I was very young?). I've always thought they were neat, until I visited my sister and toured her basement (sorta too dark for my taste) and they had to have a sump pump. 

[Wheres Toto]

We live in a converted summer bungalow so we don't have a basement but the vast majority of houses around here have one of some sort.   Any house built in the last 60 years seems to have a full basement you can walk into from inside the house.  Some older houses have ones you have to go outside to enter the basement and some have a crawl space.

[MercyA]

8 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

While I know that basements are common in Indiana, I actually never lived in a place with a basement while living in Indiana.  Thinking about it, I don't think a single one of my friends had a basement either.  My parents don't have one, they do have a crawl space.  The home we owned didn't have one, because we didn't build it.  Most in our neighborhood didn't have them because it was another $20k additional onto the price of the house.  We were already at our upper limit in our budget, $20k would have blown it out of the water.  So, we were on a slab.  My sister, and my brother also had their homes built and had the same situation.  I love a basement but it's an expensive add on when building a house.

The home we are currently renting doesn't have a basement, it's on a slab.  But I don't really know how common they are in this area.  We did see several rental listings with basements.  

Interesting, and that's a good point, about construction costs. I guess I was thinking of the houses in my small town, many of which were built by the same few builders and so are super similar to each other. But my grandma lived in a much bigger city in Indiana, and her house only had a crawl space.

Edited January 31, 2019 by MercyA

[edelweiss]

Yes, around here it would be unusual to go into a house without a basement.

[Garga]

1 hour ago, MEmama said:

Growing up in California, I had never seen one until I moved to the Midwest.

We haven't owned a house without one. Our first house had a river that ran through the basement (not literally, just unstoppable water flow. I do know someone here who does have a literal river that flows through the basement of their 1700's home; the house was intentionally sited that way but I can't remember the purpose).

Our last house had a daylight basement, really just a second lower story, that was set up as a full apartment.

I don't know of any homes around here without basements or cellars, depending on the age of the house, maybe for the frostline reason Bluegoat mentioned. Even houses built right on ledge have cellars, as far as I know. 

Summer camps are an exception, of course.

I’ve heard of people in the past putting things that need to stay cold in rivers, like milk or something (well sealed of course).  Maybe that’s why they had a river in their basement?  To keep things cold?  I tried it once, when I went on a wading trip with the kids to a local stream/river.  We put our sealed drinks in the water where we were wading and they stayed pretty cold while we waded.

[Selkie]

5 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

I do know someone who had her house built with a basement, she had it fully built out with a theater room, a bar, etc etc etc.  

 

When I was a kid, we lived in Columbus Oh, we had a basement (and were frequently down there when sirens went off lol.)  The house also had a laundry chute down to the basement.  Just one straight tube down the middle of the house.  If I could afford it and we could build again, I would LOVE to have a basement and a laundry chute.  Whoever put it in was really thinking.  It was positioned right across from the primary bathroom upstairs and down stairs it was in the kitchen.  So easy to just drop dirty towels, clothes, etc, straight in the chute.

Of course, with a family of 6, all 4 kids 10 and under, it did tend to create Mt Laundry in the basement lol.  

We have a laundry chute in our house - that was one of my must-haves when we built the house. You open up a cabinet in our master bath, drop the laundry down, and it goes straight down to the laundry room in the basement. 

[mmasc]

I’m currently in my first house with a basement. We’re in Kansas. We’re military and have lived in many houses and in many different states, so my kids thought this was pretty cool! But we’re just using it as storage space because it doesn’t have windows and nobody really wants to hang out down there. They think it’s creepy. 🤣

[JIN MOUSA]

39 minutes ago, Bambam said:

I too live in Texas - absolutely no basements here that I have seen. Sometimes the multiple level houses are built on a hill, but the bottom level still isn't what I would consider a true basement since only 1-2 sides are covered by dirt. I've lived in several states (Texas, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, Illinois) and we never lived in a house with a basement (that I recall, maybe when I was very young?). I've always thought they were neat, until I visited my sister and toured her basement (sorta too dark for my taste) and they had to have a sump pump. 

I grew up in Texas and moved to the Midwest a few years ago. For the longest time I had no idea what a sump pump was for (It lives in the basement, and ... ???). Fortunately, we rented first and figured some things out. When we were ready to buy I had figured it out, and now we've got a finished walkout basement (with sump pump!) where we watch TV and send the kids to be crazy. 

[SKL]

MIdwest - I've never lived in a house without a basement.  It is uncommon for an independent house not to have one here.  My only relative without a basement lives in a trailer.

What about attics?  We always had one in homes my parents owned, but my current house only has an unfinished "crawl space."

[lavender's green]

I'm also in NC, and basements are not common in my area, though I know of a handful. When we were house-hunting there weren't any houses with basements in our price range. They were all in either walk-out nicely finished basements in expensive houses,  or in very small, old fixer-upper houses.

I'm from Michigan, where every house I knew of had a basement. It was nice to have a place to store things, keep appliances, exercise machines, space for hobbies, massive playroom/TV room where no one can see the mess, etc. Lots of people built bedrooms for their teens if space was getting tight upstairs. On the downside, some people had problems with flooding. And it's all too easy to keep putting junk down there, decade after decade. I've heard horror stories about the clean-up.

[EKS]

I've lived in two houses with true basements, one in MA (built in the 1960s) and the other in southern CA (built in the 1920s).  I currently live in a house with a walk-out basement, which has an unfinished part devoted to storage and a finished part as well.  I guess it is technically a basement, but to me it feels more like a lower floor.

[Lady Florida.]

I chose No and Other. I live in Florida so not only do I not have a basement but no one does. There are some houses in my subdivision that are tri-level and the lower level, about 3-4 steps down from the entry level (and set off to the side since they aren't really low enough to be another true level) are often used like a finished basement. But those houses are actually on a built up bit of land in order to be able to have a "lower" level.

In NJ we had unfinished cellars but knew some people who had finished basements that were used as a game room, tv room, or general family room. I always thought those were cool. Some even had a bar down there and the adults would hang out there while us kids would play upstairs. When we visited our Delaware cousins all of us kids slept in their semi-finished basement in nice weather but it wasn't heated so in winter we slept in one of the cousins' rooms. 

When we stayed with dh's grandmother in Tennessee we always slept in her basement. It had one finished room with a half bath, and the rest was more like a dirt cellar. I hadn't been in a cellar in about 20 years and the first time he took me there to meet her and I went down the stairs, the smell of the dirt cellar instantly brought me back to my childhood. It's one of those smells that never leaves you no matter how long it's been.

Edited January 31, 2019 by Lady Florida.

[BarbecueMom]

Most houses have basements here.  Ours is actually what sold me on the house.  It’s an “L-shaped” walkout basement, and the room where the TV went is almost entirely underground and surrounded by 3 concrete walls (and drywall).  When there’s a tornado watch overnight, the kids can just sleep down there and we don’t have to wake them up to move them if a tornado heads for us.  Honestly, I’d refuse to buy a house without a basement here unless it was my only option.  Because tornados and kid noise levels.

We just had ours recently remodeled and have more usable space than before.  It looks way nicer than the rest of the house.

[PrincessMommy]

This is the first house I've ever lived in that didn't have a basement (not including apartment living).  I miss having a basement more than I miss having a garage.   It's very common to have basements of some kind in this area, but this house is 60yrs old.  From the few original houses in my neighborhood, it seems that most of them have basements.  I guess the family that built this house was trying to save pennies.  But, the one good thing is that (from our house-hunt 2yrs ago) it seems that most/all old homes in this area have water incursion/mold issues.

[Tap]

I live outside Portland Oregon. Older homes commonly have basements, but not newer ones. Some yes, but not as common as older homes. Homes built on hills are more likely to have them and are often daylight basements. Homes in low lying areas are less likely to have them due to the water table and possible flooding. 

[Selkie]

1 hour ago, SKL said:

MIdwest - I've never lived in a house without a basement.  It is uncommon for an independent house not to have one here.  My only relative without a basement lives in a trailer.

What about attics?  We always had one in homes my parents owned, but my current house only has an unfinished "crawl space."

Our house has an attic, but you have to go through a trapdoor in the ceiling to get to it. In the 21 years we’ve lived here, I’ve only poked my head up there once. We don’t keep a single thing up there because we have other storage space that is easier to access.

The house I lived in as a very young kid had a really cool attic. It was big and had a set of steps leading up to it. We moved from that house when I was four. My parents weren’t the type to believe in spooky stuff, but my mom told me years later that they had always wondered about that house because on numerous occasions, they found the attic light turned on when no one had been up there.🙂

[alisoncooks]

For NC, I'd say basements are tricky.  West of the Triangle, basements are probably more common (especially in hilly/mountain areas). East of the Triangle, not at all. I grew up on the coast (aka sea level) = definitely no basements.  

I did not see a basement until well after I was married. 

[theelfqueen]

I'm in Colorado. Grew up here and in Missouri. I don't remember ever living in a house (not an apartment) without a basement. Though I think the house we lived in when I was really little might not have.... basements are very common in both places. Our current house has a finished basement under the West half of the house and a cemented crawl space under the East half. 

[Loowit]

When we were looking at houses last spring/summer I noticed that most of the older homes in our area (1920s to 1960s) had basements but the newer ones didn't.

[mom2scouts]

I live in the Midwest and basements are very common here. My parents live in a ranch and don't have a basement and people are always surprised. We have tornadoes and it's assumed you'll just go to your basement. Houses that don't have basements here are usually split level houses with a finished lower level. New houses in this area almost always have very nice finished basements or basements that allow for easy finishing.

[MEmama]

3 hours ago, Garga said:

I’ve heard of people in the past putting things that need to stay cold in rivers, like milk or something (well sealed of course).  Maybe that’s why they had a river in their basement?  To keep things cold?  I tried it once, when I went on a wading trip with the kids to a local stream/river.  We put our sealed drinks in the water where we were wading and they stayed pretty cold while we waded.

That might be. The house is from the mid 1700's, very well appointed. Even though it's been renovated, it has kept a lot of original features--the river (not that one can do much about that), the original kitchen fireplace and hearth with the iron hooks for kettles, the so-called Indian shutters (thick interior shutters used for protection during raids) and so on. I absolutely geek out on stuff like that. *Almost* enough to make me want a period home (my practical and frugal sides agree that it's better to be content admiring other people's antique homes instead). 

[Sherry in OH]

Our current house is the only house I've ever lived in without a basement.  I miss having a basement.   I miss the storage space more than the extra living space, but what I really miss is being able to go barefoot inside my house.  Our current house is built on a slab.  The floors hurt my feet and knees.  

Our previous house had a finished walkout basement.  It was one of my favorite features of the house. The attic was a crawl space for access to wiring and venting.  The builder told us not to use it for storage.  The 100 year old house we had before that had both usable basement and attic.  We had lots of storage in those areas, but only one closet in the entire house.  

The storage space in our current house is an attic accessed via a pull down ladder in the garage ceiling. I am glad that we have some storage space, but  I prefer a basement or attic with fixed stairs.  Dh can't climb ladders.  That means I have to be able lift and carry everything that goes up there.  My days of lifting the Christmas tree are numbered.  

 

[Farrar]

Not only do we have a basement, but it's an English basement. It has entrances in both the front and the back.

[Melissa in Australia]

Basements are practically non existant here in Aus. 

2 story houses are very rare. Especially in rural areas. It is easier to cool a single story house plus there is more roof area to collect water from. 

Here also a bungalow is a little single room  sleep out in the back yard. When I visited Canada someone there told me that their family lived in a bungalow I imagined they were all squashed in a small single room sleepout. DH had to tell me afterwards they were actually in what I would call an ordinary house. 

[Bluegoat]

5 hours ago, SKL said:

MIdwest - I've never lived in a house without a basement.  It is uncommon for an independent house not to have one here.  My only relative without a basement lives in a trailer.

What about attics?  We always had one in homes my parents owned, but my current house only has an unfinished "crawl space."

 

THis changed when most houses started to be built with factory-built roof trusses, rather than having the builders frame in the roof.  The factory trusses don't leave room for much as there are beams that go across the space where you would walk.  It's also why newer houses - say from the 70's on - often look like the roofs are flatter in proportion to the rest of the house, like in a split-level.  The trusses don't need to be that deep - if they are, it's just for style, it's still not usually usable space and so it's not very cost effective.

[MEmama]

We have a huge attic. It's all ready to be finished--someone installed a bunch of outlets so it would just need to be dry walled. It feels so nice up there but we have zero use for it, so unfinished it will stay. It has a nice stairway up, but we don't use it for storage or for anything except insulation. 

[Carrie12345]

20 hours ago, SKL said:

What about attics?  We always had one in homes my parents owned, but my current house only has an unfinished "crawl space."

I don’t have an attic. The style of house we have is literally ceiling, beams and insulation, then roofing.  It stinks.

Our area is a combination of houses like mine, bungalows with a range of atttic styles, and giant colonials with walk-up (finished or not) attics. The man commonality is a decent pitch, because snow and ice. Though even my very steep roof has had issues, and then they’re hard to remedy because of the pitch! It isn’t so bad to be up there when it’s dry, but nobody wants to be up there when it’s slippery!

[mom@shiloh]

Our house actually has two basements; an old one and a new one and I'm extremely thankful for both!  

[shawthorne44]

On 1/31/2019 at 8:12 AM, Garga said:

I’ve heard of people in the past putting things that need to stay cold in rivers, like milk or something (well sealed of course).  Maybe that’s why they had a river in their basement?  To keep things cold?  I tried it once, when I went on a wading trip with the kids to a local stream/river.  We put our sealed drinks in the water where we were wading and they stayed pretty cold while we waded.

 

At our engagement party a friend of mine had made a pony keg of beer for the party.   It was in Dec, but in Texas, so comfortable to be outside.   The keg was just placed in the unheated spa.  It worked out really well.  

[Lady Florida.]

On 1/31/2019 at 9:41 AM, SKL said:

 

What about attics?  We always had one in homes my parents owned, but my current house only has an unfinished "crawl space."

 

19 hours ago, Bluegoat said:

 

THis changed when most houses started to be built with factory-built roof trusses, rather than having the builders frame in the roof.  The factory trusses don't leave room for much as there are beams that go across the space where you would walk.  It's also why newer houses - say from the 70's on - often look like the roofs are flatter in proportion to the rest of the house, like in a split-level.  The trusses don't need to be that deep - if they are, it's just for style, it's still not usually usable space and so it's not very cost effective.

When we lived in NJ older style houses were still the norm and nearly every house had a livable size attic. Often a teen would move into the attic to feel like they had their own space. Or it would be rented out to a single person. But when we came to Florida (1969) none of the homes had attics and still don't. Well, we call them attics but they're just crawl spaces. Heat rises. No one wanted to live on an upper floor especially before air conditioning. The attic spaces we have here are stifling and you don't go up there in the summer if you don't have to access anything stored there. A/C companies prefer not to do attic work in the summer months unless you have an a/c emergency. Insulation companies also don't like to replace insulation in the summer months.

Roofs here in the last 10-15 years have all started going towards hip roofs. They withstand hurricane winds better than flat or pitched roofs.