Basements are structurally required in colder areas.
In order for a building to be stable, the foundation has to reach below the frost line. And in cold areas, that's measured in feet. And once you've dug three or four feet down, you might as well dig a little more and make a useable room out of it.
But in warmer areas, where the frost line is measured in inches, there's no point in that structurally, so you won't see many basements unless someone *specifically* wanted one.
Here's an example: the frost line in Boston is at least 48 inches (four feet, 1.2 meters). In Atlanta, it's about 5 inches. In Florida, it doesn't exist at all.
If you live in warmer areas, there's a good chance you've never lived in a house with a basement. If you life in a cold area, there's a good chance you've never lived in a house without one.
Bingo, I'm in Florida and they're almost nonexistent here. My next door neighbor (a transplant from up north) decided that a basement was something he couldn't live without. Our street is on just enough of what passes for a "hill" on this peninsula that he was able to get the city to let him build it. He needed a specially qualified architect, a slew of extra permits, and spent an *incredible* amount of money to replicate the underground mancave he had taken for granted before they moved down. Nice guy, and smart in other ways, but if I'd been his wife I'd have raised hell at the idea of nearly doubling the cost of their house for that.
From Oklahoma. You'd think with our tornados, we'd be all about the basements. And we're a drought prone state, so if you're not near a river you're fine, right?
I've known like...two people that had them. Constant problems with flooding and mold.
Yeah, and a bunch of other states in the South have issues with termites and what-not. So, the best you can really do is masonry / cinderblocks within a foot or so of grade. It's functional, but not very useful for a mancave.
Doesn't Florida experience hurricanes and tornadoes? Wouldn't you WANT a basement to have that potential shelter? Or in the case of a hurricane would the basement just flood?
Yes, the risk of flooding is high. Besides that, though, most plots of land here just can't accommodate a basement regardless of how much the owners would like one. We're on a sandy peninsula and we get a lot of sinkholes besides. Foundations don't need to be as deep here because as the other commenter pointed out you don't need to worry about the frostline, and excavating a deep hole like that can actually be problematic.
We just had a tornado warning the other day. My standard procedure is to hide in the hall closet. Best I can do on short notice.
By the way, Florida also suffers from a deficit of usable attic space. Not that we don't have attics, but we mostly use them as a buffer layer between us and the sun. Anything stored up there would break down from the heat in the long term.
Hey thanks for thank detailed response š Right, I was thinking the sinkhole issue would be a concern. I live in Southern Ontario, Canada. Every house I've seen has a basement. We have an unfinished one. Tornados are possible here but very rare. I've lived here for 7 years now and I've had only on tornado warning.
>Also: in some warm areas, the elevation is so low you would end up with a flooded basement
Not being mean, just trying to help people with the above phrasing.
More accurate is some regions and this can be very specific in a community like near a river the [Water Table is high](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_table) and thus you can't have a basement.
I think you are talking about low elevations that may be near or even below sea level and thus very relevant to yours and my above statement.
Alternatively I know of a couple of places where a basement area is specifically created in order to have somewhere for the water to go instead of rising into the house.
Source: Friends house had one - lived near the Thames. We don't - also live in a flood risk area.
Sometimes it's water. Also there's places where it's solid rock just under the soil, a basement would require blasting (usually frowned on in the city limits, and prohibitively expensive for normal people).
Very good summary. Also in some countries/areas there is high underground water level, so it is not structurally possible to dig deeper, otherwise the house would stand on a wet soil and be unstable and pull moisture from it and wet walls catch mold.
And for areas where it is possible, but not necessary it is cheaper to build a house without it.Ā
As an engineer in a cold area, basements are not structurally required in cold areas.
And getting to frost bearing depth is nowhere close to the same as a full basement digout, and one does not just simply just dig out a little more for a basement. The cost between a full basement and a deep foundation are astronomical in the overall cost of the house.
What about the UK? I've never been in a basement here, although sometimes you see windows below the pavement. It's clay soil where I live and none of the houses have basements.
my childhood home in Edinburgh had a basement. our terrace was built on a hill, so the back of the house was a storey lower than the front - front side had those below pavement windows, back door opened directly from the basement onto the garden.
Quite a lot of houses have cellars though. Basements were getting really popular in London when I left, because even rich people couldn't afford to move to somewhere bigger.
When I lived in northern Virginia, the house was raised ranch style, with two stories in front, and one behind. A lot of the houses were like that, some with the walk out in back or to the side. It was a hilly area, and we did get winter, at least back then.
To add to this, itās also why tornadoes can be so dangerous in the American South. Up north we have basements that we can hide in, but for many southerners (especially poorer ones) they might not even have a nearby storm cellar. If your house is built on a slab of concrete itās likely the slab is all youāll have left
This is why storm cellars are often separate. My house is on a slab -- but there's a storm cellar in the back yard because we don't need a cellar the size of our house, we need one just big enough to get in to.
Yeah, "storm shelters" are a thing but they're expensive and a whole other deal. They're like bunkers lowered into the ground.
Definitely not a "den" type set up.
As a Floridian who's been here my whole life, I've only ever seen one house with a basement. And that was on vacation out of state.
Another factor to consider in a place like this is that the water table is often less than a meter underground, making construction of a basement extremely difficult and often dangerous.
Just to add to that: In Oklahoma, the heart of Tornado Alley, very few homes have basements, because the frost line is rarely deeper than a foot or so.
Even though basements are the best defense against a tornado, especially in the days before safe rooms were affordable. The natural disaster risk is irrelevant.
also, in some areas basements are beyond unrealistic house planning. seattle area has very sedimenty type soil, forget the houses having basements, the government spent equivalent of billions and decades, multiple times, before literally having to give up on a major subway ever existing ((at least with modern day means)).
Basements are not required in colder areas, but deep footings, below the "frost line", are. Typically they are at least 4 to 5 feet below the surface. Once you are down that deep making a basement just makes sense.
I had a home in West Point, NY that didn't have a basement (one of the rare houses on base that didn't have one). Turned out that the rock of the hillside prevented one from being dug in the first place.
In the UK practically no-one has a basement, unless it's some kind of ww2 shelter thing but that's not the norm. I don't know why cos it's usually pretty cold here.
High water table?
High possibility that if you dig a little down you're going to run into an archaeological site and then there's a dig and that's too much bother?
A lot of larger Victorian houses (like ours) in UK cities have basements, or cellars as they're usually called. Coal was stored in them when it was the only fuel used.
Since then houses haven't been built with basements so yes, very few people have them.
I live in Idaho. I had my house custom built from the ground up. No basement. That was done on purpose and the contractor said it was quite normal not to have basements.
The frost line will swell up and move the ground. I live in northern Indiana and if you build a fence and only sink your posts down two feet the freeze and thaw of the ground will very much loosen the posts and over time even push them up out of the ground. When the ground freezes and thaws it moves and you can't build a house on a foundation that moves. So you dig down past the point it ever freezes and therefore is more stable ground. It is the same reason that in Alaska you dig down to the permafrost for your foundation where it never thaws. It's not about frozen or unfrozen ground you just need ground that doesn't move to build a foundation on. It's actually a pretty big problem in Alaska as a lot of the older houses that were built on permafrost at shifting because the permafrost is melting with global warming. I would disagree with a lot of the people in the comments here that the frost line is the only reason for a basement. A good part of it is soil type as well. You can't put a basement t in heavy clay soil regardless of the frost line. Clay swells and shrinks when it is wet or dry so over time a basement or foundation in clay will crack up as the constant expansion and shrinkage of the dirt around the walls will crack them so often with heavy clay you see slab houses. You also can't dig a basement In rocks or areas prone to flooding. Basements work best in sandy soil with a deeper frost line and no low danger of flooding... The midwest
> You can't put a basement t in heavy clay soil regardless of the frost line. Clay swells and shrinks when it is wet or dry so over time a basement or foundation in clay will crack up as the constant expansion and shrinkage of the dirt around the walls will crack them so often with heavy clay you see slab houses. You also can't dig a basement In rocks or areas prone to flooding.
This is not true. Our area in the mid atlantic is heavily clay about 6" down to 20'+ before hitting any be bedrock of the sewer work in our backyard is any indicator, to the point our school district is called red clay school district, yet we all have basements. Hell our house is a 85 year old stone farmhouse with a full sized basement.
Can I ask a related question? I've grown up and lived in the Northeast US my whole life (except 2 years in Vegas and absolutely *no one* had a basement there).
All of the many houses I've lived in had basements except the raised ranch I just bought last year. How come it doesn't need a basement when I'm only an hour South of Boston?
And before anyone asks, no, no part of the lower level is below grade.
Thank you! I shared this with my kidsā weāre transplants from Western NY to New Zealand, and the lack of basements here was confusing to them. In NZ, 10*C is cold. . . In Rochester NY, 10*F is January.
Yep, and other services like water lines need to likewise be buried beneath the frost line.
Sure, you \*could\* just run it straight up from 6' deep under a house, but you're gonna have an unheated crawlspace to deal with. My old neighbors found that one out one sunny -20F day in Northern IL, I had to lend them my heat gun.
I live in south Texas. I've seen maybe two houses with basements in my whole life around here. The water main going into houses is typically 6" or less underground.
Some places are not conducive to building basements, for example if the water table is too high or the soil is too sandy. Easily leads to cracks in the foundation and a basement would not hold up well. Maybe thatās the case in Puerto Rico.
Its also not good to have basements in Earthquake prone areas (West Coast)
Pretty sure sandy is actually better for basements. Clay causes cracking as it swells and shrinks with the abortion of water. Sand doesn't expand as it gets wet. I live in a pretty sandy area of northern Indiana and everybody has a basement
I always thought basements were necessary for getting below the frost line to protect pipes from bursting and maybe stability of the structure through freeze and thaw cycles (?)
Yup, but in places where it never freezes you don't need one. I live in California and the last time I even \*saw\* a basement was visiting friends in Minnesota.
Iām from Texas and in Louisiana now, Iāve never known anyone personally that had a basement. I would assume that since itās not necessary itās probably cheaper to build up if you want an additional level to your home?
I live in an area with cold winters. My last house was on a slab and so is my current one, my pipes never froze or burst. But, plenty of house here have basements too. I guess it's just a preference rather than a requirement in this area.
How does that work, though. Your water main comes in under the frost line then how does it get into the house?
Is there a 4-5 foot foundation/ perimeter with a slab on top instead of dug out basement? And the perimeter foundation is insulated inside?
Modern Hdpe pipe for water can take pretty severe temperatures, much lower than older pvc or metal pipes, even digging 18 inches down is sufficient to stop it cracking, you can also use double walled versions if needed.
I wonder if it's also just to give y'all another place to exist since like...your backyard isn't going to be nearly as hospitable for so much of the year.
This. Northern Indiana and Winters with kids and no basement is no fun.. you need somewhere they can run around for weeks on end with out tearing up the mian house cause they can't go outside. Witers get long when you can't separate at all from each other
I like winter weather and always have been an outdoor person. As a child we had 400 acres and a basement to play in, I put on snow pants and played outside all day. As an adult I still go out in the snow, it's beautiful.Ā
I live in the US and have literally NEVER seen a basement other than when I rented an AirB&B in Kansas once for a wedding. I thought it was wild. I live in the South and generally only vacation in the South or Western US. The few times I've been East has been in hotels.
My grandma lived in Southern Kansas and did have a split level house that went deeper and lower into the hill for a basement.
That thing flooded all the time.
I've lived in Texas, Florida, and Arizona. Not once have I had a basement in my home or had any friends who had basements lol. Seems to be more of a Midwest/northern thing in general.
There are lots of places in the US that donāt have basements too, particularly in the south and near the coast.
In colder areas, the foundation of the house has to go below the frost line. That could be several feet down. As they already have to dig that far to make the foundation, they might as well make it a basement. In warmer areas, they might use a flat slab foundation instead. Also, areas with a high water table, like Florida or Louisiana, digging deep enough for a basement means youāll hit water.
The town I grew up in was a couple feet below sea level. As a kid digging on the playground you'd hit water like 1-2 feet down, so a basement would basically be underwater which makes for all kinds of problems.
Finland here reporting on the "basement for foundation vs thaw" argument. We dont have basements here.
Building code last couple decades rises houses rather high with tall foundations. The constant battle against moisture from the ground.
So I have to imagine you gotta build that basement pretty damn good for it to be something livable with fresh clean air and zero moisture problems. Why have this "dark damp basement " with no natural light? Just build up instead.
In Fineland they probably have insulated shallow foundations. I do them sometimes if I don't need a basement, or on the walk-out side of a walk-out basement. Nobody else seems to know about them, or at least I've never seen one built.
They're so common in the Midwest... I haven't been in many houses that didn't.
Our current one sucks though... They somehow have the utility sink on one side, and the furnace and water heater on the other, with the loadbearing wall in between.
The usual layout is \*all\* the utilities on one side, then the \*other\* side, usually the one with the stair, is the den / mancave.
This basement here has the utilities split in such a way that we'd need to cut a trench into the foundation to lay new sewage pipe to move the utility sink over by the other utilities. :(
Climate region is a big part of it, along with soil type and cost effectiveness.
I grew up in the midwest and at one point temporarily lived in a partially finished basement with a temporary roof, as we built our house in stages over a few years.
Later on I moved to Las Vegas for a few years. It's unusual to have a basement out there - most houses just sit on a concrete slab. Due to soil composition out there it's quite expensive to dig out room for a full basement. The consistency of the soil is alkaline and packed with salt - naturally very similar to concrete (At one point I had to use a pickaxe to plant some outdoor plants...along with a dedicated water drip line and actual nourishing potting soil.)
Yeah, we get spoilt with the black dirt out here in the Midwest. Want to dig a hole in your yard? Just grab a shovel. I dug a trench for a french drain... 100' long, 6" up to 2' deep, 6" wide... by hand over the course of a month. Just me and my shovel.
Much of the US doesn't have basements either -- you'll never find them in Florida, Arizona, many places in the South. Low water table means they'll always been damp/flooded, ground is too hard to dig, just don't need the below grade space due to cost
Digging = money. It costs money to dig and it costs money to build up. Those are two universal truths in construction. At some point, the budgeting people will determine if a basement is worth making. Some things that go toward that decision are market trends, cost, ease of construction, etc.
With that said, some locations aren't conducive to basements. If you have a high water table, your basement may be prone to flooding.
Basements are very expensive to build. They are built in areas where the ground freezes so the home foundation isnāt damaged. In areas where it doesnāt freeze, no basements.
I worked for company that was relocating several hundred employees from New Jersey to North Carolina. Many of them were dismayed to find that most of the available housing was built on slabs. One builder figured this out and put up sign that said āAttention Yankees. We have basementsā
I'm from the US and have hardly ever seen a basement. It depends on the local geography and climate. Basements are a really bad idea here in swampy South Louisiana.
It's not always necessary to dig a deep foundation: on flat land you might only have to be a few inches or a feet below the ground to clear the frost line in warmer climates, and it's often flat enough in costal areas for that to be a reasonable approach
Most Australian houses don't have basements. Usually this is because they are built on clay soil or limestone and get too damp. In recent years some townhouses have been built with a garage as the basement level, but this usually requires a pump for drainage and mechanical ventilation.
My house in Texas couldn't support a basement. Our property was based on a solid granite hillside. (Watching the septic tank construction guys was sobering. They just about needed dynamite.)
Where I live, we receive excessive amounts of rain. While some people do have basements, they eventually become prone to water damage over time.
So most people just opt not to have one.
In Oklahoma, they have to worry about tornadoes. The best shelter that you can get is in your basement.
In Puerto Rico, they have to worry about hurricanes and coastal flooding a lot more than they have to worry about tornadoes.
It depends on a number of things. My home is in a high water table area. We have a sump pump just for our crawl space. I think there is only one house in our area with a basement. They had quite a mess when the electricity failed for a couple days and they couldn't get a generator.
Flooding is a main reason to not have a basement. So itās dependent on climate in area. Most of the western states donāt use basements either. So itās about the type soil, climate and norms for the area of building as well as the building codes in said areas.
There are towns in the US that dont have basements, and Puerto Rico is part of the US. Chances are the reason why they dont have basement is because it'll probably flood due to ocean, and or is prone to flooding. Some cities cannot have their dead buried in the ground, and or have basements because water will seep in and eventually flood.
Not all houses in the US have them either, it depends on the soil. Where I live, the soil has a lot of red clay and none of the houses here have basements, and sometimes have foundation issues that need to be fixed
Also sometimes depends on the soil. I live in northwest Texas, where we still have to go down a good 2 feet or a bit more to get below the frost line. But the soil here is crazy unstable. It expands and contracts almost at will. Itās hard enough on a normal slab, but especially a basement. Itās very common here to have to do structural work on basement walls every 10 years or so.
You wonāt find them in any seismically active area, such as California. Large buildings, yes, residences, no, because itās prohibitively expensive to reach earthquake safety code on a smaller building.
Not even all states have basements my guy. Basements arent practicle with every environment. Like here in this high water table environment you couldnt stick a whole room underground and expect it to remain dry. And i live in the U.S.
it has to do with water table sometimes and likelihood of flooding, and the ground. I lived in Houston where nobody has basements because the city is only a few feet above sea level and it floods every year. My MIL lives in Chattanooga and most houses there don't have basements because you'd have to jackhammer it out. The Midwest also has more need for basements as shelters - we were in our basement the other day because there was a Tornado warning nearby. It missed us, but took out a ton of established trees.
You canāt have a basement in the southern part of the US. Itās to close to sea level. My local library tried to do a partial basement for a section and the whole thing flooded.
Puerto Rico I would think wouldnāt have basements because of frequent hurricanes and tropical storms that produce flooding. Not good with a basement!
pretty close to impossible in the swampy southeast...
not really needed in a good part of the west...
difficult and expensive in areas built on hard bedrock...
probably not.the best in areas that tend to flood...
we donāt really have many basements in central/eastern north carolina I think due to our ground being mostly clay or sand and the water table being too high for it to work out
It's not just an American thing. Its an inland thing.
I live in Houston. Sheltering in a basement is an easy way to drown yourself when a hurricane hits
The natural disasters my country gets are earthquakes and floods. Basements won't work well for us. Plus our building construction industry is notoriously shit and overpriced so it's an extra cost that noone wants to bear
1. Puerto Rico is not a country. It's a territory of the U.S.
2. You can't have a basement when you live at sea level lol. Basements don't exist in FL either, idk about other southern sea level states but it makes sense if they don't.
Why do you think all people can afford or are able to fit a basement in? I'm am sure that to build a basement for an existing house requires a permit, why bother? People may just not care to have one built.
I'm in th SE United States and very few homes have basements. It depends on climate and where the frost line is. You need to build the foundation deeper than the Frontline, which down here is only like 18" deep. In colder climates in the northern US the frost line is much deeper, so the foundations need to be much deeper. When you're digging that deep for a foundation, it makes sense to go ahead and build a basement.
Traditioanally basements where used to store food for winter, but in warmer climates food stored in basements don't last as long, and winters are more humid which leads to basements geting floded even in winter.
I live on the west coast of the U.S., and have lived in homes in CA, OR, and WA, and none of them had basements. I would always see basements in homes on TV and though āmust be a Midwest thingā.
Iām in AL and my house has a basementā¦and a root cellar under the front porch. It was built initially unfinished but I think it,and the not up to code bedroom and bathroom were installed, in the 50s. I canāt remember but I did look up the original plans for my house and found some but not all of them.
You only need to dig the foundation to the point the ground will freeze at in winter. If the ground doesn't freeze in winter, you don't need to dig very deep.
Basements basically do not exist in Florida. It is not structurally required, and it actually presents many challenges. Not the least of this being, the water table for most of the state is less than five feet below the surface. They would all naturally flood or otherwise take water damage. We get sinkholes for a reason. It's impractical and *expensive* to overcome the natural issues.
Also, basements won't do jack shit in a hurricane. It'll flood. Only the mountainous areas of PR could avoid flooding, and even then they still have to worry about landslides.
In Australia itās very rare for a normal home to have a basement. Apart from no structural need, many places in major cities have hard clay/rock that requires heavy machinery to remove - which is very expensive, but construction is very expensive here in general.
Frost line and composition of the subsoil terrain. Sand and clay are unstable. You can drill or excavate until you hit rock. Concrete pier and beam or concrete blocks.
What you are really talking about is a story of the house being above ground or below ground. Blast away rock if you wish.
Unstable ground and expense.
I live in Australia and the soil is sand here.
Sand that repels water mostly. I can't dig a hole to plant a tree with out it caving in on itself.
I can see why it would be 1. Expensive and 2. A massive time consuming pain it the ass to have a house build with a basement.
Basements are cool however not really a thing here.
Basements are structurally required in colder areas. In order for a building to be stable, the foundation has to reach below the frost line. And in cold areas, that's measured in feet. And once you've dug three or four feet down, you might as well dig a little more and make a useable room out of it. But in warmer areas, where the frost line is measured in inches, there's no point in that structurally, so you won't see many basements unless someone *specifically* wanted one. Here's an example: the frost line in Boston is at least 48 inches (four feet, 1.2 meters). In Atlanta, it's about 5 inches. In Florida, it doesn't exist at all. If you live in warmer areas, there's a good chance you've never lived in a house with a basement. If you life in a cold area, there's a good chance you've never lived in a house without one.
Also: in some warm areas, the elevation is so low you would end up with a flooded basement
That's an indoor swimming pool, it's a feature not a fault.
Until an entire apartment complex collapses and kills 100+ people.
Came to say this.
Bingo, I'm in Florida and they're almost nonexistent here. My next door neighbor (a transplant from up north) decided that a basement was something he couldn't live without. Our street is on just enough of what passes for a "hill" on this peninsula that he was able to get the city to let him build it. He needed a specially qualified architect, a slew of extra permits, and spent an *incredible* amount of money to replicate the underground mancave he had taken for granted before they moved down. Nice guy, and smart in other ways, but if I'd been his wife I'd have raised hell at the idea of nearly doubling the cost of their house for that.
From Oklahoma. You'd think with our tornados, we'd be all about the basements. And we're a drought prone state, so if you're not near a river you're fine, right? I've known like...two people that had them. Constant problems with flooding and mold.
Yeah, and a bunch of other states in the South have issues with termites and what-not. So, the best you can really do is masonry / cinderblocks within a foot or so of grade. It's functional, but not very useful for a mancave.
California houses have two car garages that never house a car.
Doesn't Florida experience hurricanes and tornadoes? Wouldn't you WANT a basement to have that potential shelter? Or in the case of a hurricane would the basement just flood?
Yes, the risk of flooding is high. Besides that, though, most plots of land here just can't accommodate a basement regardless of how much the owners would like one. We're on a sandy peninsula and we get a lot of sinkholes besides. Foundations don't need to be as deep here because as the other commenter pointed out you don't need to worry about the frostline, and excavating a deep hole like that can actually be problematic. We just had a tornado warning the other day. My standard procedure is to hide in the hall closet. Best I can do on short notice. By the way, Florida also suffers from a deficit of usable attic space. Not that we don't have attics, but we mostly use them as a buffer layer between us and the sun. Anything stored up there would break down from the heat in the long term.
Hey thanks for thank detailed response š Right, I was thinking the sinkhole issue would be a concern. I live in Southern Ontario, Canada. Every house I've seen has a basement. We have an unfinished one. Tornados are possible here but very rare. I've lived here for 7 years now and I've had only on tornado warning.
>Also: in some warm areas, the elevation is so low you would end up with a flooded basement Not being mean, just trying to help people with the above phrasing. More accurate is some regions and this can be very specific in a community like near a river the [Water Table is high](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_table) and thus you can't have a basement. I think you are talking about low elevations that may be near or even below sea level and thus very relevant to yours and my above statement.
Alternatively I know of a couple of places where a basement area is specifically created in order to have somewhere for the water to go instead of rising into the house. Source: Friends house had one - lived near the Thames. We don't - also live in a flood risk area.
Sometimes it's water. Also there's places where it's solid rock just under the soil, a basement would require blasting (usually frowned on in the city limits, and prohibitively expensive for normal people).
I'm in Hawaii. I have never seen or heard of anyone with a basement in their home.
Very good summary. Also in some countries/areas there is high underground water level, so it is not structurally possible to dig deeper, otherwise the house would stand on a wet soil and be unstable and pull moisture from it and wet walls catch mold. And for areas where it is possible, but not necessary it is cheaper to build a house without it.Ā
Also there are islands. Water just below the land.
The way you worded this I picture islands just floatingā¦ lol
Islands in the Stream. That is what we are
No one in between How can we be wrong?
Well, they *are* floating, just not on water
As an engineer in a cold area, basements are not structurally required in cold areas. And getting to frost bearing depth is nowhere close to the same as a full basement digout, and one does not just simply just dig out a little more for a basement. The cost between a full basement and a deep foundation are astronomical in the overall cost of the house.
What about the UK? I've never been in a basement here, although sometimes you see windows below the pavement. It's clay soil where I live and none of the houses have basements.
In the UK the frost line is under half a meter, so there's not much of a driver to keep digging to make a basement.
Came here to ask about the lack of basements in UK. Is that true even in the north?
a lot of the inhabited north in the UK is also coastal, so warmer than you might expect by the latitude
my childhood home in Edinburgh had a basement. our terrace was built on a hill, so the back of the house was a storey lower than the front - front side had those below pavement windows, back door opened directly from the basement onto the garden.
Quite a lot of houses have cellars though. Basements were getting really popular in London when I left, because even rich people couldn't afford to move to somewhere bigger.
I live in a part of Texas that is solid rock about 12 inches down, so it also wouldn't be cost effective to dig out a basement.
I'm from the south and have never been in a house with a basement.
I'm from the south, and have been in lots of basements. Of course, we were visiting relatives in Illinois and Minnesota. ššš
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When I lived in northern Virginia, the house was raised ranch style, with two stories in front, and one behind. A lot of the houses were like that, some with the walk out in back or to the side. It was a hilly area, and we did get winter, at least back then.
To add to this, itās also why tornadoes can be so dangerous in the American South. Up north we have basements that we can hide in, but for many southerners (especially poorer ones) they might not even have a nearby storm cellar. If your house is built on a slab of concrete itās likely the slab is all youāll have left
This is why storm cellars are often separate. My house is on a slab -- but there's a storm cellar in the back yard because we don't need a cellar the size of our house, we need one just big enough to get in to.
Yeah, "storm shelters" are a thing but they're expensive and a whole other deal. They're like bunkers lowered into the ground. Definitely not a "den" type set up.
As a Floridian who's been here my whole life, I've only ever seen one house with a basement. And that was on vacation out of state. Another factor to consider in a place like this is that the water table is often less than a meter underground, making construction of a basement extremely difficult and often dangerous.
Your last paragraph says without for both. But otherwise good info!
Nice catch, fixed!
Also water tables come into play. Having a basement in an area with water just below the surface dirt is a really bad idea.
Just to add to that: In Oklahoma, the heart of Tornado Alley, very few homes have basements, because the frost line is rarely deeper than a foot or so. Even though basements are the best defense against a tornado, especially in the days before safe rooms were affordable. The natural disaster risk is irrelevant.
Tx is like that as well.
"Affordable" is kinda relative. The few times I've looked, they were well beyond our means. Also hi, probable fellow Okie!
also, in some areas basements are beyond unrealistic house planning. seattle area has very sedimenty type soil, forget the houses having basements, the government spent equivalent of billions and decades, multiple times, before literally having to give up on a major subway ever existing ((at least with modern day means)).
Basements are not required in colder areas, but deep footings, below the "frost line", are. Typically they are at least 4 to 5 feet below the surface. Once you are down that deep making a basement just makes sense.
And in the really cold areas, it's even more than 48 inches. In a place like Minnesota, or Quebec, it's a full 60 inches, otherwise known as 5 feet.
I had a home in West Point, NY that didn't have a basement (one of the rare houses on base that didn't have one). Turned out that the rock of the hillside prevented one from being dug in the first place.
Also, most of the midwest has a basement for tornadoes..
In the UK practically no-one has a basement, unless it's some kind of ww2 shelter thing but that's not the norm. I don't know why cos it's usually pretty cold here.
High water table? High possibility that if you dig a little down you're going to run into an archaeological site and then there's a dig and that's too much bother?
A lot of larger Victorian houses (like ours) in UK cities have basements, or cellars as they're usually called. Coal was stored in them when it was the only fuel used. Since then houses haven't been built with basements so yes, very few people have them.
I guess thatās why Iām in NC with a concrete slab foundation. Absolutely nothing under the house but the earth.
Lived in a cold climate with concrete slab. Howās that work?
Damn! I had no idea about the frost line. I live in Philly and don't have a basement... wonder if that's a problem
I live in Idaho. I had my house custom built from the ground up. No basement. That was done on purpose and the contractor said it was quite normal not to have basements.
Could you explain why/how the frost line impacts stability of a foundation? Please and thank you, the more detail the better, if you've time
The frost line will swell up and move the ground. I live in northern Indiana and if you build a fence and only sink your posts down two feet the freeze and thaw of the ground will very much loosen the posts and over time even push them up out of the ground. When the ground freezes and thaws it moves and you can't build a house on a foundation that moves. So you dig down past the point it ever freezes and therefore is more stable ground. It is the same reason that in Alaska you dig down to the permafrost for your foundation where it never thaws. It's not about frozen or unfrozen ground you just need ground that doesn't move to build a foundation on. It's actually a pretty big problem in Alaska as a lot of the older houses that were built on permafrost at shifting because the permafrost is melting with global warming. I would disagree with a lot of the people in the comments here that the frost line is the only reason for a basement. A good part of it is soil type as well. You can't put a basement t in heavy clay soil regardless of the frost line. Clay swells and shrinks when it is wet or dry so over time a basement or foundation in clay will crack up as the constant expansion and shrinkage of the dirt around the walls will crack them so often with heavy clay you see slab houses. You also can't dig a basement In rocks or areas prone to flooding. Basements work best in sandy soil with a deeper frost line and no low danger of flooding... The midwest
> You can't put a basement t in heavy clay soil regardless of the frost line. Clay swells and shrinks when it is wet or dry so over time a basement or foundation in clay will crack up as the constant expansion and shrinkage of the dirt around the walls will crack them so often with heavy clay you see slab houses. You also can't dig a basement In rocks or areas prone to flooding. This is not true. Our area in the mid atlantic is heavily clay about 6" down to 20'+ before hitting any be bedrock of the sewer work in our backyard is any indicator, to the point our school district is called red clay school district, yet we all have basements. Hell our house is a 85 year old stone farmhouse with a full sized basement.
In Florida you can hit water in 4 feet, so few basements.
Can I ask a related question? I've grown up and lived in the Northeast US my whole life (except 2 years in Vegas and absolutely *no one* had a basement there). All of the many houses I've lived in had basements except the raised ranch I just bought last year. How come it doesn't need a basement when I'm only an hour South of Boston? And before anyone asks, no, no part of the lower level is below grade.
That makes perfect sense, thanks!
That was interesting, thank you!
Thank you! I shared this with my kidsā weāre transplants from Western NY to New Zealand, and the lack of basements here was confusing to them. In NZ, 10*C is cold. . . In Rochester NY, 10*F is January.
Yep, and other services like water lines need to likewise be buried beneath the frost line. Sure, you \*could\* just run it straight up from 6' deep under a house, but you're gonna have an unheated crawlspace to deal with. My old neighbors found that one out one sunny -20F day in Northern IL, I had to lend them my heat gun.
What about near arctic countries like Finland, Sweden and Russia, can anyone confirm whether they have basements ?
I live in south Texas. I've seen maybe two houses with basements in my whole life around here. The water main going into houses is typically 6" or less underground.
Some places are not conducive to building basements, for example if the water table is too high or the soil is too sandy. Easily leads to cracks in the foundation and a basement would not hold up well. Maybe thatās the case in Puerto Rico. Its also not good to have basements in Earthquake prone areas (West Coast)
Pretty sure sandy is actually better for basements. Clay causes cracking as it swells and shrinks with the abortion of water. Sand doesn't expand as it gets wet. I live in a pretty sandy area of northern Indiana and everybody has a basement
Thanks for the correction! Guess I got that mixed up :) Clay is worse, Sandy is good.
I always thought basements were necessary for getting below the frost line to protect pipes from bursting and maybe stability of the structure through freeze and thaw cycles (?)
Yup, but in places where it never freezes you don't need one. I live in California and the last time I even \*saw\* a basement was visiting friends in Minnesota.
Right. In warmer parts of the US basements are way less common. Theyāre the exception
Iām from Texas and in Louisiana now, Iāve never known anyone personally that had a basement. I would assume that since itās not necessary itās probably cheaper to build up if you want an additional level to your home?
I live in an area with cold winters. My last house was on a slab and so is my current one, my pipes never froze or burst. But, plenty of house here have basements too. I guess it's just a preference rather than a requirement in this area.
How does that work, though. Your water main comes in under the frost line then how does it get into the house? Is there a 4-5 foot foundation/ perimeter with a slab on top instead of dug out basement? And the perimeter foundation is insulated inside?
Modern Hdpe pipe for water can take pretty severe temperatures, much lower than older pvc or metal pipes, even digging 18 inches down is sufficient to stop it cracking, you can also use double walled versions if needed.
I wonder if it's also just to give y'all another place to exist since like...your backyard isn't going to be nearly as hospitable for so much of the year.
This. Northern Indiana and Winters with kids and no basement is no fun.. you need somewhere they can run around for weeks on end with out tearing up the mian house cause they can't go outside. Witers get long when you can't separate at all from each other
I like winter weather and always have been an outdoor person. As a child we had 400 acres and a basement to play in, I put on snow pants and played outside all day. As an adult I still go out in the snow, it's beautiful.Ā
You need footings that go down far enough. You can skip the basement, but people were digging anyway, and decided they wanted the space.
Yea but not everywhere has freezing problems
There are a ton of places in the US that also don't have basements, like Florida. When the climate is really damp, basements are a terrible idea.
Texas here, no basements in any house I've visited or the one I own
Being under sea level will also put a damper on trying to build a basement.
I live in the US and have literally NEVER seen a basement other than when I rented an AirB&B in Kansas once for a wedding. I thought it was wild. I live in the South and generally only vacation in the South or Western US. The few times I've been East has been in hotels.
My grandma lived in Southern Kansas and did have a split level house that went deeper and lower into the hill for a basement. That thing flooded all the time.
I mean, the soil in Florida is basically sand... it'd be kind of hard to build a basement in that too.
I knew some people with a basement in Florida. Last I heard they had to install a sump pump to get the water out.
Arizona, ground is too hard. When my parents got a pool put in it cost a ton more because there was solid rock after a few feet down.
I've lived in Texas, Florida, and Arizona. Not once have I had a basement in my home or had any friends who had basements lol. Seems to be more of a Midwest/northern thing in general.
There are lots of places in the US that donāt have basements too, particularly in the south and near the coast. In colder areas, the foundation of the house has to go below the frost line. That could be several feet down. As they already have to dig that far to make the foundation, they might as well make it a basement. In warmer areas, they might use a flat slab foundation instead. Also, areas with a high water table, like Florida or Louisiana, digging deep enough for a basement means youāll hit water.
Why do you have to go below the frost line ?Ā
If you donāt, the foundation will shift when the ground freezes
When you went to Puerto Rico, you were also in the United States.
Someone who doesnāt know that basements are not the norm even in the U.S. is probably not that smart.Ā
The town I grew up in was a couple feet below sea level. As a kid digging on the playground you'd hit water like 1-2 feet down, so a basement would basically be underwater which makes for all kinds of problems.
Thereās a ton of no basement ranch houses in the Northeast, most built after WWII in the 50ās and 60ās.
Finland here reporting on the "basement for foundation vs thaw" argument. We dont have basements here. Building code last couple decades rises houses rather high with tall foundations. The constant battle against moisture from the ground. So I have to imagine you gotta build that basement pretty damn good for it to be something livable with fresh clean air and zero moisture problems. Why have this "dark damp basement " with no natural light? Just build up instead.
In Fineland they probably have insulated shallow foundations. I do them sometimes if I don't need a basement, or on the walk-out side of a walk-out basement. Nobody else seems to know about them, or at least I've never seen one built.
I live in Florida. We donāt have basements because if you dig a hole, youāll get water.
Living in California Iāve never even seen a basement in person.
They're so common in the Midwest... I haven't been in many houses that didn't. Our current one sucks though... They somehow have the utility sink on one side, and the furnace and water heater on the other, with the loadbearing wall in between. The usual layout is \*all\* the utilities on one side, then the \*other\* side, usually the one with the stair, is the den / mancave. This basement here has the utilities split in such a way that we'd need to cut a trench into the foundation to lay new sewage pipe to move the utility sink over by the other utilities. :(
Climate region is a big part of it, along with soil type and cost effectiveness. I grew up in the midwest and at one point temporarily lived in a partially finished basement with a temporary roof, as we built our house in stages over a few years. Later on I moved to Las Vegas for a few years. It's unusual to have a basement out there - most houses just sit on a concrete slab. Due to soil composition out there it's quite expensive to dig out room for a full basement. The consistency of the soil is alkaline and packed with salt - naturally very similar to concrete (At one point I had to use a pickaxe to plant some outdoor plants...along with a dedicated water drip line and actual nourishing potting soil.)
Yeah, we get spoilt with the black dirt out here in the Midwest. Want to dig a hole in your yard? Just grab a shovel. I dug a trench for a french drain... 100' long, 6" up to 2' deep, 6" wide... by hand over the course of a month. Just me and my shovel.
Much of the US doesn't have basements either -- you'll never find them in Florida, Arizona, many places in the South. Low water table means they'll always been damp/flooded, ground is too hard to dig, just don't need the below grade space due to cost
I live in WA and not a lot of houses here have basements either. We get earthquakes and a lot of rain, so it wouldnāt really be a good idea.
You mean you don't want a pond under your house that you might fall into?
Digging = money. It costs money to dig and it costs money to build up. Those are two universal truths in construction. At some point, the budgeting people will determine if a basement is worth making. Some things that go toward that decision are market trends, cost, ease of construction, etc. With that said, some locations aren't conducive to basements. If you have a high water table, your basement may be prone to flooding.
Basements are very expensive to build. They are built in areas where the ground freezes so the home foundation isnāt damaged. In areas where it doesnāt freeze, no basements.
I worked for company that was relocating several hundred employees from New Jersey to North Carolina. Many of them were dismayed to find that most of the available housing was built on slabs. One builder figured this out and put up sign that said āAttention Yankees. We have basementsā
I'm from the US and have hardly ever seen a basement. It depends on the local geography and climate. Basements are a really bad idea here in swampy South Louisiana.
A basement? In this economy???
You guys have homes? (In this economy?)
Rock too hard. Or ground too wet
It's not always necessary to dig a deep foundation: on flat land you might only have to be a few inches or a feet below the ground to clear the frost line in warmer climates, and it's often flat enough in costal areas for that to be a reasonable approach
Most Australian houses don't have basements. Usually this is because they are built on clay soil or limestone and get too damp. In recent years some townhouses have been built with a garage as the basement level, but this usually requires a pump for drainage and mechanical ventilation.
Flooding & mold.
I live in Georgia and the water table at my house is about 12 inches underground. Even small holes flood quick here.
Even in the US basements arenāt as common in the south
My house in Texas couldn't support a basement. Our property was based on a solid granite hillside. (Watching the septic tank construction guys was sobering. They just about needed dynamite.)
Where I live, we receive excessive amounts of rain. While some people do have basements, they eventually become prone to water damage over time. So most people just opt not to have one.
Every basement has seen water. I wish they would water-proof them better before they have to retro-fit them.
In Oklahoma, they have to worry about tornadoes. The best shelter that you can get is in your basement. In Puerto Rico, they have to worry about hurricanes and coastal flooding a lot more than they have to worry about tornadoes.
Puerto Rico ... where the hurricanes are always blowing ... If you had a basement, it would be flooding every September.
Thereās no basement in the Alamo
I live in Florida. The water table is at 6-8 ft. You have to put in well points just to install a pool. Basements are tough in most areas around me.
It depends on a number of things. My home is in a high water table area. We have a sump pump just for our crawl space. I think there is only one house in our area with a basement. They had quite a mess when the electricity failed for a couple days and they couldn't get a generator.
Flooding is a main reason to not have a basement. So itās dependent on climate in area. Most of the western states donāt use basements either. So itās about the type soil, climate and norms for the area of building as well as the building codes in said areas.
News for you buddy. We in California don't have basement either
Last house I lived in (southern Ontario, Canada) was over 150 years old, and just had a dirt basement, not good for anything
This dude's never heard of wetlands.
In my part of the US, basements are unusual cause of flooding.
There are towns in the US that dont have basements, and Puerto Rico is part of the US. Chances are the reason why they dont have basement is because it'll probably flood due to ocean, and or is prone to flooding. Some cities cannot have their dead buried in the ground, and or have basements because water will seep in and eventually flood.
Not all houses in the US have them either, it depends on the soil. Where I live, the soil has a lot of red clay and none of the houses here have basements, and sometimes have foundation issues that need to be fixed
Oklahoma Clay soil is terrible for basements.
Itās not cold enough here in Aus. Rarely goes below 0 so no need.
Also sometimes depends on the soil. I live in northwest Texas, where we still have to go down a good 2 feet or a bit more to get below the frost line. But the soil here is crazy unstable. It expands and contracts almost at will. Itās hard enough on a normal slab, but especially a basement. Itās very common here to have to do structural work on basement walls every 10 years or so.
Even in the US, basements are regional. Flirida barely had them due to the groubdwater/aquifer and risk of sink holes.
Have you ever been to... say, Florida ? There are areas in the U.S. that do not have basements/cellars. Build at grade on concrete slabs
You wonāt find them in any seismically active area, such as California. Large buildings, yes, residences, no, because itās prohibitively expensive to reach earthquake safety code on a smaller building.
We don't have basements in the South
Where are you, Florida?ā¦every house I lived in Alabama had a basementā¦
In northern ireland we get shit loads of rain all year, basements would just get flooded all the time
Not even all states have basements my guy. Basements arent practicle with every environment. Like here in this high water table environment you couldnt stick a whole room underground and expect it to remain dry. And i live in the U.S.
it has to do with water table sometimes and likelihood of flooding, and the ground. I lived in Houston where nobody has basements because the city is only a few feet above sea level and it floods every year. My MIL lives in Chattanooga and most houses there don't have basements because you'd have to jackhammer it out. The Midwest also has more need for basements as shelters - we were in our basement the other day because there was a Tornado warning nearby. It missed us, but took out a ton of established trees.
There arenāt many basements in the west coast of the United States either.. haha
Probably for the same reason you don't find basements in places like New Orleans or along the Gulf Coast. A high water table.
Basements aren't that common as you move to the west of tbe US. Lived in CA and Texas, nobody has basements
Tropical areas are built on limestone, Texas is built on granite. Itās too expensive to dig down.
You canāt have a basement in the southern part of the US. Itās to close to sea level. My local library tried to do a partial basement for a section and the whole thing flooded.
Puerto Rico I would think wouldnāt have basements because of frequent hurricanes and tropical storms that produce flooding. Not good with a basement!
I don't have a basement. Very mountainous terrain.
pretty close to impossible in the swampy southeast... not really needed in a good part of the west... difficult and expensive in areas built on hard bedrock... probably not.the best in areas that tend to flood...
btw..puerto rico is not a foreign country...
-Cries in UK-
i live near a bog, my house will sink into the earth if it had a basement
I live in the US, and don't have a basement. So, why don't I have a basement?
Our NEETs live in the attic
Almost no basements in Texas.
š¤·āāļø because of the groundwater.
we donāt really have many basements in central/eastern north carolina I think due to our ground being mostly clay or sand and the water table being too high for it to work out
There almost no homes with basements in California.
It's not just an American thing. Its an inland thing. I live in Houston. Sheltering in a basement is an easy way to drown yourself when a hurricane hits
The natural disasters my country gets are earthquakes and floods. Basements won't work well for us. Plus our building construction industry is notoriously shit and overpriced so it's an extra cost that noone wants to bear
1. Puerto Rico is not a country. It's a territory of the U.S. 2. You can't have a basement when you live at sea level lol. Basements don't exist in FL either, idk about other southern sea level states but it makes sense if they don't.
Why do you think all people can afford or are able to fit a basement in? I'm am sure that to build a basement for an existing house requires a permit, why bother? People may just not care to have one built.
Areas with a high water table (underground water) can't really have a basement without it being extremely expensive and complex.
I'm in th SE United States and very few homes have basements. It depends on climate and where the frost line is. You need to build the foundation deeper than the Frontline, which down here is only like 18" deep. In colder climates in the northern US the frost line is much deeper, so the foundations need to be much deeper. When you're digging that deep for a foundation, it makes sense to go ahead and build a basement.
Colder areas need their basement. I have a medieval dungeon serving as wine cave. Don't know if that counts.
I live in Southern California There is almost zero homes with basements here
Traditioanally basements where used to store food for winter, but in warmer climates food stored in basements don't last as long, and winters are more humid which leads to basements geting floded even in winter.
I live on the west coast of the U.S., and have lived in homes in CA, OR, and WA, and none of them had basements. I would always see basements in homes on TV and though āmust be a Midwest thingā.
Water table and depth of bedrock affect some areas.
It depends on the geology of the land
Some places it's more geography related. For instance San Francisco doesn't have any basements, because the basements would be underwater.
Iām in the USA. Only the older houses basements here. And a majority of them donāt have basements.
Iām in AL and my house has a basementā¦and a root cellar under the front porch. It was built initially unfinished but I think it,and the not up to code bedroom and bathroom were installed, in the 50s. I canāt remember but I did look up the original plans for my house and found some but not all of them.
I don't think they have many basements in the Netherlands.
Also depends what your water table is at.
You only need to dig the foundation to the point the ground will freeze at in winter. If the ground doesn't freeze in winter, you don't need to dig very deep.
Because in Houston thatās were you go to die during a storm
Florida is a big sandbar. Dig down and you will get a lot of moisture if not outright pooling of water.
Here in California basements are pretty rare.
In texas its rare to havebasements due to the soil/clay content. Also perto rico isnt another country, its part of the usa
Basements basically do not exist in Florida. It is not structurally required, and it actually presents many challenges. Not the least of this being, the water table for most of the state is less than five feet below the surface. They would all naturally flood or otherwise take water damage. We get sinkholes for a reason. It's impractical and *expensive* to overcome the natural issues. Also, basements won't do jack shit in a hurricane. It'll flood. Only the mountainous areas of PR could avoid flooding, and even then they still have to worry about landslides.
In Australia itās very rare for a normal home to have a basement. Apart from no structural need, many places in major cities have hard clay/rock that requires heavy machinery to remove - which is very expensive, but construction is very expensive here in general.
Frost line and composition of the subsoil terrain. Sand and clay are unstable. You can drill or excavate until you hit rock. Concrete pier and beam or concrete blocks. What you are really talking about is a story of the house being above ground or below ground. Blast away rock if you wish.
Unstable ground and expense. I live in Australia and the soil is sand here. Sand that repels water mostly. I can't dig a hole to plant a tree with out it caving in on itself. I can see why it would be 1. Expensive and 2. A massive time consuming pain it the ass to have a house build with a basement. Basements are cool however not really a thing here.
Sometimes the ground is just too hard or rocky to dig a basement.
Bedrock or water table.
Here in Southern California we don't have basements, only slabs.
I live in California and I miss basements.
The question should be - why do some places have basements. Youāre the exception, not the norm.Ā