Why no basements?

[ballen]

Hi All, Newbie here.  Love the forum so far.

I am just beginning to design my small home in the woods, probably in the 280 sq. ft. range.

It seems as though most folks don't dig a basement.  I feel a basement would be very handy considering the small size of our homes.  What are the issues? Cost? Moisture? Rocks?

My land is very rocky but I figure if I dig a basement, I will have lots of material to build stone basement walls and foundation. 

Why aren't basements more common?

All comments welcome.
Thanks 

[glenn kangiser]

to the forum ballen.

Maybe cost of excavating and ease of building above ground? 

In deep frost areas they make a lot of sense.  JUst a little more to get below the freeze level and it just as well be a room.  I sort of live in a basement -- I like it.  Lots of light here though the way it is designed.

We do have a few members that have basements though.  I say good idea.

[MountainDon]

First, basements are more common in some parts of the country than others.

But even back home where everyone in the city had a basement, virtually none of the vacation homes used basements. 

Where I live in NM, almost nobody has a basement be it their full time home or a second home in the desert or mountains. I believe when it's not necessary to do deep foundations for frost reasons, it's simply less expensive. When it comes to a owner builder situation it's my opinion that many of us don't own the equipment and don't want to pay someone else to dig a big hole.

[Okie_Bob]

I believe it has more to do with our clay soils here in Tx and Ok. I don't know of any houses that have basements here.
We have so much trouble with the foundations now that it would be problematic that basemenst would always be in need of
repair from water leaks due to the expansion and contraction of the clay soil.
We have a saying here...there are only two kinds of houses...those that have foundation problems and those that will soon.
Okie Bob

[JRR]

Radon gas is a new-age concern for basements and slabs.

[Squirl]

For me cost and time. 

To me a basement costs a lot more.  For a full basement, you need to excavate a large area.  This requires heavy equipment rental.  You also need to set up concrete forms for the footings and the walls.  You can rent these or buy them, but they are an extra cost.  Or you can go build a block foundation, but in many areas you will still have to add rebar and fill in the blocks.  This is just as expensive.  Also in my area to be up to code you need to insulate your basement. (extra cost)  Many inspectors will not pass a stone basement wall in my area.  It depends on what your building code says.

It also takes more time.  I would rather build the house quickly and have a place to live.  Then when I have time, build outbuildings or root cellars.  They are under the min. square ft. for a building permit and I don't get taxed on them. 

That brings me to the next point.  While you may get the extra space from a basement, you may be taxed on it too.

So there are many local factors that can affect the decision

[muldoon]

They are very common up north, where you need to excavate to get under the frost line anyway.  In most cases you must excavate the area that becomes a basement anyway so it makes sense to use it.  In the south, no need to get under a freeze line means no need to excavate and thus a very expensive room.  Much cheaper to ad a second floor than to dig under to add a floor.

In Some parts of Texas - like Houston we have a water table of just 4-6 feet, meaning if you dig a basement you get a swimming pool.  Other parts of the country is rocky, and would require actually blasting out tons of rock to get a basement, again much cheaper to frame out a second story. 

[davidj]

I was planning on a basement for my 20x30, but it turned out that retaining walls beyond 4' required engineering.  So I settled on a crawl space with space for strge, but that still required 8" wide block, 1/2" rebar every 32" horizontally and vertically and every block filled.  This is in an "intermediate" earthquake risk zone.

My neighbor in the bay area had a basement built, in an area where the ground is wet clay and the earthquake risk is v. high (a couple of miles from the Hayward Fault)!  Only for storage, maybe 5 or 6 ft below grade and only 300 ft sq under a small single-story addition.  It had rebar on 8" centers, huge amounts of concrete and about 40 yds of gravel for drainage.  A team of 3 or 4 guys was working on it for weeks (not least of all because the gravel had to be moved by the bucket due to access difficulties!).  The framing for the above-ground part of the addition used a team of 2 and took a fraction of the time.  In their case they had no choice but to go down due to the lot size and not wanting to spoil the feel of the yard with a 2nd-story addition, but it certainly wasn't the cheap or easy option - their little basement probably cost almost as much as my whole cabin!

[ballen]

Thanks everyone for the great feedback.

I am in North East PA so some amount of digging below the frost line will be neccessary anyway.

My dream of using the extracted rock to build the foundation may be nixed by the codes.  Will have to check that one out.  I hope to be code worthy so that I can get my mail there someday.

I hope to purchase a small, used excavator for this and a possible micro-hydro project on the property (I may have to bury 700' of pipe for the penstock).  If anyone knows where I can get a small excavator cheap in NE PA, please let me know!

I have not yet retired so working on this on weekends will also be an issue. 

If anyone has built a stone foundation, how did you keep the water out (ground that is not rock is clay and the area is pretty wet)?

All these issues makes it sound like it's not worth the trouble.  However, I really want to maximize the space (and thus, lesson my footprint in my beautiful forest).  The basement would also be a good place for any systems needing warmth like the tank of a composting toilet or cistern/water collecting barrels.

Oh, sooooo many decisions.......

[Erin]

We're putting a full daylight basement under our house.   
For us, it's a great way to get extra space without having to make what seems like a significantly larger house...

[wildbil]

I live in the cold up here in Michigan. Lots of basements. When I build it will be on short concrete piers. What I gather from basements is just another place to store junk; much cheaper to just have an extra shed for some stuff.

[diyfrank]

We put in daylight basements from time to time. 
It's always because The house sits on a hill and it's the only reasonable option.
Builders hate water issues so they try to avoid basements.
Most of the time if the walls are sprayed and you hang amer drain and lay a good footing drain around it, waters not a problem.
If you build one, I'd suggest taking extra care in water proofing.

I wouldn't let the water scare me away from building one.

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks everyone for the great feedback.

I am in North East PA so some amount of digging below the frost line will be neccessary anyway.

My dream of using the extracted rock to build the foundation may be nixed by the codes.  Will have to check that one out.  I hope to be code worthy so that I can get my mail there someday.

I hope to purchase a small, used excavator for this and a possible micro-hydro project on the property (I may have to bury 700' of pipe for the penstock).  If anyone knows where I can get a small excavator cheap in NE PA, please let me know!

I have not yet retired so working on this on weekends will also be an issue. 

If anyone has built a stone foundation, how did you keep the water out (ground that is not rock is clay and the area is pretty wet)?

All these issues makes it sound like it's not worth the trouble.  However, I really want to maximize the space (and thus, lesson my footprint in my beautiful forest).  The basement would also be a good place for any systems needing warmth like the tank of a composting toilet or cistern/water collecting barrels.

Oh, sooooo many decisions.......

Are you talking about rock walls?  Concrete walls with waterproofing and drainboard around them along with perforated pipe in French drains , draining to daylight - down hill  should take care of the drainage issues and keep things dry.  Rock walls should be similar.  You would likely need concrete and reinforcing to pass code anyway then put the rock as facing inside if you want.

[considerations]

I think a basement would be handy, but on this property, the soils are basically clay, and if you dig down about 4 ft there is a layer demarcation between two different types of clay.  Water runs in this place between the layers, even in summer in some spots. 

I think I would have troubles keeping that water out of a basement.

[Rover]

Basements are quite common in Ontario.

There are 2 issues to consider for part time residences.  One is that the summer humid air could condense in the cool and dark basements.  Then you have that musty smell.  Friends of mine need to run a dehumidifier in the basement thru the summer.  Its dried out the air but they likely notice the electrical bill.  Walk out basements don't usually have this problem.

Second is that in the winter they need to keep the basement electric baseboards at a minimum temperature to ensure the cold doesn't get into the basement and freeze the ground under the footings.  To avoid the frost and keeping the heat on, you would have to dig the foundations even lower than your basement floor.

I'm planning for a crawl space to store stuff but have the foundation walls go down 4-5' to avoid the frost.  In this way I'll be doing trench excavation for foundation walls instead of bulk excavation for a whole basement.

[builderboy]

While discussing my project with the local inspector I mentioned basement. His comment was "dig a hole here in Nova Scotia and it will fill up with water." I went with no basement since I had little grade to drain water away. 

[FrankInWI]

try to sell a house withOUT a basement in Wisconsin and you will wait a long time for a buyer..... Of course it's diferenet with seasonal buildings, cottages etc.  My basement is a family room facing south and I put a 3 X 6 window in that.  Sun streams in nice... then there is laundry room, computer room and shop.   I don't know how to live without a basement, but guess I will learn when I retire to our gat-away.  Even there... I'd have considered a basement but for the fact that we are flood plain near the river.

[Erin]

try to sell a house withOUT a basement in Wisconsin and you will wait a long time for a buyer...

The same is true here in Tornado Alley. 

[brian_nj]

we are still undecided if we are going to do piers, a crawl or a full basement under our house. for us it mostly depends on the rock that we hit when clearing the site. so far we have cleared about 30x50 out of 60x50 and the rock has not been too bad, but we are about to really start cutting into the finger on the next section and it might get a bit tougher. If we hit a lot of rock we may do a partial basement and partil crawlspace. I really want to be able to keep one of the spare vehicles up at the cabin so we always have two there and an under house parking area would be best. 

We are letting the site dictate our foundation which in turn also dictates how we have to build the road to the cabin. I've seen too many houses built in the mountains without enough flexibility built in that end up costing the owners a heck of a lot more than needed because they could not adapt to the terrain they encounter. That is one of the things that I liked best about the plans from John they come with all the options no extra $$ for different foundations.