is it Practicable to build a basement where the water table is high

[Bob S.]

Could you use pound liner to make a 4' deep basement that has a high water table part of the year?
When the farmers are irrigating nearby the water table is about 10".

[flyingvan]

It depends...

   Say your house is 20x30 with your basement underneath the entire house.  With your 4' depth, then adding 10" for the thickness of the floor, I'll round the displacement depth to an even 4'.  That makes 149,909 pounds of floatation, since you are displacing 2,400 cubic feet @ 62.462 pounds per. 
   Typical houses weigh 200 pounds per square foot single story, 275 for two story.  So if you are building single level it's 120,000 pounds and will float.  Two levels, 165,000 and hope that table don't rise any more. 
   You could build a three level, but that's a whole 'nuther story

[MountainDon]

.... and if it was mine, I'd then always be wondering if it would develop a leak and "sink".

[flyingvan]

There's a workaround, though.  If you pour your floor and walls thick enough it'll be heavy enough not to float.  You'd still need to seal it all somehow.  It would be close to 2 PSI outside the wall

[tommytebco]

I grew up 1 block from Lake St. Claire in the Grosse Pointe area of Detroit . The water level was higher than a full basements in the area. I don't know exact figures for water table.

It was standard practice to build full basement homes. They would tar the outside of the basement and install tiling around the perimeter,connected to a sump in one corner of the basement. The sump had an automatic electric pump which pumped out the accumulating water.

From time to time the pump might malfunction, causing lots of damage to finished rec rooms.

[diyfrank]

4' isn't much room for a basement, leave the bottom out and let it be a crawl space.

Backfill the inside to match the level of the dirt outside.  As long top of wall is high enough to allow a crawl space.

[EvoQ]

Dig down to just above water table and then build a crawl space up. Not too complicated is it ?

[John Raabe]

It sounds like your property is flat. If that is the case I would not suggest a basement as it will have to have constant power to run pumps or the house will float, leak or otherwise turn to the dark side.

On the other hand, if you have daylight drainage for foundation drains you can build a very well sealed basement wall and then backfill w/ drainage rock so that water is carried down and away by foundation footer level drains. Get a good local foundation contractor who has done this before to oversee this project. You may also need drain rock under the floor slab. If it is done right the water will be carried around the house and drain downhill. The slab and basement wall will stay dry. You can also install french drains to dry out the yard and reduce the load on the house.

If you are in a low spot, with wet poorly drained soils all around, you really shouldn't have a house there - no matter what the foundation.

[considerations]

I think I would just make it a Daylight basement, i.e.: first floor.

[muldoon]

it's alot cheaper to build up than down. 

[Huge29]

My parent's house is similar in the farm slightly upgradient brings water for about three months of the year; irrigation season.  They put in French drains, which did not help at all.  They since added a sump pit in the garage and one between the French drain and the foundation and that seems to work pretty well as long as they remember to plug in the pumps rather than waiting to see water....
Not a huge problem for a full time house as someone is always there to see any potential damage or issue, but if it were only a summer cabin kind of thing and flooding could be happening for weeks at a time = not good.  My work location has an active aquifer  to where the sump pump is running nearly constantly, very rare in Utah, especially in sub freezing temperatures.  The pump went out, before we got an alarm and it did a ton of damage in just having about an inch of water.