aemeijers wrote:
Robert Allison wrote:

aemeijers wrote:

(snip)

aem sends...


Neither reason is valid for not having basements in this area. See my
other response in this thread for the real reason. But it boils down
to this: You don't need one, so spend your money on living space that
costs less. If you want one, you can have one, it will just cost you.

Eh- different strokes for different folks, etc. I can understand why, if
you have a huge lot as is common in new construction down south, you
would want to put the square footage (aka money) above ground where it
shows. But aside from the frostline question, since you are digging
anyway, a basement can be the cheapest enclosed space you can add to a
house. I'm not a fan of finished basements, never have been. But I
really, really like having a bigass bare concrete room downstairs to
stack stuff and do messy projects. And it DOES make installing and
servicing all the mechanicals much less of a pain. My ideal would be a
walkout basement- best of both worlds.

Down here, the digging just involves a trenching machine for
about a day. Then you run the plumbing and whatever electrical
and pour the slab. You only need about 3' deep footers or less
for that.

Digging for a basement would involve a backhoe, trucks to haul
off excess, most likely a hoe ram, several people to build forms,
pouring the foundation walls and waterproofing them, backfilling
and compacting exterior, pouring the basement floor, then
building the first floor, which would probably be framed.

The difference in cost is vast. Without a basement, the
foundation and floor costs about 7.00 sf (not including plumbing,
etc. which is involved with any kind of construction). The
basement would cost about about 30 dollars a sf to get to the
same point in construction.

Yeah, even up north here, the new house-of-many-gables 12-12 roofed
cookie-cutter subdivisions (several notches below McMansions) usually
skip the basements- they claim it doesn't add to the curb appeal, and
allows them to hit their price point for the same amount of finished
space. Personally, I'd rather skip all the superfluous gables and
such(and maybe the dedicated dining room and formal living room), and
build a slightly smaller 70s style ranch with a basement. Which is more
useful- a tall attic that can't even be used for storage, and is 120+ in
summer, or a deep cool dry basement?

But that is just me- YMMV, especially if your living depends on building
houses in the currently popular styles. (I do feel kind of sorry for the
people who were the first ones to move in to many of the recent
mid-range and McMansion subdivisions- those projects were the hardest
hit by the recent housing crunch, and it will be years, if ever, before
many of those subdivisions get built out, or the later phases and
connecting roads get built. A lot of those people have to be upside down
bigtime on resale value.)

Guess I really shouldn't rip on the currently popular styles- my 81 YO
father still makes a decent living in Louisiana, designing
Southern/'Cajun'/faux French style McMansions for the rich doctors. He
thinks they are silly, too, but that is what the well-off customers
want. :^/

aem sends...

For various reasons, I have only seen about 5 basements in my 35
years of construction in this area. They just don't make sense
down here. When someone has a basement, it is sort of a; Wow,
that is wild! kind of thing.

OTOH, plenty of storm cellars.

--
Robert Allison
Rimshot, Inc.
Georgetown, TX