aemeijers wrote:
Robert Allison wrote:

aemeijers wrote:

Robert Allison wrote:

aemeijers wrote:

(educational personal knowledge snipped)


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.

30 bucks per square foot sounds like real cheap space to me. Doesn't
above-grade finish space still run upwards of 120 per square foot? Even
if you cut that in half and call it 'semi-finished storage', the hole in
the ground looks like a winner.

Oh, I believe you that No Basement is the 'usual and customary' in your
area. And in Louisiana, even in the first solid land one parish back
from the Gulf, the water table is too damn high for basements, unless
you build a hill on the lot.

But where are people supposed to keep all their STUFF? (Tools, kid crap,
off-season decorations, workbenches, etc.) In Lake Charles, everyone has
a storage shed (Called a Louisiana basement)in the back end of their
carport, and it is always filled like Fibber McGee's closet. How do they
do it over in Texas? Up here in Michigan, the folks without proper
basements end up with multiple prefab backyard sheds, or put up pole
barns if they are rich enough. (In summer, they fill the garage, but you
have to park inside in winter up here unless you are a masochist- it
SNOWS.)

Or do people building new houses simply swear off being packrats?

aem sends...

I have a shop. 32'x 26' But most people have attics and they
use them. Alot of portable buildings go up.

Just for the hell of it, I did a quick estimate and for a 1600 sf
house, square, with nothing fancy, the basement cost is going to
be about 50,000, conservatively. That is pretty close to my
original 30.00 sf. Since most homes of that size with nothing
fancy around here are going for about 150,000, you have just
increased the cost of the house by 33%. And you still don't even
have a floor yet.

I will wait to see if the basement phenomenae ever takes off
here, but I doubt it.

The closest thing that I have been involved with are these
interior storm cellars, but they are only about 10'x10' and stay
flooded alot of the time, just from ground water.

--
Robert Allison
Rimshot, Inc.
Georgetown, TX