I'm sorry ahead of time if this is the wrong place to post this
question.

I will be constructing a two story house in Spring of 2006. I'm
planning on building the house with a basement (which I will not finish
for years) but due to some financial and ground issues (we might hit
rock) I'm thinking about putting the house on a crawl space. I live in
Western PA - does anyone have any insight into the resale value of a
house that does not have a basement? It's a 4 bedroom house, but I may
or may not combine two of the rooms to form a large master bedroom and
large master bathroom.

In article om,
wrote:

I'm sorry ahead of time if this is the wrong place to post this
question.

I will be constructing a two story house in Spring of 2006. I'm
planning on building the house with a basement (which I will not finish
for years) but due to some financial and ground issues (we might hit
rock) I'm thinking about putting the house on a crawl space. I live in
Western PA - does anyone have any insight into the resale value of a
house that does not have a basement? It's a 4 bedroom house, but I may
or may not combine two of the rooms to form a large master bedroom and
large master bathroom.


2006?! You are getting ahead of yourself.


Dimitri

One year from now; that's not getting ahead of yourself, especially if
you are the GC and doing most of the construction yourself. Thanks
though for the input.

In article .com,
wrote:

One year from now; that's not getting ahead of yourself, especially if
you are the GC and doing most of the construction yourself. Thanks
though for the input.


If you are the GC and doing the construction yourself then why are you
posting here? You should already know what you need to now or know where
to find out. Are you also the architect?


Dimitri

wrote:
(snip)
I will be constructing a two story house in Spring of 2006. I'm
planning on building the house with a basement (which I will not finish
for years) but due to some financial and ground issues (we might hit
rock) I'm thinking about putting the house on a crawl space. I live in
Western PA - does anyone have any insight into the resale value of a
house that does not have a basement? (snip)

It mostly depend on local market. If your house is about the same
compare to most houses in your locality then you are fine.

Here in northen IL, it's O.K. for a starter home to go without a
basement. However, if your new house is not intended to be a starter
home then it'll be a significant disadvantage during sales. Not many
people who has a basement in their current house does not want one in
his/her next house. As an example, after 18 years of "junk"
accumulation, now I can't do without a basement. Most people who
currently lived in a house without a basement wish they had one so guess
what kind of house they'll be looking for the next time they are in the
market shopping for a house.

FC

On 27 Dec 2004 19:26:38 -0800, wrote:

I'm sorry ahead of time if this is the wrong place to post this
question.

I will be constructing a two story house in Spring of 2006. I'm
planning on building the house with a basement (which I will not finish
for years) but due to some financial and ground issues (we might hit
rock) I'm thinking about putting the house on a crawl space. I live in
Western PA - does anyone have any insight into the resale value of a
house that does not have a basement? It's a 4 bedroom house, but I may
or may not combine two of the rooms to form a large master bedroom and
large master bathroom.

I'd keep the rooms separate and I'd ask around to see how common
basements are in the area. If you don't have a basement, think of
some way to have an extra space for storage and a good place to locate
the furnace and water heater. In some areas nobody has basements due
to ground water issues, so a basement wouldn't add value; in other
places everyone has basements and not having one would be difficult.

Thanks for the two comments.

I would really like to put a basement in the house, but we haven't
started digging yet to see what we are going to hit. There's also the
financial situation and if we don't hit rock I don't want to put in a
shoddy basement just to have one.

The majority of houses in Western PA have basements, although not all
houses where my land is have basements. The houses that don't have
basements are that way because they hit rock once they started digging.
Maybe I will hit the lottery and not hit rock

Thanks again!

In article .com,
wrote:

I would really like to put a basement in the house, but we haven't
started digging yet to see what we are going to hit. There's also the
financial situation and if we don't hit rock I don't want to put in a
shoddy basement just to have one.

The majority of houses in Western PA have basements, although not all
houses where my land is have basements. The houses that don't have
basements are that way because they hit rock once they started digging.
Maybe I will hit the lottery and not hit rock


So what you are saying, really, is that you aren't even sure if you can
have a basement. Like I said, you are ahead of yourself.


Dimitri

wrote:
I'm sorry ahead of time if this is the wrong place to post this
question.

I will be constructing a two story house in Spring of 2006. I'm
planning on building the house with a basement (which I will not
finish
for years) but due to some financial and ground issues (we might hit
rock) I'm thinking about putting the house on a crawl space. I live
in
Western PA - does anyone have any insight into the resale value of a
house that does not have a basement? It's a 4 bedroom house, but I
may
or may not combine two of the rooms to form a large master bedroom
and
large master bathroom.


i am going through the same issue. i don't know if i am gonna get
through the rock to have a basement. however with the savings of 0
foundation walls, windows, etc i am forgoing the attempt to blast to
basement height and just have the crawl space with enough room for the
plumming and furnace. i will be adding on a side addition to accomadate
my workshop, storage and laundry room.

wrote:
wrote:

I'm sorry ahead of time if this is the wrong place to post this
question.

I will be constructing a two story house in Spring of 2006. I'm
planning on building the house with a basement (which I will not

finish

for years) but due to some financial and ground issues (we might hit
rock) I'm thinking about putting the house on a crawl space. I live

in

Western PA - does anyone have any insight into the resale value of a
house that does not have a basement? It's a 4 bedroom house, but I

may

or may not combine two of the rooms to form a large master bedroom

and

large master bathroom.



i am going through the same issue. i don't know if i am gonna get
through the rock to have a basement. however with the savings of 0
foundation walls, windows, etc i am forgoing the attempt to blast to
basement height and just have the crawl space with enough room for the
plumming and furnace. i will be adding on a side addition to accomadate
my workshop, storage and laundry room.


Why do you need to care whether there is rock underneath? My previous
house "basement" was completely above grade originally. The builder just
graded the yard and pushed some dirt to the fundation for drainage and
prevention of freezing/thawing of footing.

house would just not look right at all if i did this. it would not
compliment the building lot at all. it's a old treed lot and i'm
relying on the trees for summer shade and winter wind block - don't
want my house (2 story as it is) poking above the trees. + i don't want
to have to truck in the tons of fill, which is expensive around here.

I'm in the same boat as Rob; the plan I'm working with wouldn't look
right with a basement that was above ground. I'd have a frankenstein
house

In article om,
wrote:

I will be constructing a two story house in Spring of 2006.
Good time (actually overdue) to start thinking about the major
options. Minor options (like the color for the bedroom walls) can be
decided later.

I'm
planning on building the house with a basement (which I will not finish
for years)

Exactly what we did. We have a 1780 sqft house on top of a 1300 sqft
unfinished basement. Actually, it is getting more finished every day.
Just today, the county building inspector signed of on the rough
framing and rough electrical of the basement finishing project.
Because of the slope of the lot, the basement has daylight access on
one side, so it has a shop with an exterior door, a large kids
playroom with extensive windows, and even the laundry room has a small
window.

but due to some financial and ground issues (we might hit
rock) I'm thinking about putting the house on a crawl space. I live in
Western PA - does anyone have any insight into the resale value of a
house that does not have a basement?

On one hand: Determine how much a basement would change the resale
value. Easiest way I know to do this: Ask a really good real estate
agent (most of them have no idea). Most accurate way: Ask a real
estate appraiser. The way they do appraisals is to find comparable
recent sales (comps), and then use correction factors to compensate
for the fact that the comps are not exactly the same as the house
being appraised. Somewhere in there they have to have a correction
factor for basement.

On the other hand: Estimate the cost difference of constructing the
basement. In your case, this is difficult, until you have started
digging and try. For us, it was reasonably easy, as we had to have a
full geological report done beforehand, with a test trench dug, and
with drill holes.

In our case, the extra cost of the basement (8' standing height,
completely dry, but not finished at all) was about $25K. If you think
of it as $25K/1300sqft, you get to about $20 per squarre foot, which
is incredibly cheap, even if you consider that the eventual finishing
of the space will greatly increase the cost (but that happens later,
when you maybe can afford it).

Now my personal opinion: I would always do a basement. Why? Because
it gives you a great place to do all the "low value" things in style:
A basement is pretty cheap per square foot, but it is not prime living
space (you don't want to use it to sleep, or receive guests, or cook),
so it allows you to do the vitally important but less fashionable
things with generous space allowances. Like have a 100 sqft equipment
room for heater and furnace, rather than cramping them into a closet.
Or build a several hundred square foot shop. Or have a nice big
laundry room, with lots of closet space and a worktable, rather than
stuffing the washer and dryer into a closet. Or set 70 sqft aside for
a generous wine cellar with 30 cases of wine, rather than having 20
bottles in a little wine-fridge in the dining room. Or have a 300
sqft rec room, instead of the stationary bike being the centerpiece of
the living room, and the pool table having to share the duty of a
dining table. Or having a large room with lots of shelving to
organize the fruits of your packrat disease. All these things greatly
enhance the quality of life, but are not normally done above ground,
because there the cost is higher.

The other nice thing: You can build a completely unfinished basement,
and then do the finishing later (interior walls to separate it,
electrical, and so on). Just make sure you already have a very
accurate plan for what you intend to do later, and you make sure that
wherever brick or concrete is involved, you do it right up front.
Also, ask the building department or architect about ingress/egress
and fire requirements for a finished basement. You don't want to have
to cut the nice concrete walls away later. Same with plumbing (plan
where it is supposed to go, and put it in the slab right away).

One hint, from personal experience: The first thing to do with the new
unfinished basement is to paint the walls nice and white (consider the
humidity situation, maybe use waterstopping paint), and finish the
bare concrete floor in a nice color (we have beige and light blue).
And cover the itchy dusty fiberglas insulation in the the basement
ceiling (the subfloor insulation under the ground floor joists), for
example with Tyvek or such. That makes even an otherwise unfinished
basement much nicer.

--
The address in the header is invalid for obvious reasons. Please
reconstruct the address from the information below (look for _).
Ralph Becker-Szendy

wrote in message
ps.com...

I will be constructing a two story house in Spring of 2006. I'm
planning on building the house with a basement (which I will not finish
for years) but due to some financial and ground issues (we might hit
rock) I'm thinking about putting the house on a crawl space. I live in
Western PA - does anyone have any insight into the resale value of a
house that does not have a basement? It's a 4 bedroom house, but I may
or may not combine two of the rooms to form a large master bedroom and
large master bathroom.

Put in the basement unless it's prohibitively expensive. When we added a
room to our house, putting a crawl space there instead of a basement was the
biggest mistake we made.

On 27 Dec 2004 19:26:38 -0800, someone wrote:

planning on building the house with a basement....
....but due to some financial and ground issues (we might hit
rock) I'm thinking about putting the house on a crawl space.

Well, if you hit too much rock, put in a crawl space. Otherwise, have
a basement. Have you done any testing/exploratory digging on the lot
to tell you what you have? If you have not, then you ARE ahead of
yourself to be posting this Q here, now.

Where are you planning to have the heating apparatus, hot water tank,
etc etc.? Maybe you'd better test that lot so you can plan what to
do. Could be what you 'save" on the crawl, will be wasted in above
grade space now being used for mechanicals.

Two sections of my house are full basement (one finished, one not),
and one section is slab on grade (with insulated floor on PT sleepers
with foam between). Since I already have quite a bit of basement, I
don't really miss the other part nbot being basement. But in the
North, to not have a basement at all, is against the usual custom and
pretty undesireable. When we used to live in a condo, even that had a
basement!

-v.


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