How many of your homes have basements??

[Todd]

I have a Finished walkout basement. Cement block with 1" foam isulation, drop ceiling, wood stove with large brick hearth, master bed/bath, work shop, laundry, and family room. The house is rather small, 2 bedroom 1000 sq ft, so finishing off the basement with the extra bedroom was a must.

The stove keeps the whole house warm except the very cold and windy below zero days.

 

[Kenny1]

Our basement is drywalled, but just a cement floor for now.

Great place for the kids to ride their trikes on cold days :coolsmile:

The stove keeps it nice and toasty down there for them.

 

[kevinmoelk]

Basements are built all over the US with exception of places where they are not cost effective or the land does not permit the value of having one. Houston TX for example has very few homes with basements. I imagine the same would be true for other portions of the US around the gulf coast.

I have a 2/3 basement, non walk out. 1/3 of the house is an addition that was built over a knee wall foundation. Currently in the process of building an apartment in the basement.

-Kevin

 

[sgcsalsero]

I know that basements are somewhat geographical, but I'm not sure about the northeast part of the country. My newly build home here in Minn has a walkout basement equipped with a wood furnace in the basement. This is the first winter in my new home and my first wood furnace. I had a wood stove in my former home. It took some getting used to the furnace vs woodstove, but I think I have it all figured out now. My woods is 75% oak, 20% ash, and the other mixed. In the beginning of the heating season I kept loading my furnace with oak which was a bit on the wet side, and didnt do much for me. But I switched to dry poplar, a wood I used to snub at. A couple hours of burning and the house is 80 degrees. And a bit of hardwood added before bedtime. The fire dies out sometime before I get up because I cant wont fill the furnace up due to the house being hot already. I wont light another fire until the following evening after supper when the house cools back down to around 70. Thats right, my new home is insulated so well, it holds the heat at least 12 hours. But I will admit its been a mild winter here with temps in the 20's daytime. Which brings me to the my question about basements. If I didnt have a basement to heat I'd think a well insulated, one level home could be heated with hardly any wood at all. Happy burning!

That's an interesting question, would the absence of a basement make it easier to heat a home. ..assuming shork answer is yes . .but I would think that most folks with a slab foundation (like my bro in Tx) don't have to worry about frost givin' their house a roller coaster ride during winter, usually just get by with a heat pump, and thus wouldn't be wonderin' b/c they have seldom need for a woodstove . . just my .01 (not even .02)

 

[Homefire]

Here in New England basement were first built of stone as a protection from Indian attacks Since the time of the pilgrams

Some basements served a second function in the 1700's. We visited some of the old homesteads in Pound Ridge, NY and found one home that still had the original basement kitchen intact. There was a huge fireplace down there. Story goes is that this is where they spent their winters. They took advantage of the tempering effect of the earth and found it much easier to heat that space.

That is what I have. A huge Russian fire place 6' x 6' with a built in smoke room, oven, cook top, and wood drier.

The basement has 3 separate rooms the walls are 12" thick and hold heat for days. The Russian fireplace is over 200 years old now so I
have not tried to use it.

 

[MrGriz]

We have a finished basement, which is where my office is located, along with the insert.

You can always tell the homes in a neighborhood around here that don't have a basement. They are the ones that sell for significantly less than the neighbor's house.

 

[reaperman]

I know that basements are somewhat geographical, but I'm not sure about the northeast part of the country. My newly build home here in Minn has a walkout basement equipped with a wood furnace in the basement. This is the first winter in my new home and my first wood furnace. I had a wood stove in my former home. It took some getting used to the furnace vs woodstove, but I think I have it all figured out now. My woods is 75% oak, 20% ash, and the other mixed. In the beginning of the heating season I kept loading my furnace with oak which was a bit on the wet side, and didnt do much for me. But I switched to dry poplar, a wood I used to snub at. A couple hours of burning and the house is 80 degrees. And a bit of hardwood added before bedtime. The fire dies out sometime before I get up because I cant wont fill the furnace up due to the house being hot already. I wont light another fire until the following evening after supper when the house cools back down to around 70. Thats right, my new home is insulated so well, it holds the heat at least 12 hours. But I will admit its been a mild winter here with temps in the 20's daytime. Which brings me to the my question about basements. If I didnt have a basement to heat I'd think a well insulated, one level home could be heated with hardly any wood at all. Happy burning!

That's an interesting question, would the absence of a basement make it easier to heat a home. ..assuming shork answer is yes . .but I would think that most folks with a slab foundation (like my bro in Tx) don't have to worry about frost givin' their house a roller coaster ride during winter, usually just get by with a heat pump, and thus wouldn't be wonderin' b/c they have seldom need for a woodstove . . just my .01 (not even .02)

Your correct, the frost would give a "slab on grade" structure problems with heaving, but in our area where most homes do have a basement. This isnt a issue. With the ever more popular "patio homes", with slab on grade foundations , a "frost footing" or the foundation, is installed at around 4 1/2 deep in the ground. And then cement blocks are layed up to the surface of the ground. Which gives the need frost protection.

 

[kevinmoelk]

I know that basements are somewhat geographical, but I'm not sure about the northeast part of the country. My newly build home here in Minn has a walkout basement equipped with a wood furnace in the basement. This is the first winter in my new home and my first wood furnace. I had a wood stove in my former home. It took some getting used to the furnace vs woodstove, but I think I have it all figured out now. My woods is 75% oak, 20% ash, and the other mixed. In the beginning of the heating season I kept loading my furnace with oak which was a bit on the wet side, and didnt do much for me. But I switched to dry poplar, a wood I used to snub at. A couple hours of burning and the house is 80 degrees. And a bit of hardwood added before bedtime. The fire dies out sometime before I get up because I cant wont fill the furnace up due to the house being hot already. I wont light another fire until the following evening after supper when the house cools back down to around 70. Thats right, my new home is insulated so well, it holds the heat at least 12 hours. But I will admit its been a mild winter here with temps in the 20's daytime. Which brings me to the my question about basements. If I didnt have a basement to heat I'd think a well insulated, one level home could be heated with hardly any wood at all. Happy burning!

That's an interesting question, would the absence of a basement make it easier to heat a home. ..assuming shork answer is yes . .but I would think that most folks with a slab foundation (like my bro in Tx) don't have to worry about frost givin' their house a roller coaster ride during winter, usually just get by with a heat pump, and thus wouldn't be wonderin' b/c they have seldom need for a woodstove . . just my .01 (not even .02)

Your correct, the frost would give a "slab on grade" structure problems with heaving, but in our area where most homes do have a basement. This isnt a issue. With the ever more popular "patio homes", with slab on grade foundations , a "frost footing" or the foundation, is installed at around 4 1/2 deep in the ground. And then cement blocks are layed up to the surface of the ground. Which gives the need frost protection.

Off topic and opening up a can of worms... but you can design a home that doesn't require any sort of frost protection and can be built in a frost prone region.

-Kevin

 

[Harley]

but you can design a home that doesn't require any sort of frost protection and can be built in a frost prone region.

Obviously, Wrench - I'm not a builder, but if in a frost prone area, why wouldn't you need any frost protection? I'm not sure I understand the question.

 

[kevinmoelk]

but you can design a home that doesn't require any sort of frost protection and can be built in a frost prone region.

Obviously, Wrench - I'm not a builder, but if in a frost prone area, why wouldn't you need any frost protection? I'm not sure I understand the question.

The frost question deals with the traditional manner in which a home is "pinned" to the earth. We're all familiar with this concept. I should have been more specific in my answer, to say that there are alternatives to just digging below the frost line and pouring a big block of concrete. A home certainly does require a foundation, but there can be a drastic reduction in the amounts of concrete (or other material) used to effectively combat frost heave. Also, instead of building a ridgid block of a home, a design can incorporate flexibility, which in turn increases the structures ability to withstand frost heave, settling, earthquakes, etc.

For example, study rubble trench foundations. This type of foundation has been around a long time, and popularized for a short period of time by F.L. Wright and his disciples. Another non traditional type would be an earthship foundation. Both of these examples reduce material use and impact on the earth.

Strawbale, earthship/strawbale, and pure earthship structures are particularly interesting since they can be designed to "float" and "go with the flow" of the earth and it's forces.

-Kevin

 

[precaud]

How many of your homes have basements??

Only one... out of one... ;-)

 

[Gooserider]

Here in New England, basements are pretty standard, my experience has been that it is a rare place that doesn't have one. I have lived in Florida, where they are rare, probably due to the high water table. I have also just about never seen a basement in either northern (Ruston area) or southern (Baton Rouge area) Louisiana - again I suspect water table issues in the south, but I'm not really sure why in the northern areas - certainly there would have been some places that a basement wouldn't have worked, but I would have thought that there were plenty of hill sides that would have been OK for one. However just about every house I saw in northern LA was either built on posts with a crawl space or as slab-on-grade.

Certainly I think a basement is a useful feature, and would hate to have a house that didn't have one, at least not without some equivalent alternative space instead.

Gooserider