Does Your House Have a Basement or a Cellar?

[duke762]

I have a very deep, hand dug, partial basement, with concrete block walls and poured floor, and I couldn't live without it. My tools are safe here, as are my guns, reloading equipment, ammo, tools, knives, and sharpening stones. All safe and snug in a fairly climate controlled environment, as am I and my family during severe storms. I cannot imagine living without a cellar or basement to work, hide in, or tinker in.

If you don't have a basement to do all of the above. How do you get by? Maybe I can't understand because I'm very DIY and have to have stuff handy for most eventualities.....I just can't imagine life without tools and room to use them...!

 

[fpancoe]

We downsized 12 years ago to a 3 br 1.5 bath ranch house which as only a 5 foot high crawl space. There as limited room for storage ( not very useful attic to be entered through the garage) but at least I am not handy.

 

[musicman1951]

Yes, I have my wood shop in half the basement. It's a little small, but I make it work with a Shopsmith on wheels. I also have a jointer, planer, bandsaw, chop saw on a 6' stand (also on wheels), bench, hand tool cabinets and my wood supply. The room is about 11 X 22 and it's definitely tight on walking space.

The other half is the furnace, water heater and storage. I can't imagine being without my basement.

The biggest mistake I made was not putting a full basement under the addition we added back around 1980. I was young at the time and the addition was $12,000. It would have been another $3,000 for a full basement instead of the crawl space. Very stupid move on my part. Back then 3K seemed like a lot of money, and now it's almost pocket change in terms of building anything. Oh well, live and learn.

 

[Rudy Vey]

Basement here, small house, though. Used to have a 1000+ sqft shop in our old house in MI, now it is more like 400 or so. Had to sell off a lot of my tools, but kept the lathe and my bandsaw. Here is were the magic happens in regards to shaving brushes. Small space is reserved for reloading bench. The rest of the basement is storage, laundry area and heating, water heater and softener. Small but I got used to it.

 

[ajkel64]

No, out here in Australia basements is houses are very few and far between. Some older farmstead homes may have a cellar and most of those are not under the house but away from the home built into a hill. The problem out here would be how high the water table is. I know that you can waterproof under ground rooms but eventually it would fail.

 

[luvmysuper]

We've got a full basement but it's finished and is a living space. As a result, all my "shop" stuff is in the garage. The only parking done in the garage is the lawn tractor and the motorcycle. The rest of the space is taken up by tool cabinets, sand blaster, compressor, band saw, table saw, planer, metal lathe, welder, work benches, router table, bench grinders, scroll saw, drill press, shelving units, belt/disc sander, miter saw, bench vices, carpenters cabinet and mechanics cabinet.
There's not a lot of elbow room in there.

 

[emwolf]

Central Illinois here. I have a basement, unfinished. They can be tricky as our area was originally very swampy and has had extensive drainage systems installed in order to farm and live here. Some basements routinely flood. Ours thankfully does not.

 

[Tirvine]

I live in Austin, the west side of the river and atop the Balcones Escarpment. It is almost all limestone beneath a feeble layer of organic matter in places. Digging a basement would be very time consuming and expensive. Most folk treat their garages like basements. I like being able to park my cars indoors during hailstorms. So I have just kept my stored junk to a minimum.

 

[poppi]

Southeast Louisiana here. If you tried for a basement it would be a swimming pool. Water table is so high that you can dig a 2 foot hole and it will fill with ground water in minutes.

 

[SinCityAg]

Both are also rare in Vegas due to the presence of caliche. You hit that, the price of construction will significantly jump. You will need a crane to hammer it out. Here is a pic I found of somebody who had “hard soil” and needed a crane to bust through it for a pool.

 

[DesertIguana]

NO I am in Arizona.

 

[SinCityAg]

Southeast Louisiana here. If you tried for a basement it would be a swimming pool. Water table is so high that you can dig a 2 foot hole and it will fill with ground water in minutes.

It is always interesting to see people’s reactions when they learn the reason why folks were buried above ground in Nola.

 

[Bobbers]

Southeast Louisiana here. If you tried for a basement it would be a swimming pool. Water table is so high that you can dig a 2 foot hole and it will fill with ground water in minutes.

My insurance company would have you believe differently.

After we went thru the historic flood in 2016 in Baton Rouge. The insurance company declared our sunken living room a basement and would not cover any items that were in the living room. They also would not cover the flooring or the paneling.

 

[Lockback]

Condo livin' here and no basement.
I've almost always had basements and I miss having one. My toy space is extremely limited, although I did insist on cutting out a few spaces for tools, etc.
But as much as I miss having a basement, I still manage to get by.

 

[StillShaving]

Not that many homes in the southeast US have basements unless on the side of a hill. The frost line is not that deep to require a lot of digging down. That said a structural engineer told me a lot of homes in the area has minor foundation cracks as things shift, so perhaps our foundations should go deeper.

Nearly everyone here has to use their garage as a makeshift workshop and storage instead of car parking. It is far from ideal. I have wanted to get a miter saw to help on a few projects, but I have managed using other tools since space is limited.

 

[seabee1999]

I’ve been took because of the clay soil, there are very few basements in Oklahoma. My home is a slab on grade with a small storm cellar in the garage.

 

[Legion]

No, out here in Australia basements is houses are very few and far between. Some older farmstead homes may have a cellar and most of those are not under the house but away from the home built into a hill. The problem out here would be how high the water table is. I know that you can waterproof under ground rooms but eventually it would fail.

I don't think I've ever seen a home with a proper, American style basement. I don't think they are up to the building code. Apart from the water issue you mentioned, I think there is a rule about all rooms needing to have a window of X size, per square meter.

 

[rsp1202]

I remember when very young my parents shopping for a new house. Only one of the properties came with a basement, and I still regret they didn't buy it. It was fascinating and would have been an adventurous place most of the time, and perhaps a little spooky on the darkest of nights.

 

[poppi]

My insurance company would have you believe differently.

After we went thru the historic flood in 2016 in Baton Rouge. The insurance company declared our sunken living room a basement and would not cover any items that were in the living room. They also would not cover the flooring or the paneling.

Well, sounds like your insurance company cheated you.

 

[Whisky]

Finished basement under 3/4 of the house. The other 1/4 is mechanical/storage area. Until I moved to Michigan I’d never lived in a house with a basement, now I’m not sure I’d want a house without one.