Basements???

[Alpo]

Where I live we do not have basements. I always assumed it was because the water table was about 8 inches. Kind of hard to dig a basement when it starts to flood after you've got down a foot.

 

Last week the story arc for the comic strip FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE was about how the sump pump went out and the basement flooded. This takes place in Canada.

 

It reminded me that I have seen other people reference having a sump pump in their basement.

 

So my ponder is, if the water table is so shallow that you need to have a pump in the basement to keep it dry, why in the world do people dig basements?

 

Here in Florida they usually build the house on a slab. Or sometimes it will be set up on pilings so it will be 8 to 10 inches off the ground. And we manage to survive.

 

What is the advantage of a basement, that houses up north seem to feel the need to have one?

[Bo B. Fetterman]

Usually sump pumps are needed for vernal water movements that wind up in basements due to hills etc and not water coming up from the table to come up. 

I saw one house in Florida with a basement in alta. It had a huge pump with a fullsize manhole cover. 

Northern basement are great for beer fermentation and storing things on shelves. 

[Subdeacon Joe]

It puts the pipes below the frost line.

 

I suspect that before that it also had to do with food storage, taking advantage of the cooler inground temperature.

[Rip Snorter]

We bought a nice house with no apparent problems.  Without warning, the finished basement family room flooded.  Just enough to ruin the carpet.  We did some outside work on drainage and everything was fine.  A couple of years on, it happened again, the perfect storm and too much rain.  We had a system put in.  Consisted of perimeter cuts in the floor that led to a sump with a pump. You had to clean a filter screen once in a while, but no more floods.  I suspect both the contouring of the tract and not the greatest foundation construction were the cause.  A not inexpensive solution, but it worked.  We specified the condition when we sold, no problem, though it sold more slowly than expected.

[LawMan Mark, SASS #57095L]

The basement in my house was a selling point to the wife, who is terrified of tornados and thunder storms.  She heads to the "safe room" any time there is significant weather.  The worst water infiltration we've had is a single wall that gets damp enough you can feel moisture on it.  I do run a dehumidifier year round.  Most of the time, I'll go weeks without having any condensation in the bucket.  During the spring and summer, I'll have to empty it daily.  

[Rip Snorter]

In the Summer, I put a shelf over one of the set tubs and ran a long tube from the dehumidifier to the sink drain.

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

We usually have our furnaces in the basement, along with the hot water heaters, laundry equipment and off season storage for clothing etc, workshop and tools, rec rooms. The utilities such as hydro and water usually have their meters and building inlets in the basement as well, to protect them from the elements. 

In my basement, I have my secure and alarmed gun room/loading room with it's gun safe, ammo and powder storage; wine racks; furnace; hot water heater; Generator Transfer switch; off season clothing and sports storage cabinets; tools; food freezers; preserved food storage racks and seasonal use items among other miscellaneous odds and ends.

Makes better use of the available space on a lot.

Things not affected by sub-zero temperatures or mice etc. I have stored outside in sheds; snow blower; lawnmower; winter tires; summer tires; lawn & garden tools; deck furniture etc..

[Rye Miles #13621]

I have a basement, no sump pump needed. One side is a rec room with a pool table, exercise equipment , tv  and a dry bar.

The other half is a washer dryer, furnace, work table, work bench for reloading, safe etc. I love my basement! 

[Sawhorse Kid]

Basements are for hiding all the things you don't want to deal with.

- infamous storage room full of stuff

- expansion for the storage room when it gets full

- house guests

- laundry room

- water heater 

- excess water from outside

- furness 

- electrical panel

 

Sump Pumps are for removing water from basements. 

Water can get in from multiple points depending on the structure, not to mention failed water heaters and broken pipes.

Most houses have drain tile installed to control and guide the water to the sump so that it can be pumped back outside or into the sewer. 

 

 

 

 

[Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438]

I've owned 5 houses in MA, and lived in others in NY, PA, MN AND MA.  All but one (our original cottage on Cape Cod) had full foundations.  As SDJ pointed out, in cold climates. basements insulate piping from winter freezing.  They also effectively double the floor space of the house, adding tons of storage and utility space (think gun room, workshop, laundry area, furnace room, water heater, food larder, etc. )  When we bought our first cottage, it was built on a sand dune, with cinder block posts.  After two rebuilds, it has a full concrete basement, and the sheds we used for storage are gone.

 

In a coastal area subject to hurricanes and storms, a properly built basement also offers some measure of protection; mine has blow-thru flood doors around the perimeter and interior drains in the corners.  I have had absolutely no problems with the water table or flooding. 

 

LL

[Eyesa Horg]

I've never not had a basement. Digging the hole here we hit water table about 2 feet before depth. Filled back with stone and installed drains inside and curtain drains around the outside. Waterproofed the outside and insulated. Had to bring in fill as the house was now a couple feet higher. 

The basement houses the chest freezer, pantries, my gun/reloading room, woodworking shop, Ellie's sewing room and lots of junk! Utility room as well under the entryway for water heater, electrical etc. I'd be lost without a basement.

[Pat Riot]

Every house we look at here in WV and PA has a basement. The house we rent has a basement and even though we sit near the top of a small hill we get water inside due to old sealer on the walls. Not a lot, but enough to make the basement damp. 
I bought a dehumidifier and I just leave it run 24/7. There is a floor drain so I have the unit draining there. It keeps the basement at about 45% humidity. 
We have shelving for storage to keep things off the floor and away from the walls.

 

I don’t really care for basements, but recently we had some weather that made me glad it was there if needed. 
 

[Cypress Sun]

I've seen a few houses in Florida with basements. They were all built on hills with the basement floors above the water table but all had pumps of some kind except one. That one was in a new guest house that I wired for an extremely wealthy lady in Tarpon Springs. It was really meant to be a hurricane/storm shelter but was right on a salt water bayou so that a anything above a Cat 1 hurricane would have placed it in a mandatory evac zone. The "basement" was completely poured concrete and they glassed it in like a giant spa. They didn't bother to install a pump even though I suggested they should and installed a circuit for it. All was fine until the icemaker at the bar above it sprang a leak and filled it with 4' of water. Ruined everything in basement, made a mess pumping it out and repairing the damage.

 

There are plenty of Florida basements in the state. They aren't kept under the house however, they are kept in the backyard and filled with water. We call them swimming pools and all of them have pumps.

[Buckshot Bob]

It’s code here in Mi to have a crock and sump pump now, not sure when it started 80’s maybe. Same with an egress window so you don’t get trapped down there in the event of a fire. The house I grew up I didn’t have either.My current house has a crock “runs in the spring or when things are flooding” but no egress window “built in 92”, it’s actually a good idea because it keeps the foundation around the basement dry. Extending the drains off the roof also helps . 
Some of the worst basement flooding comes from sewers backing up during storms . That’s why it doesn’t bother me having a septic tank. I’ll take the inconvenience of having to pump the tank every couple years vs a back up from being hooked to the city sewer system. 
I like having a basement, it’s a great place for the furnace and hot water heater. And I have a workshop and my reloading stuff in the basement, it also makes a great foundation for the house with the footings being so deep. And you never have to go in the crawl space to fix things. 

[Rip Snorter]

I could not be without a basement.  Loading room, storage, family room, spare bedroom, bathroom and utility / furnace room  All finished ex the storage and utility.  Particularly nice when family visits since the basement bedroom is the quietest in the house and they have a floor to themselves.  I even have a microwave and a mini fridge down there.

[Mister Badly]

I prefer walkout basements. Easy to find in East Tennessee. I believe minimum footer depth in Michigan was 4ft when I lived there. Most people had basements. They had outer and inner drainage lines running to a sump pump. The walls were well sealed on the outside with pea gravel backfill. Spring snow thaws put substantial hydraulic pressure on the outside of the walls if not pumped out. Last thing you wanted was a power outage in the spring. You got a cement pond.

[sassnetguy50]

Basement, you mean private shooting range.  Yes, a sump pump with battery backup is important.   Ours rarely ran.  Then a drought came, the ground dried, cracked, receded from the foundation.   Now the sump pump runs every rain, many snows, every snow melt.  We're on a hill.

[watab kid]

where i grew up it was a way of making use of that frost depth footing space so most houses i knew as a young person had them , mechanical area and storage , some had walkouts that had living spaces , it was cheap added space [not so much anymore] but where i live now its often a crawl pace only for mechanical purposes , 

 

ive got one at 12'x12' for that purpose , but below that is wet so you need waterproofing and sump pumps so it makes it less desirable space as well as expensive , im on the river and you dig much over 4' and your in water fast , stairs become less friendly in time AND at my age now that one level living looks a lot better , 

[Rye Miles #13621]

My basement pics, love it!

[Eyesa Horg]

13 hours ago, sassnetguy50 said:

Basement, you mean private shooting range.  Yes, a sump pump with battery backup is important.   Ours rarely ran.  Then a drought came, the ground dried, cracked, receded from the foundation.   Now the sump pump runs every rain, many snows, every snow melt.  We're on a hill.

Funny you say that. Back when I shot bullseye, one of the ranges was in a neighborhood. It was in the basement with square pipes going out underground to the backyard where there was a little hut with an exhaust fan to suck the smoke out. Worked excellent, and you could barely hear a slight pop when outside.

[Rye Miles #13621]

I shoot my BB guns in my basement into a box filled with rags and plastic bags! 

[sassnetguy50]

3 hours ago, Rye Miles #13621 said:

I shoot my BB guns in my basement into a box filled with rags and plastic bags! 

22LR into something more like this.  https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1015080031?pid=744831

[Rip Snorter]

3 hours ago, Rye Miles #13621 said:

I shoot my BB guns in my basement into a box filled with rags and plastic bags! 

If you hang an old piece of carpet and put a flat box underneath it is easier and you get all the BBs or pellets.  

When I was a kid, we had one in the basement we built for .22 angled Plate in the back, a foot of sand in the bottom.  I wouldn't do that in my basement now, it is finished, but that was just a basement.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

The house that I had built in ‘94 had a cellar, not a basement.  The house’s chimney and foundation were set on a pink granite ledge on a slope of nearly 10%. Rain water would soak in and drain along that ledge.  Drainage pipe was laid in stone in a trench around the cellar’s walls.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Our 1909 big Craftsman has a full basement, half concrete floored where the foundation is into the hill, half heavy car decking for the rest. Below the car decking is a dirt-floored sub basement of varying height, which I haven't been down to in 40 years, since visqueening it when we bought the house.

 

No moisture of any kind has ever accumulated in this basement. Couldn't live without the huge thing....

[Loophole LaRue, SASS #51438]

1 hour ago, Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619 said:

visqueening

I had to look that one up.....

LL