after watching all those Flip this House type shows I'm surprised by how many houses don't have a basement. Most of my free time time is spent in my basement, which has a family room, bedroom, bathroom, laundry room, furnace room etc. The big screen tv and computer are both in the family room and it's much cooler in the summer and more comfortable than the livingroom upstairs ?

My question is do you have a basement?, is it finished or just concrete?, is it a crawl space, are you on a slab ?, . Is it the full size of your house or a portion of it?

Never had a basement, my houses have all been slab foundations. I regretted not building one with this house, but with all the water problems we've had I guess I'm glad I didn't.

Are slabs the norm for Memphis , and that area?,are basements rare?, I'm guessing in my area 95% of houses have a basement, some may only be a crawl space or even a dirt floor, but outside of one subdivision I don't know anyone who has a slab. I had heard in Florida and Louisiana that they usually don't have a basement as ithe ground is marsh or below sea level and basicaltl would just flood. Perhaps it has something to do with temperatures.

In certain parts of this area the water table is pretty high, so basements would be a bad idea. I'm sure there are some, especially in older houses, but in the newer structures a basement is not really a priority.

Most newer houses are monlithic slab foundations arounf here, but many older ones have the conventional foundation with a crawl space (which would mostly be used by repairmen and the family dog.) Some houses have what we call a "daylight basement", basically a lower floor that is underground on one end and at ground level with windows and even doors at the other. (This is more likely if the house is built into a hill, like my parents house)

Where I live now, on the beach we obviously are not allowed to have them, but we just recently purchased another home up north (more inland) & we will FINALLY have another basment! I miss having a basement so much. It just adds so much more living space & like Cal said, it's much cooler in the summer months. Our new house has a finished basement with a family room, a gaming room with a bar, an extra bedroom & full bathroom.

We don't own the house I live in. We do have a basement. It's an apartment. Pretty big too. One bedroom apartment. Basements are pretty common here.

I had basements in both of my houses in West Virginia. The first one was finished and had a play room and utility room. The second was only under the front part of the house with a crawlspace to the rest of the house.

In Louisiana, a basements is a bad idea. The water table is high here and a basement would pretty much stay flooded. Think about it, here, even the dead are buried above ground.

My place has a basement. It's where I shower and do my laundry. I also have two floors and an attic. I live in a row house, so I have lots of floors but not a lot of rooms :lol:

Mine's on a slab. Thank the Goddess for that. My parent's house used to get floods all the time. No worry about that now. :D

No basements here on the west coast for the most part.

When I lived in the midwest we always had basements.

Are basements an American thing or something? I've never seen a house in New Zealand that has a basement.

I do not have a basement in the house I currently own. Most houses in Texas do not have basements that i've seen. The only time I ever had a basement is when my ex-husband and I was renting a house in Connecticut.

Now that I have thought about it, I have only lived in one house that didn't have a basement, and we moved like nomads when I was little.

Our basement is the size of our house, but unfortunately, it was built by short people. :( You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. :lol: The house has an addition, and after it was added the owner dug the basement out himself. He did it a couple feet at a time, or so I'm told. Concrete floor. Problem is, he only went 6 feet down. I'm 5'8", hubby is 5'10", and kidd-a-lee-coo is 6'2". It does have a full bath, though.

Only time I spend down there is cleaning the cat box, cleaning the basement, and doing the laundry.

We have a basement. It is not finished. There are 4 sections to it. Going down the steps...On one side is the water heater and open space for storage. Behind that space is a dirt room. Not sure what else to call it. It has a door on it and a space to walk into but the wall are all dirt. I only peek in. Too afraid to go inside :lol:

On the other side of the stairs is more open space. I have it set up to work on my doll house. Off from that is back room which houses the furnace. The ceiling is kinda low. If you are much taller then me, you would have to bend down to walk.


After reading Val's post I come to the conclusion short people must have built basements in Ohio. :lol:

Thinking about it, we had a basement in the last house we were in, in Kansas. It was finished, but not a full basement. The garage was down there, and a bathroom/utility room and two other rooms. We were only there a few month because we got relocated to Louisiana. That was absolutely the first time I'd ever lived in a house with a basement.

Jen, don't they cover graves with concrete slabs in LA? That's what my F-I-L told me once upon a time. Because the water table is so high that the coffins would start coming up if they didn't.

They actually bury in stone crypts above ground. They can't dig a hole deep enough to put a casket in. It would fill up with water.

We have a basement and it's finished. It actually used to to be an apartment down there so there's room for a full-sized fridge or stove as well as having a kitchen sink and what-not. My house was built by short people as well. The ceilings are pretty low. It was built in the 50's, maybe that had something to do with it.

Now that I think about it, the only cemetaries around here are at least 10-15 miles inland from the ocean....I guess it's for the same reason?

No basements in any home I've ever lived in. We all know what happens in basements out here.:mwaha:

No basements in Florida, either.

Rick James and the other Zombies are trapped in my basement right now… so I can’t even use it.:lol:

I have a basement. One half is finished and the other is used for storage. Luckily (knock on wood, I haven't had a problem with water):uhoh: