Our foundation getting dug and setup.

Bird · Feb 7, 2006

( why is it standard practice to not put in a fulll basement )

You'd have a hard time finding a home with a basement in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. There are a few very old mansions with basements, but nearly everything that's been built in the last 50 or 60 years is built on a concrete slab foundation. I guess there are a couple of reasons: (1) we don't have to worry about getting below a frost line. It would be pretty rare for anything 6" below the surface to ever freeze. (2) Cost - it's much cheaper and easier to dig shallow footings and pour a concrete slab, not to mention the savings in lumber and labor for wooden floors.

Of course, if you have a concrete slab, it can shift and crack if the ground gets dry and shrinks, so you need to water around your foundation during dry spells, whether you water the rest of lawn or not. I noticed an article in the newspaper recently saying that, because of our current drought, business has doubled for the companies in the foundation repair business.

PSDStu · Feb 7, 2006

Like Bird said, there are in fact a few of the older homes in this Northwest part of Florida that have a basement.

Most of the homes in this area are built either on a crawl space or a slab foundation. I chose a crawl space because I like the look, and can also access the plumbing if ever needed in the future.

The watertable is also high in this area even though we are probably 80 miles north of Panama City. The higher water table as well as the amount of clay has a big impact on the septic tank drain field requirements in that most of the fields in this area are either mounded, or what is called a filled drain field which is dug down about 1 foot, and has about 1 foot of fill dirt on top.

KentT · Feb 7, 2006

( I guess there are a couple of reasons: (1) we don't have to worry about getting below a frost line. It would be pretty rare for anything 6" below the surface to ever freeze.

(2) Cost - it's much cheaper and easier to dig shallow footings and pour a concrete slab, not to mention the savings in lumber and labor for wooden floors.

)
Are you sure it's really cheaper?

I've always heard that it's much cheaper to build up, rather than out... and that square footage in a basement is about 30-40% cheaper than building above ground level. That's why split-levels, split-foyers, raised ranches (or whatever they're called in a given area) are so common in areas that basements are practical -- it's the lowest price per square foot of living area available....

EddieWalker · Feb 7, 2006

I've never worked on a basement or even a house with one, so I don't know anything about them.

I have done some work on two story homes.

The second story will run aproximately $10 per foot more to build than the first story. There's no specific reason, but lots of little ones that all add up for this to be true. Stairs, seperate HVAC systems, working at heights and wasted space are all part of it.

The reason to build a two story homes is to put as much square footage on a piece of dirt as you can. If you have enough space than the only other reason to go up is that you just like the look of it.

Eddie

Bird · Feb 7, 2006

( Are you sure it's really cheaper? )

Nope, Kent, I can't say for absolutely sure, but that's what I've always been told. Many things change with time, and sometimes I don't know the reason. For instance, most apartments in the Dallas area used to be 2 story. Then a lot of single story apartments were built. And now, I don't see anything new being built with less than 3 stories. The really old homes in Dallas included lots of 2 story houses, some with a crawl space, a few with basements. Then for many years, nearly all the new homes were single story. And now it appears to me that they're building as many, or more, 2 story new homes as they are single story homes. But regardless of how tall or how large a spread, I haven't seen any residential construction in the last 40 years that wasn't on a slab foundation. The single exception was when I helped my brothers build a house for the younger brother. They used to build houses in Alaska, so we dug out a foundation, footers, etc. to make a 42 inch crawl space under his house. And when the young fellow in the concrete truck showed up, he asked us where we were from, said he knew we weren't from this part of the country. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

LarryRB · Feb 8, 2006

Here in New England area the few, very, very few homes that are on slabs, just don't make it. They are a nightmare from the get go.... We need cellars to get below the frost line. Most have their heating systems and oil storage in the basement, and many have their laudry set up's in the basement.. My house on a slab, 3400 sq ft or so, and all the rain we got this year, sans snowfall, this house by now would be a pile of rubble,,, So, there are reasons for basements in certain areas.. If we were to move to Florida, Texas or somewhere down south and didn't have a basement, I think we would be totally lost...

fortyseven2n · Feb 8, 2006

Congrats on starting the house ! You will enjoy watching it go up.

We are building a brick house and started ours late December. They dug the basement early December then dug the footings Dec. 28. As of yesterday, the basement walls were done and one end was brick veneered up to framing level. They still have to lay the foundation walls for the porches and garage but should be ready to start framing in a couple of weeks depending on the weather.

We have had good luck wih the weather for January anyway and the masons ( my Brother in Law ) have been able to work at least three days a week and have really flown on this thing.

I have been told that it is always cheaper to build up and not out on a house. Our contractor says that if you build up , you save on the foundation and you will save on the roof structure, shingles and so on because it also no larger than a one story house with the same footprint.

Even though it would be cheaper to up than out ,we wanted all our living space on the ground floor so we won't have to climb stairs as we get older so our footprint is larger than a full two story of the same square footage so it is going to cost a bit moe . However, we will be able to finish the upstairs for about a third of the cost per square foot of the ground floor so we have chosen to bite the bullet and get it done at the same time.

As I noted , we are having a basement in this house. Around here , a basement is the cheapest square footage you can build. One big reason we are doing a basement is the way our land lies. We will be on top of a hill that slopes down on one end of the house. When we first met with our contractor, he showed us that he would only have to dig a few more feet to put in a basement than he would have if we had done a foundation only so other than the concrete slab, the extra cost would not be a great deal more than just a foundation. We can build a basement cheaper than I can build a shop. Unless its over my head, I like to fix anything that goes wrong on the house and I really got tired of crawling under our last house so a basement will be great if anything needs fixing.

We have been blessed with a great contractor who is very honest , upfront , has lots of great ideas and not pushy at all.

I didn't mean to hijack your thread.

I believe that I can speak for everyone here and say that we ar e looking forward to more pictures !

Good luck and let us know how it goes !!

Fortyseven2n

keeney · Feb 8, 2006

I am from Minnesota, but at one point in my life, I was contemplating moving to Texas and building a house (just like the song - my ex lives in Texas). We got so far as to buy the land and start designing a house.

I inquired what the cost would be to add a basement to the house design. The answer I got from a contractor (who had never built a house with a basement) was that it was risky because you might "hit the water table".

I thought this was pretty funny, because my impression was that there just isn't much water in Texas. Also earlier that week, the drilling company had quoted me that it would cost several thousand dollars to drill the well because "the water table is nearly 1200 feet deep" here in these parts...

- Rick

Paul_Dowling · Feb 8, 2006

They have a name for a basement in Florida - "Indoor Pool"

Marlowe · Feb 8, 2006

This is the point where it started raining like the monsoons had set in while I was digging my footers. I went about twice as deep as your footers appear even though I wasn't worried about frost lines. I had an issue with all the stumps I'd recently removed and wanted to get to solid ground. I've repaired the foundation twice in the house I'm living in now and didn't want to repeat that problem on my new house. After the numerous rainstorms I finally caught up with the mud and the muck long enough to pour the footers last month. It took 57 yards of concrete not including the slab for the garage. Cost, including the pump truck, was almost 6000.00. I'm glad that part of the project is behind me. It's exciting though, isn't it.

Did you do the digging yourself? How about the rebar install?

Tom