Basements

[happy2bretired]

I have a finished basement divided into a family room (with a daylight window), a bedroom (with daylight window), a bathroom and a utilility/furness room. If I run the dehumidifier it doesn't get a musty smell, but I have to run it all the time. My problem is I forget to empty the water and it stops automatically...then it gets the musty smell.

I would always want a basement (tornadoes/storms), but, I would prefer an unfinished basement since I don't really use it except for storage. I just feel better having a somewhat safe place to HIDE during bad weather.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

We had a basement in the first apartment we ever lived in and it was downright scary! I remember my mother asking my brother and I to go down there and get soda or other things she had stocked up on sale.....we would both go there together and then run up the stairs as fast as we could!
I don't want a house with a basement......I would be terrified.....that is where all the monsters and ax murderers hide for god's sake!

To think as kids that was our playground on rainy days

 

[bbbamI]

The only time I think it would be nice to have a basement is when there's a tornado watch/warning in the area. Other than that, no big deal.

I never used the basement in bad weather. Supposedly you are safer, but I kept thinking about all that rubble falling in on my head and being flattened like a pancake.

I'll take my chances above ground.

 

[Notmuchlonger]

I never used the basement in bad weather. Supposedly you are safer, but I kept thinking about all that rubble falling in on my head and being flattened like a pancake.

I'll take my chances above ground.

At least you have a chance to live under the ruble if a tornado hits you point blank. Being outside you are as good as dead. Unless you are Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt.

 

[RunningBum]

I grew up in the midwest with basements, and for at least half of my childhood my bedroom was in a finished basement. I don't remember them being damp or musty, and most were not walk out basements. Even after siblings started moving out, I chose to stay below ground. The only water problem we had was when a prankster stuck a hose in the window well one night and water seeped through the window well and put an inch or two of water in the room until my brother woke up.

Even in NC one of my houses was a split level with walk out basement and I liked it. A bit more damp but not bad, and the only water problem was a water heater that rusted out.

Now I've got a finished basement on a lot with a steep slant downwards, so it's a walk out. I wish I'd have insisted on poured concrete walls rather than cinder block, as it gets a bit musty unless I keep the humidifier going in the summer. The builder said he'd never had a water leak problem with the blocks, but I wonder if it'd help with the dampness. I love the space. I have a decent sized model train setup and a pool table in a long room, a family room with projection screen for movies, laundry, furnace/utility, and a spare bedroom used for storage right now, which may possibly turn into an exercise room. It's nice and cool in the summer. I also have drains by the water heater and wash machine in case of leaks.

I'd much rather take my chances in a basement in a tornado, and not get sent flying if one hits my house. But my house in Texas didn't have a basement, and figured the utility room or bathroom in the middle of the house would be safe enough.

 

[CuppaJoe]

I grew up in the midwest with basements, and for at least half of my childhood my bedroom was in a finished basement....

Is that you, long lost brother?

...But my house in Texas didn't have a basement, and figured the utility room or bathroom in the middle of the house would be safe enough.

To me, this is scarier than fire ants. Add it to the list.

The Cheers bar was in the basement:

YouTube - Cheers Theme Song - season 7

 

[JOHNNIE36]

Had two great houses with basements. The first house (in Michigan) had the finished basement when we bought it but I expanded it to have room for the pool table. Had a fireplace also. The living room upstairs was too formal for everyday living and we must have spent 75% of out time in the lower "family room". Had a wet bar too. That was great living. Couple houses later in Ohio we had the basement divided and built the "game room" from scratch. Wet bar, pool table, organ, piano, etc. That was the greatest game room we ever had. Needed it as the kids were high school age and they had some nice parties down there. All the moves in our lives were because of transfers and that one was the last of the basement gamerooms. All in all, we've been maried 37 years and have lived in 13 different places. I'm sick of it. No more moving. No more game rooms. No more basements.

 

[RunningBum]

I was watching one storm closely, and my plan if it got any closer was to grab my daughter's single mattress and we'd lie down in the tub with it over us. A friend of mine did that in Raleigh once when he heard the freight train noise. Luckily it just missed them. Thanksgiving weekend 1988, in case anyone else was there. I was out of town.

 

[RunningBum]

btw, one of my housing criteria is to live on high ground, or at least not among the lowest in the area. That helps a lot with not getting water or relying on a sump pump.

 

[bbbamI]

At least you have a chance to live under the ruble if a tornado hits you point blank. Being outside you are as good as dead. Unless you are Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt.

I didn't say I would be outside...I said I prefer to be above ground. There are safe avenues inside a home.

I am neither Bill nor Helen and I have managed to survive thus far.

 

[hankster]

We're presently renters and are glad this home has a basement. The garage is only single car size, so we need the basement for storage. Our last home had no basement but did have a HUGE steel building 40' x 42' overall with a storage loft in half of it.

The home we owned in the early 90s had a daylight basement. That was my favorite basement because it didn't have the underground feel. It had a wood stove down there. In the winter, we'd keep a fire going most of the time and the heat would warm the main level floor to the point of barefoot comfort. The furnace ran only in the coldest weather.

In my mind, the ideal basement would be on sloped terrain with walkout on one side, a high quality water proof coating over concrete and perforated pipe footing drain around the whole perimeter that drains to an open daylight outlet (no sump pump required)

 

[Nords]

When I was a kid in St. Louis (before we moved to Hawaii)

Like REWahoo's land, Hawaii's volcanic basalt strata is too close to the surface to make basements feasible. I can't remember ever seeing one here.

 

[W2R]

Like REWahoo's land, Hawaii's volcanic basalt strata is too close to the surface to make basements feasible. I can't remember ever seeing one here.

We lived on the beachfront, so our house was built on sand only. I don't think I ever heard of a basement in a house like that in Hawaii, though it seems to me that I saw one very old home up in the mountains (in Maunawili) that had a basement. Must have used dynamite.

But, I also lived in houses in northern and southern California, Mississippi, Virginia, Texas, and Louisiana, as well as Hawaii, none of which had basements.

 

[Martha]

I was watching one storm closely, and my plan if it got any closer was to grab my daughter's single mattress and we'd lie down in the tub with it over us. A friend of mine did that in Raleigh once when he heard the freight train noise. Luckily it just missed them. Thanksgiving weekend 1988, in case anyone else was there. I was out of town.

I have a lawyer friend that always seems to have near miss experiences. He was in the Caribbean during a hurricane. He and his wife went into an interior bathroom in the house with a couple of mattresses. He saw the walls heave back and forth. When the storm was over and they got out of the bathroom there was no house around them.

Another time, another island, he was chased by a woman with a machete. Another time, yet another island, he got bit a bug and came back with a hand twice the size as normal.

 

[bbbamI]

Like REWahoo's land, Hawaii's volcanic basalt strata is too close to the surface to make basements feasible. I can't remember ever seeing one here.

I'm north of Wahoo and as far as I know there are no homes in my area that have basements. I did find out recently that our City Hall has one. I'm not sure how many people know this. Since I'm considered a "first responder", I was told about it.

 

[CuppaJoe]

.... there was no house around them.

Another time, another island, he was chased by a woman with a machete. Another time, yet another island, he got bit a bug and came back with a hand twice the size as normal.

How does the math work on this? If he were a cat and that is all that's ever happened to him, he has six lives left.

 

[freebird5825]

Do you have a basement? Do you wish you had one, or wish you didn't? How do you (or would you) use your basement?

Raised ranch with walk-in finished (by previous owners) basement through garage, with 2 sets of 6 steps to get to lower floor from inside. There is a beautiful stone fireplace and a 1/2 bathroom down there. I run a dehumidifier 24/7, 2 hours on, 2 hours off. No mustiness.
It makes a great place for overnight guests to have total privacy. Casement windows at chest level allow light into lower floor, so it doesn't have that closed-in gloomy feel. Neighboring houses all have basements and all have water and mildew problems. The house builders smartly sloped the ground from the foundation outward to the lawn, so heavy rain runs off naturally.
I'm glad I don't have a fully below ground basement. As long as my legs hold up, going up and down those stairs for laundry and getting into the garage is a good thing. In later years, those stairs may be a reason we have to move to a single level ranch with no basement.

 

[Orchidflower]

Houston: No basements there at all.
Chicago & Ia./Il. border towns: Basements = storage space.

If the basement leaks (as where I live now on the Ia./Il. border you just hang things up or store them high), but overall I vote yes! to the storage space a basement gives.

**Personally, I envy those people who have a (dry) basement and fix part of it up for a play/family/bar/etc. room. Very cool.

 

[hankster]

I have a lawyer friend that always seems to have near miss experiences. He was in the Caribbean during a hurricane. He and his wife went into an interior bathroom in the house with a couple of mattresses. He saw the walls heave back and forth. When the storm was over and they got out of the bathroom there was no house around them.

Another time, another island, he was chased by a woman with a machete. Another time, yet another island, he got bit a bug and came back with a hand twice the size as normal.

I'll never complain about rude customer service people again

 

[Ronstar]

We have a walk-out basement - 60 miles sw of Chicago, 75% is finished, the rest is mechanical, storage. The finished area includes the family room, bar, office, laundry and bathroom.

Its great - we spend 95% of our non-sleeping time in the basement.

 

[Martha]

One thing I used to see people do is build the basement on their house first, live there, and gradually build the house on top of it. Sometimes it would take years and years. I don't seem to see that anymore.

 

[Walt34]

Where I grew up houses without basements were almost unheard of. We used it for the same things W2R did, including roller skating, but it was a bit small for that.

I almost didn't buy the house we lived in for 16 years because the basement workshop area was so small, but it did have a finished off family room with a fireplace, which was nice. We spent a lot of time there, especially during the "house poor" years.

The house we have now has a walk out basement, about half is finished off as a very large family room, where I go to watch TV as DW has entirely different tastes and she plays with the remote too much.

There is also a huge workshop area with a 15 foot long workbench, air compressor, drill press, etc. and there is enough room to build a 20-foot boat, although getting it out would be a serious problem. I do have to run a dehumidifier, but there is no need for a sump pump. So yes, we like having a basement. I'm not sure I could buy a house without one.

 

[citrine]

I remember looking for homes and telling my realtor that I will absolutely not buy anything that has a basement....he just looked at me like I had two heads

 

[CuppaJoe]

One thing I used to see people do is build the basement on their house first, live there, and gradually build the house on top of it. Sometimes it would take years and years. I don't seem to see that anymore.

Is that a Midwestern thing? I remember that too from the '50s. We called them "basement houses." Wonder if it had something to do with the post-WWII housing shortage. My parents moved way out into the exurbs to find housing, dad was discharged from the army in late '46 and it was slim pickings. I never saw a basement house get a house to go with it. They were abandoned and were in the woods owned by the farmer. My second cousins call one of them, "the secret farm."

Citrine, I remember visiting some friends in their basement house after trick-or-treating on Halloween; I thought the spider webs & monsters were fake?

 

[Khan]

Is that a Midwestern thing? I remember that too from the '50s. We called them "basement houses." Wonder if it had something to do with the post-WWII housing shortage. My parents moved way out into the exurbs to find housing, dad was discharged from the army in late '46 and it was slim pickings. I never saw a basement house get a house to go with it. They were abandoned and were in the woods owned by the farmer. My second cousins call one of them, "the secret farm."

The 'basement first' thing was also done in the NE back in the '50s. There was one family that built the basement and moved in and liked it so much they completed it as a partly underground home.