How can they build tall buildings in OKC area, but not basements?

[Hugabear]

This is a real question, no snark intended. I've seen a lot of posts explaining that basements aren't really possible in the OKC area because of the hard ground. This may be, but what about tall buildings? I always heard that the taller the building, the deeper the foundation had to be. So if it's possible to have deep foundations, why can't they do basements?

Anybody with construction knowledge who can help answer this?

[msongs]

1. probably because basements for houses costs $$ & buyers don't want to pay for them nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Substrate.

The ground is rock.

[Logical]

3. Too expensive. And the risk, even in OK is really low in a lifetime. n-t

[AndyA]

4. It's probably mostly the expense.

Sure, they could build houses with basements, but it would likely cost considerably more to do so. With large high rise commercial projects, they budget all of that into the overall cost of construction. Might also have something to do with underground water tables, as that's pretty common (at least in NE Oklahoma).

I hope this will encourage more people to build houses here in Oklahoma with basements. I have a partial basement under my house in Tulsa, it even has a reinforced concrete ceiling and heating/air conditioning, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the neighborhood who has one. My house was custom built by the builder as his family home, so it has a lot of things most houses don't. During bad weather like we've been having, I'm glad I have a safe place to go.

I saw on TV that only 1 in 10 Oklahomans have basements. I don't know if that figure includes storm shelters or safe rooms, as they didn't say, but I do know a lot of people here are installing safe rooms in new construction as well as during remodeling.

With weather getting more extreme, it seems like a really good idea to have someplace safe to go.

[KatyaR]

5. Our soil and the water table aren't conducive to basements.

It's hard to keep basements water tight here.

Some big buildings will have some sort of an underground structure, but homes don't. I've lived here my entire life and probably don't know of a handful of homes that have basements. More people have been building safe rooms in their new home construction, they cost about $2,000 to add, but they're not as good as an old-fashioned underground shelter, and they're even more expensive to build.

[nobodyspecial]

6. Maddow's team has answered this question

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2011/05/25/6717757-why-dont-oklahoma-houses-have-basements

[MinneapolisMatt]

11. Thanks for the link.

That was very informative.

[dsc]

7. tall buildings are already expensive

so the added cost of blasting out a foundation is being added to what is already a pretty great cost and is spread out among all the tenants of the resulting building. The house might cost 100k without the basement, if the basement also costs 50k then you have made the cost 150% as much for a once in a generation need.

[Texasgal]

8. Weight?

I'm getting really tired of all these threads about how southerners are too cheap and shitty to build basements.

There is a REASON. and it ain't money or laziness.

We are not people that do not care about our children and we are not people that can't do shit.

Our geological issues prevent many places form having basements including cavernous areas beneath us. Many of us have storm shelter rooms to stay safe from incoming storms... the basement is not 100% that you won't die. Good GAWD.

[Hugabear]

9. You're putting an awful lot of words in my mouth

Nothing in my OP was accusatory or insulting. I meant it as a legitimate question, it's something I've often wondered about.

[pokerfan]

10. Simple cost

In northern climates, foundations for even small houses must be set deep to get below the freeze/frost cycle so adding a basement costs little more than the expense of excavating more dirt.

[Arkansas Granny]

12. A high water table makes it hard to keep a basement dry.

If I dig a 2ft. deep hole in my yard in the springtime, it will full up with water.

[MNBrewer]

13. Some of the kids at a school who died, died of drowning so I heard.

Were they in a basement?

[randome]

16. I believe so. And that's a problem, too. How do you make a basement flood-proof?

Make it air tight and they would suffocate.

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[MNBrewer]

17. I grew up in a house in Georgia with no basement

Sandy soil and high water table made such a thing impractical. Our family plan was to get in the closet under the stairs to the 2nd floor, in the middle of the house. Never had to, thank goodness. Not sure it would have helped much based on what I've seen of the Moore destruction.

[11 Bravo]

19. When the building collapsed a water main ruptured. The children were trapped in the hall ...

where they had sheltered, and according to NBC, the water level rose and enveloped them. I'm struggling not to think about what it must have been like.

[GeorgeGist]

14. $$$$

[TexasProgresive]

15. I don't think basements in the houses I lived in were much

safer in a tornado than the house. Someone above spoke of their basement having steel reinforced concrete above the basement. That would give a margin of safety if the house collapsed into the basement. The basements I have been in were just a concrete lined hole with a house sitting on the walls. There was nothing to prevent a collapsing structure from falling into the hole.

I remember reading about a guy who had a couple of acoustic guitars in hard cases in his basement when a tornado hit. The whole house fell into the basement. When the excavated the guitar cases were found scratched but otherwise intact. His problem was the guitars had plaster dust in them which was causing a rattling sound. The moral to this story is if you go into the basement during a tornado get into a case like a hard guitar case and have really good dust masks available.

I work in a 4 story telecom building with a basement. The floors are extremely strong concrete I think this basement would be fairly safe. I would possition myself in the north side, which is also close to the stairs.

[hootinholler]

18. My understanding is Ok. has a relatively shallow bedrock

Which means the soil on top is relatively thin and very moist with the water table very shallow.

Tall buildings don't require a basement style of foundation. Pilings driven to or even into bedrock are very stable and not subject to the pressures from trying to hold the water out. With the anaerobic environment of deep soil, rust shouldn't be a big issue. Just drive your pilings, connect your steel frame to them and Bob's yer uncle.