why do people/or locations like Oklahoma and general out west do not have basements?

[diabeticman]

I'm not trying to be a smart-ass or anything like that but I live in Western PA basements
(underground rooms) are very common. Why don't other states have basements?

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. I suspect it depends upon the geology of the region, tradition, the economics...

we don't have many basements in my area (Raleigh NC) due to the heavy, oozy wet red clay soil, I've been told. When we house hunted here, we saw few basements, and those houses that had them smelled moldy.

Just a hunch.

[niyad]

2. as others have pointed out, a lot of places there is limestone, or other rock. other areas, the

water table is about two feet.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. Oklahoma sits on an aquifer and has a high water table - basements flood!

According to some geologist that posts on this board. But it makes sense......

[brewens]

4. So we don't end up with out kids living in them and on Free Republic all the time! n/t

[diabeticman]

9. I'm trying to be serious. Western PA does get tornados from time to time. We are always

told to take shelter in them.


Our schools have large basements generally. My wife and I are sadden by what happen in OKlahoma We just wondered why something that seems to save so many lives in one part of the county wouldn't be helpful in another part.

[jeff47]

5. Frost. Or lack thereof.

There is a "frost line". This is the depth to which the ground freezes in winter. Frozen ground expands, and can push the foundation of a house right out of the ground. The foundation of a house has to be built deeper than the frost line, so that the foundation stays where it's supposed to be.

The frost line in New England is at about 8 feet. If you already have to dig down 8 feet for the foundation, digging a basement doesn't add much of an expense. So virtually every house in New England has a basement.

The frost line in Los Angeles is at 0 feet - it never freezes. So foundations were traditionally only about 2 feet deep. So digging down 8 to 10 feet to put in a basement adds a lot of cost to a house. (In the past few decades, foundations in Los Angeles have gotten deeper and more complex to handle earthquakes, but they're still only around 4 feet deep). As a result, virtually no house in Los Angeles has a basement.

The frost line in Oklahoma City is about 18", so foundations should be around 3 feet deep. So digging a basement would add a lot of cost.

[diabeticman]

10. thank you this is helpful for me to understand

[dem in texas]

6. No basements

Basements are necessary for the water based heating systems. I lived in Alaska and we had to have a basement so the heating system (which ran under the first floor) could heat the pipes to keep them from freezing in cold weather. It doesn't get that cold in some of the states in tornado alley so you don't have as many problems with freezing pipes. Also, it gets very hot and humid in the summer and you do not want a basement that will get damp and moldy.

I live in Dallas and my house is an older 2 store home and is built on pier and beam. Many newer homes are built on concrete slabs. My furnace is in the attic. In most one story homes in this area, the furnace in a closet in the hall or laundry room.

[grasswire]

7. Pacific Northwest has basements.

Weather Channel says none in OK because dynamite is required to blast out the rock, and very expensive.

[0rganism]

16. many of which smell like mold and dry rot

My old house in SE Portland had a nice semi-finished basement. It was great until the rains came, and then it'd be 6" deep in water.

My current home in Hillsboro doesn't have a basement, and I don't miss them one bit. Of course, if a tornado ever hits us we're fucked, but we don't get a lot of that around here.

[justcommenting]

20. The Weather Channel was wrong

They should stick to the weather and leave the geology to people who understand it.

In Oklahoma, we have a high water table. The only people I ever knew to have a basement were my grandparents, and they had a tremendous amount of trouble with it. It was always leaking, and they were always having it worked on and hoping it would be fixed, and invariably it would leak again.

My understanding is that the red clay that makes up much of Oklahoma's soil does not hold water in the same way loamier soil does. As the clay gets wet and dries and gets wet and dries, the effect it has on a basement wall is to eventually cause it to crack. And then, because of the high water table, the leak will begin. Then mold grows.

I'd be happy to post a photo of the chair I inherited when my grandmother died. It was sitting in her basement, and you can see the water rings along the legs from the times the basement flooded.

Google for "Oklahoma basement dynamite" and the entries you'll see on the web with the rock explanation are all from the last couple of days - since the national news started saying it. I think it's an explanation that Oklahomans had never heard before. Simply google Oklahoma basements and you'll find many older articles supporting the water table / red clay reason.

[Tx4obama]

8. Most houses like in Dallas/Houston are built on concrete slab foundations...

I believe because of the type of soil: clay, etc.

I have never seen a 'home' basement here in Texas and I've been here almost forty years.

The big downtown buildings have floors underground or parking garages or tunnels etc.

I had a brother-in-law once that put in a storm cellar in North Texas (out in the country), but it filled up with water and they never used it,
also it was near the house and a big tree.
If I had lived there I wouldn't have gone down there. What if the tree or the house blew on top of the door - no one could have gotten out!

[GoCubsGo]

11. Mostly slabs here, too

I'm on the Coastal Plain. It's pretty much a big sand box. Not the best for basements, apparently.

[X_Digger]

12. We have one.

A quirk in the soil in this area in Fort Worth meant that about five houses in this development (built ~1985-1986) have basements. Typically you run into shale, bedrock, or limestone pretty quickly (that's why pools cost so damned much here.)

[Egalitarian Thug]

18. No, because they're cheap to build. n/t

[TwilightGardener]

13. Why not at least a small storm shelter? Doesn't have to be a full

basement--my very old Nebraska farmhouse had a small partial basement with a little limestone-block stairwell that led outside (covered by wooden doors). Yeah, it was dank and unpleasant and smelled like the 1870's, but folks back then were prepared to live in an area chock full of tornadoes, even if they didn't have real meteorology yet. We also had a separate fruit cellar built into a hill. I don't really get it either. Houses used to be routinely built with basements/cellars (and with a lot less technology and heavy equipment), unless it was somewhere totally impossible like sandy or coastal areas. Edit to add: I now live out west, and yes, have a basement that was basically chipped out of rock. It can be done.

[Llewlladdwr]

14. I live on the Texas Gulf Coast.

My house is 19 feet above sea level.

You figure it out.

[Logical]

15. Fatal tornados are extremely rare events. Average of 40 a year. n-t

[Egalitarian Thug]

17. Real estate developers and corrupt politicians.

Proper foundations and basements are expensive so developers don't like them. A century ago you would probably not be able to find a structure built for human habitation west of the Mississippi that didn't have at least a root cellar.

The people of my great-great grandmother's era knew this and they learned it from either the natives or by hard lesson.

[Retrograde]

19. Money

My c. 1910 California house has a small basement - about 10'X10' - and my neighbors' slightly older houses have full but unfinished ones. But during the post-war building boom it was cheaper to just slap up houses on slabs.

Now that real estate prices have gone through the stratosphere in my city, we're seeing new construction with basements to get an extra-large house still within zoning limits.