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- Go to Finished Basements or Indoor Swimming Pools?
Re: mneme
As Pat_B pointed out, they are a necessity in hurricane country, but apart from that they are excellent places to collect junk and majroj's horrible insects.
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 15, 2010 at 2:37 PM
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Good thoughts johnmacnab.. I don't think I'll ever 'not think' about basements in quite the same way again - lol.
posted by
mneme
on February 15, 2010 at 1:52 PM
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PoetikliNclynd
Thank you PoetikliNclynd.
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 14, 2010 at 2:17 PM
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BC-A
It makes a lot of sense that cost would be a primary concern, BC-A. And the Victorian house design is logical.
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 14, 2010 at 2:15 PM
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interesting point!
posted by
PoetikliNclynd
on February 14, 2010 at 12:55 PM
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John
Y I guess cost. However your idea might work. Victorian houses have steeply pitched roofs. And I used a colonial one in one of my stories recently. In this way architects could obtain the same height from the foundation up. BC-A, Bill’s RLJst
posted by
BC-A
on February 14, 2010 at 7:24 AM
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Re: Take care and all the best.
Thank you for popping in for a read, Symphony.
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 14, 2010 at 7:22 AM
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Take care and all the best.
posted by
_Symphony_
on February 14, 2010 at 6:58 AM
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TAPS.
Whew! Thanks for that confirmation Taps. After I wrote about the hole in the floor I began to wonder if I'd imagined it, but you described exactly what I saw - a hole in the floor with dirt at the bottom. The flooded basement sounds like a very unpleasant experience. I hope the insurance covered it.
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 13, 2010 at 12:34 PM
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Re: johnmcnab, no trout, but we did have roaches and scutes (scutgera sp.)
You can keep your scutes majroj - but, I ask myself, if they accelerate so quickly have they got full fuel tanks and are they using KERS?
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 13, 2010 at 12:22 PM
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You make a lot of sense. I had flooded basement once when it got very cold here and waterpipes froze and later thawed. The whole basement flooded to knee level (of course while we were not home) put out the fire in the water heater, put out the pilot light in the furnace and we had to rent a sump pump to get rid of the water. What we had always thought was a drain in the basement floor was actually a little round hole in the cement where you could see dirt at the bottom.
posted by
TAPS.
on February 13, 2010 at 8:27 AM
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johnmcnab, no trout, but we did have roaches and scutes (scutgera sp.)
In case you kow it by another name, a scute is like a centipede crossed with a top fuel dragter sired by a formula one racer. There they were abot two to three inches long, but their legs were like a dadylonglegs or harvestman spider; zero to "where'd he go?" in nothing flat, unnervingly quick, able to use thin crevices and preyed on smaller slower critters, on celiong floor or walls.
posted by
majroj
on February 13, 2010 at 7:53 AM
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Re: Here in Saramento they had another solution
Your second storey entrance and living quarters makes a lot of sense. Shit! I've just discovered from Ell that the banks along this stretch of the river were raised up a few yards because of the St. Lawrence Seaway construction - so I've no room to talk of anybody else.
Seemingly the only reason this place doesn't flood (in HER sense of the word) is because of the locks upstream. The locks that have a large notice stating that 'these locks control the height of Lake Ontario.' I'm going house hunting tomorrow.
I trust you enjoyed your breakfast trout - your fresh trout.
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 12, 2010 at 10:14 PM
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Re: I like the way you think, Johnnie!
I've go it northsage_45. I have the answer. When you begin to look for your home in Death Valley, cover your ass and buy one on pontoons - the perfect solution.
A few hundred yards from us, on the St. Lawrence, there is a one man operation that consists of a barge with living quarters, a small tug and a crane. He uses it to repair river banks. When winter comes along, he uses his crane to pick up the tug, which is then placed on the barge where he waits out the winter. That is another perfect solution.
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 12, 2010 at 10:07 PM
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Here in Saramento they had another solution
Until dams controlled the two rivers converging on the Capitol city, floods were not unheard of. The old original downtown was raised twerlve feet, wagon load by wagonload of dirt. But the solution was that when you built a house you lived on the second story, your front steps led up to it. The lower floor was then rented out or used for a business or storage.
Building on a slab (or slab-on-grade) lets in pests through the inevitable cracks, as well as moisture, mold, tree roots... Harder to hide your audio-visual-cable-phone wires too, versus a crawlspace.
We rented a house with "finished" basement. Had a shallow trout stream every spring due to the thaw and rains running form the base of the laiundery walls through the space I used as a study to a floor drain.
posted by
majroj
on February 12, 2010 at 9:33 PM
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I like the way you think, Johnnie!
Mac,
You are right. It makes just as much sense, to buy a house in New Orleans, where the water table is occasionally above the first floor windows, providing that it sits up on stilts, and on high ground! That whole periodic submersion routine, is really HARD on a house! Two or three times in a row, and they make you buy a whole new house, from what I hear! I'm thinking of looking for a nice home building site in Holland. Either there, or a house I've been thinking of buying, in Death Valley. I hear that Death Valley residents rarely worry about flooding, so it must sit upon high ground, a big plus for me.
Guy
posted by
northsage_45
on February 12, 2010 at 6:30 PM
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sam444
I was discussing the basement/water table question with Ell, and asking her why people went to such trouble. She pointed out that the water table goes lower and higher depending upon the year. My response to that was, 'if the builders are aware of that, why build a basement - or at least make sure it is higher than the highest the water table has ever been in that area.'
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 12, 2010 at 6:08 PM
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Re: One answer to this very sensible question of yours, Johnny Mac...
Thank you Pat. That is a logical reason I would never have considered, mainly because tornadoes are ever so rare in the UK. I like the way you say 'built on a slab,' - another description I wouldn't have considered.
posted by
johnmacnab
on February 12, 2010 at 5:58 PM
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I always lived in a home with a basement and never had a problem! But you do bring up a good point about the water table! My youngest son is getting to build his home and we were having the very discussions you addressed! I said build above as well! He has more of a water problem that we ever did when he was growing up in a different part of the state. I was on line looking at some of the options and I sent to the sites to drool, lol! There are some fantastic ones out there. sam
posted by
sam444
on February 12, 2010 at 5:28 PM
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One answer to this very sensible question of yours, Johnny Mac...
Tornadoes: in the Midwest a basement is a below-ground refuge from them. Sort of. I have sympathy for your friends and their flooded basement. If/when I sell this house, I'll take my chances with the twisters and buy a house built on a slab.
posted by
Pat_B
on February 12, 2010 at 2:54 PM
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