Basements

[Hallway]

Originally Posted by tuindecisive

The only basements I have dealt with in Oklahoma were constantly flooded. I have no idea about the ground quality, etc., just that every time I see one, it's full of water.

In the past, basements DID flood a lot. However, there has been a great deal of improvements in technology that all but eliminate flooding. They are now perfectly safe. My bet is the basements you delt with are 20 or more years old.

[n8tiv_okie]

Originally Posted by Hallway

California has "ground shift" and is full of basements that are VERY safe and water tight. I frankly do not believe you. I will trust my contractor and the research I have done. One more thing. That "floating" foundation is a crock. Give it 20 or so years and that foundation you think is great fails and you pay Olshan or Ram Jack twenty grand. Why? Shallow footings that are nowhere NEAR bedrock.

California has a completely different type of soil.

Go ahead and build away because frankly, I could care less and don't appreciate your hateful attitude about such a trivial topic.

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by Hallway

California has "ground shift" and is full of basements that are VERY safe and water tight. I frankly do not believe you. I will trust my contractor and the research I have done. One more thing. That "floating" foundation is a crock. Give it 20 or so years and that foundation you think is great fails and you pay Olshan or Ram Jack twenty grand. Why? Shallow footings that are nowhere NEAR bedrock.

In southern California houses must be built on a cement slab. There are a lot of areas with liquifaction factors in which you do NOT want a hole in the ground under your house, and the water table can vary widely. In drought, it can be very low but give a monsoon year after a drought breaks it can be very high. The only houses that have basements are those built before the 1930's outside of Long Beach (where most collapsed). These were often grandfathered out of the building codes and in the series of quakes ( relatively minor ) in the IE a few years ago several of the basement rooms in Riverside downtown, like the library, were shut down and redone with a shifting foundation after cracking. Most people are not willing to go for the cost of that to have a basement.

Also, bedrock in California is very very very far down and much is former wetlands or landfill. Building into bedrock is not practical. Slab foundation homes hold up very well as long as there is no water leakage under them, usually from bad plumming. In quakes the house can be damaged and may have to be rebuilt but isn't likely to collapse. The goal isn't to keep the house in one piece but give the occupants a chance to survive. The safest house in a quake is a wood frame slab foundation house of one story.

I lived in socal up to a month ago and the safest I felt in a quake was the 1952 bungallo we lived in at the time of the Van Nuys quake. The most nervous time was the small one a few months ago since my 70's apartment has had major water leaks directly under the building.

As for here, I'm a newbie so I can't say for sure. Except a friends storm shelter has so much mold from water leakage in it that several members of the household can't go there from mold sensitivity.

[colleeng47]

Originally Posted by nightbird47

As for here, I'm a newbie so I can't say for sure. Except a friends storm shelter has so much mold from water leakage in it that several members of the household can't go there from mold sensitivity.

If my family wants to use our storm shelter, we would have to put on fins and goggles first!

[Goodpasture]

The only basements I've inspected in the past decade that have not had water problems are those where one wall is a walk out, and the people put french drains around the "hill" side of the house. Those walk outs or houses set into a hill without some sort of diverter (french drain, surface drainage/curbing, etc) for water have had problems.

[happytown]

Its expensive to waterproof a basement. It takes many different apllications to fix the problem, one of which is a vinyl moisture barrier. Once the basement is dry it really becomes a great living area and a wonderful extension of the home, especially if its a large one.