No basements?? (Atlanta, Albany, St. Simons: home search, neighborhood, square footage)

[atlantagreg30127]

I remember when I first moved down here from WV years ago, I thought it was insane the lack of basements here. I mean, back home a tornado is very rare and here they're every-other week sometimes in Spring, yet, so few homes have basements. Back home they were mostly where the washer/drier and utility stuff went (furnace, water heater, etc). A few people finished them into a rec room. Here they can save your life during a bad storm season. To me if I were building new here, it would be WELL worth the extra money to add one to my home plan.

Wanna hear something even more stupid? In the mid-60s when ranch style homes were the rage in many neighborhoods here, most had crawl spaces under them. The builders thought it was a really bright idea to put the gas furnaces UNDER THE HOMES in the crawlspace. Yes. Under...the...home.

A friend of mine bought the house I live in. He lives on one side and I rent the other, so I didn't have a choice in it since I'm just a renter, but that's the setup here. Furnace under the house. Every time you have to simply change the filter you have to crawl on your hands and knees under the house about 35 feet (spiders, critters, etc) to the furnace in order to do it. And you MUST get the thing inspected properly by experts every year as one fluke in the thing and "poof", up you go. He's going to eventually invest $$$ into building a proper utility room on the side of the house and have it relocated into that room, but it just goes to show the really big time "DUH" moments developers sometime have here.

[LawrencevilleGA]

Thanks for info Bob. I enjoy learning bout the small things that make ya go Hmm? . You have just answered one of my Hmm? questions.
Dean

[JPD]

Originally Posted by LawrencevilleGA

Makes ya wonder why granite tops are so expensive and there's piles of granite all along the construction areas.

It makes ME wonder why MARTA chose to order the granite for the Decatur Station from China, putting the renovation of that station months behind schedule and way more expensive than necessary.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by JPD

It makes ME wonder why MARTA chose to order the granite for the Decatur Station from China, putting the renovation of that station months behind schedule and way more expensive than necessary.

I can't comment on why their schedule is slipping, but I can tell you that there are certain colors that are only available from China (as that's where then stone is found), and it's also typically pretty cheap stone because the labor is absurdly cheap. Even with the shipping costs, Chinese and Indian stones are still cheaper than some US-quarried stones.

There's another reason architects specify stone from India and China as well- their environmental regulations are far more lax than in other areas of the world, and they still allow the use of lead in the polishing process. This produces an excellent shine, but the process was banned in most countries because the workers were getting lead poisoning from being exposed to the dust and residue. Apparently they don't care about that in India and China. Sad, but true.

Bob

[xxman777]

Originally Posted by JPD

It makes ME wonder why MARTA chose to order the granite for the Decatur Station from China, putting the renovation of that station months behind schedule and way more expensive than necessary.

Marta chose the Chinease granite because of cost. They could have gotten the same stuff here but it was cheaper to ship it from China because of the Labor costs being so low (like Bob said). In reality it ended up being more expensive becasue their order got delayed. If it had been on time they would have completed the project on time and on budget.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by BobKovacs

This produces an excellent shine.

Bob

I'm sure MARTA got their hands on some beautiful stone. It'll look great once it's covered in gum and tagged with thick-pointed permanent markers.

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by JPD

I'm sure MARTA got their hands on some beautiful stone. It'll look great once it's covered in gum and tagged with thick-pointed permanent markers.

I'm sure it will. I often wonder about the selections that are made for public projects like this. Let's just hope they were smart enough to buy some good anti-graffitti coatings for the stone.........

Bob

[rsla]

my husband and i spent 2 glorious months in st simons ge. we looked at homes on slabs and on stilts. we were told there are no basements because if you did down you hit water. i was also told that there are new rules - if a house is build on low ground it must be on stilts or blocks-- but if it's relatively high ground it can be on a slab.

is this true? also, if it's on a slab and there are plumbing issues, do they have to drill thru the slab to make repairs?

thanks for any input

[BobKovacs]

Originally Posted by rsla

my husband and i spent 2 glorious months in st simons ge. we looked at homes on slabs and on stilts. we were told there are no basements because if you did down you hit water. i was also told that there are new rules - if a house is build on low ground it must be on stilts or blocks-- but if it's relatively high ground it can be on a slab.

is this true? also, if it's on a slab and there are plumbing issues, do they have to drill thru the slab to make repairs?

thanks for any input

I'm not familiar with St. Simons, but if they've enacted regulations like that, it sounds like they're in a pretty major flood zone. Typically, your insurance company will want the house built a minimum elevation above the floodplain, in which case your statement about being "on stilts" in the low-lying areas makes sense.

And yes, if you're on a slab, any plumbing repairs for lines under the slab will require tearing open the slab. To make this less likely, you can run the hot and cold supply lines into the ceiling and then drop down the walls. That will eliminate a major source of potential leaks, as only waste piping (and the incoming water service) will be below the slab.

Bob

[ellie]

Yes, I imagine most of St. Simons would be completely covered by water in a Class 4 or 5 hurricane. That's why they now require that new houses are built on stilts.