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Northerners have their hang ups about slab construction. Few homes below the Mason Dixon line have basements. Even the million dollar homes are built on slabs. The main reasons for basements were to get the foundation below the frost line so less foundation shifting/heaving. Pipes have to go deeper to prevent freezing. A place to put large furnaces and even coal bins and oil tanks.
Slabs that had cast iron disposal/sewage pipes could have some issue due to the pipe rusting out and cracking/plugging. In the last 23-30 years or more, they have gotten away from cast iron and gone to "plastic" piping which has eliminated the problem.
I was a New Englander that had to get over my NE home beliefs when I relocated to other parts of the country. Beliefs like slab construction is cheap, I do not need AC, oil heat is OK, dark rooms with small windows are the norm, etc. While having my first home built in the south (Charleston SC), the builder had to politely tell me that I think like a Yankee in that I am more worried about heating then cooling. He said get over your concerns about heating and pay more attention to cooling. This was antitheses to a New Englander............LOL
In most costal areas you will hit water about 8 feet down so you could not build a house with a basement even if you wanted to.
Been there, done that.
Last edited by accufitgolf; 10-09-2013 at 10:40 AM..
Northerners have their hang ups about slab construction. Few homes below the Mason Dixon line have basements. Even the million dollar homes are built on slabs. The main reasons for basements were to get the foundation below the frost line so less foundation shifting/heaving. Pipes have to go deeper to prevent freezing. A place to put large furnaces and even coal bins and oil tanks.
In most costal areas you will hit water about 8 feet down so you could not build a house with a basement even if you wanted to.
Instead of saying that "Northerners have hang ups about slab construction", I was just going to say, that Northerners like their basements. I've seen some antique houses in Mass. & ME, & they all have cellars, of course. For newer houses, just to have all that extra space, for storage even, is desirable. Lots of people, more in the Mid-West maybe?, really want huge basements, b/c they want a beautiful finished basement.
But yes, it's different in the South or SouthWest. I owned several properties in FL; they were all on "slabs", but they don't even use that term, as "they don't know from basements". But that's different; it's the norm there.
Has anyone mentioned the downside of having old hot water heating pipes buried in the slab? Guess what happens when you cover bare steel or iron pipes in concrete, & several decades go by? (Done mainly in the Northeast I think, not in the South). The steel or iron pipes eventually react with the concrete, & spring leaks. I now have a bubbling pool, kind of like a mini-hot springs, in one of my rooms when I turn the heat on.........better think about it, before buying an old slab house with that type of heating.....
I live in FL where the houses are all slab. A cellar is wonderful, but slabs are more practical where there is little chance of freezing pipes. Ranches are more practical when hurricanes threaten.
I will say that, living now in FL in a small one-story ranch well suited to my needs, which include mimimal maintenance time due to my job, I have come to love it here.
So now I am shopping to move back to Maine or Mass and am dismayed at how _dark_ and dank the houses look. I guess one can't have it all. I know my sister finally put a foundation under her house because it moved around so much in coastal Maine and it has been much better as far as the pipes not freezing and the heating from their wood stove holding the temp. better. They used to have to work with the pipes once or twice a year.
My Ranch style home in the Berkshires of Ma. is all slab on grade. Because of ledge it was cheaper than blasting. It makes radiant heat very efficient since you are heating a slab. We did still have to build a frost wall first, scribed around the ledge, fill with aggregate, then pour an insulated slab in that. All of the mechanicals must be thought out carefully before you bury them. With todays Pex for domestic water and sch 80 pvc for waste it is very safe. I hope.
I did use about 80 yards of concrete for a 2500 sq.ft home though, so ranch homes are a waste in that way.
In most slab construction, the waste water pipes are run through the slab. The water and gas line are usually run through the walls, ceiling, what ever to get to where they need to be.
Slab edges are dug a few feet into the ground to add strength and prevent settling. That "outer foundation" is then filled with a special type sand?? and allowed to settle/compact before the actual slab is poured over that. A properly built slab is more complex then simply pouring a slab of concrete on the ground.
In most slab construction, the waste water pipes are run through the slab. The water and gas line are usually run through the walls, ceiling, what ever to get to where they need to be.
Slab edges are dug a few feet into the ground to add strength and prevent settling. That "outer foundation" is then filled with a special type sand?? and allowed to settle/compact before the actual slab is poured over that. A properly built slab is more complex then simply pouring a slab of concrete on the ground.
Running only the waste pipe thru the slab and nothing else would be ideal but it is not that uncommon to have water pipes embedded also. Here in coastal South Carolina we had a snow storm in February, 2009 which dropped 4 inches and there was sub freezing temperatures for a couple of days---a rare event here; the last time any significant snow fell was in 1989 I believe. The buildings here are just not built with that kind of climate in mind and as a result there were a lot of burst water pipes reported over the following days.
Down the street a couple had a water pipe break in the slab and that caused severe damage in their house. To get at the break two inside walls had to be torn open and the slab jack-hammered to fix it. The break happened under the floor of the kitchen pantry, so all that had to be torn up.
While such an event is infrequent, when it does the damage, headache and costs are serious. But if those systems are known to not be encased in the slab, you're much better off.
Yes, Parsec. We found one in S Natick (wi/a basement ). Are you still around in natick?
No, I actually moved this summer to Sudbury. I also have a basement now with a 2 car garage. I don't know how I ever lived in a slab house to be honest. I don't even need a shed anymore and I can park both cars in my garage. What a concept - using the garage to park cars!
I'll probably put up the shed anyways to declutter the garage a little and have a place for all the kids toys and bikes, but it's certainly nice to have the extra storage space that a basement offers. The basement now has 10 large 5-shelf storage units with everything organized neatly, my workbench and 10-drawer tool chest. In my slab ranch, all that stuff was littered in every corner of my house, in the shed outside where I couldn't easily access it during the winter, in my hard-to-reach attic. My old sunroom was also turned into a storage room, but now my new sunroom only has a table and chairs in it!
i did see a couple of slab houses but passed 'cos of those concerns - cold floors (we don't wear shoes in the house), pipelines within the slab which are tough to access if problems arise, storage, future expansion etc. and i do notice that slab houses seem to sell slower (but of course it could be due to market forces i'm not 100% certain). but i suppose usually the pricing would reflect the demand/price for it.
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). Are you still around in natick?
