Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As a life long New York, Brooklyn, Staten Island resident, we always have basements or LI has crawl spaces.
i do not like the feeling of walking on a slab. i hate it.
My Aunt and Uncle moved from LI, from a crawl space to a house in Florida on a slab. it is all tiled, as wood wood warp because of the high hunidity.
i hate it, i hate the feeling of walking on concrete and knowing ther is earth beneath my ffet.
the tiles are cold, and i just cant bring nyself to get used to it.
i dont like any type of ground floor home that has nothing but earth under it.
Even a 2 foot depth crawl space would be better than right on the dirt. just a pet peeve
Funny, I hate the echos of a crawl space foundation, and find that in the winter the floor is too cold because of the air under the house.
Plus, I feel it's a safety issue, someone could crawl under the house and saw a hole into the house to break in.
i would say 99.5% of houses in the south are slab on grade
In what part of the south do you live? This is not true for the homes in the Atlanta region. We have many homes on full or partial basements or crawlspaces.
Here in Charlotte the higher priced homes are constructed on a crawl space. A crawl space allows for access to the plumbing, wiring, furnace, etc. and allows for a little 'give' in the flooring which saves your back and knees. Also, a home built on a crawl space sits higher than a home on a slab - the elevation of the house has more appeal.
Slab construction is o.k. until you have a plumbing issue and have to jackhammer your floors!
Here in Charlotte the higher priced homes are constructed on a crawl space. A crawl space allows for access to the plumbing, wiring, furnace, etc. and allows for a little 'give' in the flooring which saves your back and knees. Also, a home built on a crawl space sits higher than a home on a slab - the elevation of the house has more appeal.
Slab construction is o.k. until you have a plumbing issue and have to jackhammer your floors!
The best type of foundation depends heavily on 1) what asthetics you are looking for & 2)your soil.
Elevated homes with crawls spaces lose their appeal as the homes get bigger. You don't typically see 6000+sqft homes with raised foundations. There is a reason for that.
But even more important is the soil. The soil dictates everything and is VERY local. If you put a basement in Houston, you better have a good pump b/c its not if it will fill with water, its when.
The best type of foundation depends heavily on 1) what asthetics you are looking for & 2)your soil.
Elevated homes with crawls spaces lose their appeal as the homes get bigger. You don't typically see 6000+sqft homes with raised foundations. There is a reason for that.
But even more important is the soil. The soil dictates everything and is VERY local. If you put a basement in Houston, you better have a good pump b/c its not if it will fill with water, its when.
Not sure where you are from but here in Charlotte the expensive homes ($1M+) are almost always built on a crawl space or they have a basement. A very large home looks pretty funny sitting on slab construction.
Obviously, the soil is a factor - that is why I said 'Charlotte'. We have mostly clay soil here so that does make a difference.
Not sure where you are from but here in Charlotte the expensive homes ($1M+) are almost always built on a crawl space or they have a basement. A very large home looks pretty funny sitting on slab construction.
Obviously, the soil is a factor - that is why I said 'Charlotte'. We have mostly clay soil here so that does make a difference.
Soil is everything. In Houston, you wont find many large homes built on a crawlspace. There are a few, but they are almost always the exception. Our soil is so bad (gumbo that expands and contracts constantly) that a crawlspace foundation must be done pier/beam....A 6,000+ Square foot house would have literally hundreds of piers. Heck a 2700 sqft house here has 80+ piers, and even then they end up needing to be leveled more frequently.
You are accustomed to homes on piers - I am not. I think a 6000 sqft home on a pier would stand out as odd. I shutter to think about the quantity/cost of landscaping required to conceal the basement/crawlspace from view in the front, and even worse, the amount of water needed to keep it all alive in our hot summers.
I like both looks, and I've lived in both style of homes. I prefer slab as its much easier to maintain when built properly, but at the same time, each type of foundation lends itself to a particular style of house. Victorian homes require elevated entries with crawlspace or basement, whereas a typical Georgian style house does not.
Of course if money is no object then the sky is the limit.
To clarify I meant on a concrete slab, no crawl space.
A concrete slab is a foundation. It is not just a slab though. The footings are still surrounding the home, meaning that the perimeter is poured maybe a couple feet deeper.
All the houses I know of around here are built on a concrete slab foundations and that is how they have been built since the 1950's. I can take you to my friends $3,000,000 10,000 square foot home on 2 acres and it is built on a concrete slab. I can take you to a development that a good friend of my parents built, 15 custom homes, each sitting on an acre lot, all built on concrete slabs. These homes were built in the late 1980's.
All the homes I know of in Arizona are on concrete slab foundations. From tract homes to custom built.
I always looked at homes on raised foundations as being cheep. Around here they are the old homes built between 1890 and 1950. Other than the restored homes in our historic district or the old farm homes that were moved into a business park called Heritage Square, most of the raised foundation homes look like something that poor people live in.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
