2nd March 2006, 2:37 PM
A house with a basement has a sunken foundation, if the soil is soft, or the water table is too high like you were saying, it becomes a problem for stability, not just flooding. you could end up making yourself a sink-hole.
florida is all sand for example, most of your southern states are either clay or soft dirt that quickly becomes mud. Some states have such a hard deposit of minerals that it becomes too expensive to put in the basement though.
And then you have structural design, like homes that were built by germans, dutch, swedish, etc, who each have their own tastes in home design that they brought over. Dutch like to have a large attic since they cant dig down in Holland but the germans love the sunken living rooms and basements. Of course all the newer homes in America follow the pre-fab colonial design with vaulted or cathedral cielings that are made of dry wall. Looks great in a nice house, looks like ass in a pre-fab 'community' or one of those 'over night suburbs'. Fucking brits keep trying to make houses look like churches.
God why the fuck do I know this krap?
florida is all sand for example, most of your southern states are either clay or soft dirt that quickly becomes mud. Some states have such a hard deposit of minerals that it becomes too expensive to put in the basement though.
And then you have structural design, like homes that were built by germans, dutch, swedish, etc, who each have their own tastes in home design that they brought over. Dutch like to have a large attic since they cant dig down in Holland but the germans love the sunken living rooms and basements. Of course all the newer homes in America follow the pre-fab colonial design with vaulted or cathedral cielings that are made of dry wall. Looks great in a nice house, looks like ass in a pre-fab 'community' or one of those 'over night suburbs'. Fucking brits keep trying to make houses look like churches.
God why the fuck do I know this krap?