Who has a 'basement' house?

[moonwolf]

Maybe you are planning to build the house, but living in the basement while waiting to do that?
In town I remember a neighbor down the street could afford to build and live in their basement for about 5 years before they built the bungalow atop that.

Anyone out there doing it this way?

[countribound]

I've never heard of living in the basement-of course I live in TX. But we are planning on building a detached garage with an apartment above while we continue to save to build our house. Makes sense especially if you are relocating so that you can be involved in your home-building. As we are looking ahead (apt. could be possible future room for MIL), I'm sure if you could live in just a basement, it'd be especially nice if, in the future, you planned to store food down there (or in some cases, the MIL- )--Either way they are nice additions to the house eventually.

[woodsrunner]

It used to be common around here. There are several houses near here that are still just roofed over basements. They've been that way since I was in school over 25yrs ago.

Now it's against the zoning.

[BaronsMom]

When we moved to the farm, we lived in a basement house. There were three small bedrooms, a bathroom, large kitchen, dining room, living room. Mind you there were 9 of us!

An old farmhouse (single-story) was purchased, moved and placed on top of the basement house. We gutted the old farmhouse and after several years built on and finally joined the basement house to the upstairs. But, it was very convenient because we were able to live in the basement while the house was being remodeled/rebuilt.

The basement house was cramped for such a large family. But once we built on, it was great to have a second kitchen in the basement for "canning and freezing".

[Momo]

We built this house on a pay as you go basis. First we built the garage. Then the basement. We lived in the basement for about a year. The biggest problem was leaks on the flat floor/roof area. We had a mini-kitchen in the basement, along with a toilet and shower. It worked pretty well for us but alot of people couldn't handle being a mole in the basement!

[Triffin]

We're in Ct and our home has a full finished
basement .. We practically live in ours ..
It's the coolest place in the house during
summer and the warmest place in the house during
winter .. nice and cozy with heat from the
furnace and fireplace .. For you homebuilders out
there that are building homes with basements;
don't insulate the bottom of the slab from the
ground .. you want the contact to promote thermal
exchange .. it's OK to insulate the exterior walls,
usually with 2" rigid styrofoam .. but not the
bottom of the floor slab ..

Triff ..