Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Basements in Florida

I had two comments on today's post about our house not having a basement!

Here in Florida we only a few feet above sea level.  I believe our house now is like tops 10 feet above sea level.  Where we are moving is more inland and I think they told us our elevation is like 30 feet above sea level.  We're very close to the gulf coast, right now we're only about 20 minutes away from the beach.

When you dig here in Florida after about a foot or two of digging you hit the water table.  It's not just solid dirt under our homes, we have water right under us here!  So it's impossible to dig for a basement because it's not solid ground, it's just water sloshing around!

I've actually only visited one house with a basement and it was my mom's cousin's house in Maryland.  Whenever my friend from work is looking for houses in Minnesota (she likes to threaten to move sometimes and then changes her mind) I notice that the square footage of houses is HUGE there but from the outside they don't look huge, basements!  I never even thought about how much extra space that would give you!

So you guys that live where you can have basements are soooo lucky!  We have to store all of our stuff in the garage or in the attic (which we have to be careful because it gets so hot here that stuff will melt).

3 comments:

  1. I read your earlier post but did not have time to comment. Where I am, we don't have many basements either for the same reason. My husband grew up in Chicago, and he really wanted a basement. When I was househunting for us, I saw over 100 homes and I think 1 had a basement. It was gross though. Very small and totally unusable. And creepy. I know they provide extra space, but I can't get past the creepy part so I'm actually glad on one hand that we don't have them. On the other hand, it'd be nice to have him play his music two floors down instead of right below me. I am sure you can't wait for your house to be done. So exciting!

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  2. I will say that I did know why you didn't have them but it just seems weird growing up with them. Our basement is unfinished though as are most new homes. We do plan on finishing it in the near future but for now it's a good workout area and kids play area.

    I know there are parts of the country that don't have to worry about this but in MN we have tornado's and severe thunderstorms and I love having the basement to go to for safety. We were in the basement a few times this past summer for tornado warnings. In our previous home, a townhouse, we didn't have a basement and I was really worried when storms would come and I was home alone with the kids.

    But in Florida all the homes seem to have pools and I wish I had that! And no snow and freezing cold! I guess it's a trade off. :)

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  3. Totally makes sense! Thanks for the explanation! We live in a townhouse (in MD) and it's three stories plus a finished attic. I have to say we spend most of our time in the basement, which I guess sounds strange to some folks. It's a playroom and a tv room with a full bath and laundry/storage area, so definitely a bonus for us!!

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