05-22-2007, 07:18 PM
Even in the SF Bay Area of CA, basements are uncommon, but are becoming more popular in new construction. Quite often when you see an old run down house sell, it's torn down and then you see a huge pit being dug for a new basement. This is the only way to increase usable space without exceeding the max footprint size for the lot. If people are going to go through all of the time and expense of building a new house, they generally go for the max square footage of usable space that they can get, so many new houses have three floors, with one below ground.
Growing up in the North East, basements were standard, and I was once told that it was because the foundation needed to go deeper there to get below the frost line, which also explains why it's uncommon in CA.
Growing up in the North East, basements were standard, and I was once told that it was because the foundation needed to go deeper there to get below the frost line, which also explains why it's uncommon in CA.