I am curious as to this. I’ve seen 10′ ceiling basements and I’ve seen +2500 SqFt basements, but I am not sure what might really be deemed BIG in terms of residential, non-mansion construction for BIG basements.
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I just framed a basement in a one story 4000 s/f house I framed this past summer this week and the basement is the same 4000 s/f with 12' ceilings.
I see a lot of basements with 9' walls. Only know one one with 10' walls.
I'd say 95% of new houses here go on basements. And probably 95% of them are full basements - Not half basement and half crawl.
So a 2,500 square foot house would have a 2,500 square foot basement.
Boss-
I'm guessing you only have single story homes?
A 2-story house that's 2500 sq. ft. would only have 1,250 sq. ft. of basement.
But that's still a lot of basement.
Land is relatively cheap here, so the vast majority of homes are one story.
Yeah I'm old. But at least I made it
There must be some pretty big 1 story homes out there.
Around here, even on large pieces of property, most homes are 2 story.
And I've worked on some old Victorians that must have been 40' to the gable peak.
A few years ago I inspected a house with a basement with a basketball court! I would guess the ceiling was 20-25' high!
Wonder if thats the one that was on HGTV about 6 mos ago? They had the whole place set up like a sports park, pitching/batting cage and all.
Edited 2/5/2006 1:05 pm ET by MSA1
Obviously 8 is the most common. Nicer homes a 9' ceiling is pretty standard, along with trussed joists so you get all the mechanicals up and avoid soffits. I know that adds to the concrete bill. I've seen a couple of 10's, and one 12, which really did not make it look like a basement at all. Very nice.
Crawlspaces here about as rare as frog hair. Houses get full basements. (In the above example, if its a 2500 sf footprint, you've got 2500 sf basement). Some even go the route of hollow core and get a basement under the garage. IMHO, that's a whale of a deal when it comes to adding square footage. You're only adding 4' of foundation wall that you wouldn't have (for an 8' basement), and you can get the hollow core, installed, insulated, finished, for 8-10 bucks a foot.
More prevalent now than previously is pony walls. Pour the 8' and frame on top of it. I'm not a big personal fan of it, but I haven't seen any glaring problems either. Guess thats like saying I'd like to see one go bad just to support my theory.
"A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you." -Bert Taylor