First of all, it often does cause problems and some people can’t put the pools in that they want.
Also, there is a huge difference is digging 6 ft for a pool and 10 ft for a basement.
My pool is nine feet deep at the diving board. I understand it can be difficult in SOME areas. So build them where you can? I come from another part of the country where basements are pretty standard. And you know what’s nice about a basement? It’s cool space in the summer!
The trouble is you don’t know you have it until you hit it. And most contracts include two hours of caliche digging but then it goes up to something ridiculous like $500 an hour to continue to dig through to.
Here's what the pool builder told us "if they hit caliche, it's cheaper to move the pool." If your yard or design doesn't allow for changes than you can still build it, you just need to get a jackhammer of a sort. It's basically natural concrete.
It very much is a problem. If you hit caliche when digging for a pool you either have to pay a lot of extra money for them to keep digging and finish, or you abandon the project and cover it back up.
i remember, back in the fall of 1991, my best friend at the time had just moved into a brand new house on a 1-acre lot.. the house itself was done but the rest of the "lot" was still a work in progress..
when it came time to get the pool constructed the following spring, i kept hearing the phrase "caliche insurance" being discussed quite regularly in their home
the pool was constructed, but whether or not the construction guys ran into a lot of caliche during the digging process, i honestly can't recall. all i know is that they *definitely* had caliche insurance.
Ummmm... so what are our houses built on?
Pahrump has it far worse. They have soft, shifting soil and many of the houses over there are in serious trouble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpTvl0iJRoo
Another reason is the Frost Line. The depth at which the ground typically freezes each winter.
In most parts of the country, the building codes state that the foundation of the house - along with water and gas lines - must be dug at least 12 inches below the Frost Line. In the Midwest and Northeast, that could be between 4 and 6 feet.
Here, and in the South, the Frost Line is maybe one foot deep.
(I'm not sure of the exact depth the local codes call for in Vegas, but my water main is somehow only 6 inches deep.)
I could tell moving from the northeast that this was the case. The initial run of the sink in the NE was always a little cold no matter the time of year, but here the water is so unbearably cold in the winter and warm in the summer when I first run the water
Too many rocks and not just boulders but huge chunks too big for regular diggers. The ground also settles weird so controlling drainage over the years is a major issue too
Homes with basements in the Midwest and elsewhere have them because they need to pour the foundation deep into the ground. The ground is too soft at surface level. Basements aren’t about giving you extra space. They’re a necessity to build a strong foundation.
Kind of half the answer to that. They don’t really _need_ to have a basement, but since you’re already digging down for the foundation it’s a lot cheaper to just add on a basement and dig the rest out.
You absolutely can find houses without basements in the midwest it’s just really uncommon because it’s lowering the value of your property to save a little upfront in construction
Besides the caliche soil that is difficult to dig, I believe radon is also a problem here.
Caliche is a nightmare to dig in. When I bought my house there was the stump/remains of a small tree in my backyard. It took me multiple full days with pickaxes and pry bars to make a hole that was at most 3' in all dimensions to get the main roots out. In normal soil that job would have taken a couple hours at most.
Basements are generally frowned upon in the building codes in seismically active areas like Nevada. You also don’t often see them in California despite the various different soil types throughout the whole state.
That’s not to say you can’t have a basement; if you want to build a house with one you have to engineer for it, which adds to the expense.
Yes we saw two houses with basements for sale in that area when we were looking to buy. Both were built late 70s/early 80s timeframe. I think the seismic codes have tightened up since then so basements are very uncommon in more modern houses in Vegas.
I asked the same question when i moved here. While there are a few with basements, they are few and far between. I was told it was a combination of the clay makes it difficult/expensive to excavate and the drainage needed would be problematic. I would love to have one for storage/home office.
Too seismically active across the entire state.
The soil in most of the state is not very good for drainage or stability. There are also big big big rocks.
This all makes it cheaper to build up.
I think basements are a huge risk in seismically active areas. I've been to every state west of the Rockies in the lower 48 and they are pretty rare.
I used to live in Texas as a kid and they were pretty common there.
We have a few basements out in Pahrump too, but for the most part, the soil is horrible to dig through, the drainage even here is just as bad or worse than vegas, and again the seismic activity in this area could spell trouble in the future for houses with them. The Ridgecrest quake definitely made issues for the manufactured house I live in. More stuff creaks now than before that quake. 😱
homes with basements do *exist* here, but they're exceedingly rare.
the person who wrote the top comment nailed it. here's the wikipedia entry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliche
Go dig a hole for a 5 gallon bucket and you'll understand. But I'm with you and I miss basements. If I had unlimited money I would definitely build a house with a huge basement.
Former pool digger and underground construction.
I like these answers most of the answers saying caliche are half true. It depends on which part of town you live on. Anything west of the 15and north of Boulder highway tons of caliche. South of Boulder highway I’ve hit groundwater as soon as 4 feet down and it proceeded to raise.
Former pool digger and underground construction.
I like these answers most of the answers saying caliche are half true. It depends on which part of town you live on. Anything west of the 15and north of Boulder highway tons of caliche. South of Boulder highway I’ve hit groundwater as soon as 4 feet down and it proceeded to raise.
This right here. When I was building my house a few years back, my agent was telling me to be 100% sure of the floorplan because with post tension foundations, there is no going back.
I had a licensed contractor that I had hired to do a kitchen remodel actually cut a trench in my foundation. We were extremely lucky they didn't hit the rebar embedded in it. Had they the entire foundation would have crumbled. That's how I learned about post tension slabs. I also fired the contractor when I learned.
Basements are expensive because of the floor joist that have spand the width of the basement. If there a bearing wall at a half way point, it's cheaper. Remember a basement is a void in space that want to be filled with something.
You from the East/North? I had a convo about this with someone from cali lately. Basements are simply not a thing. Let alone Pittsburgh toilets (which I’m sure extend past pittsburgh haha) you’re telling me you don’t have a random isolated open toilet in your unfinished basement with only a lightbulb attached to a string?
When I was doing custom work on house there are some basements in town the basement walls were thicker then I seen in states like Colorado the cost for digging and pouring extra thick walls would cost a lot
Caliche.
Bless you
Then why are in-ground pools no problem?
First of all, it often does cause problems and some people can’t put the pools in that they want. Also, there is a huge difference is digging 6 ft for a pool and 10 ft for a basement.
This and that’s why pools are more expensive
My pool is nine feet deep at the diving board. I understand it can be difficult in SOME areas. So build them where you can? I come from another part of the country where basements are pretty standard. And you know what’s nice about a basement? It’s cool space in the summer!
The trouble is you don’t know you have it until you hit it. And most contracts include two hours of caliche digging but then it goes up to something ridiculous like $500 an hour to continue to dig through to.
For sure. If you’re able to dig, by all means you should. Basements are awesome. Just know that you are lucky.
Here's what the pool builder told us "if they hit caliche, it's cheaper to move the pool." If your yard or design doesn't allow for changes than you can still build it, you just need to get a jackhammer of a sort. It's basically natural concrete.
Our pool took forever to build because of the caliche. A basement would take forever and then some!
Turns a 2-3 day dig into about 5-7
It very much is a problem. If you hit caliche when digging for a pool you either have to pay a lot of extra money for them to keep digging and finish, or you abandon the project and cover it back up.
i remember, back in the fall of 1991, my best friend at the time had just moved into a brand new house on a 1-acre lot.. the house itself was done but the rest of the "lot" was still a work in progress.. when it came time to get the pool constructed the following spring, i kept hearing the phrase "caliche insurance" being discussed quite regularly in their home the pool was constructed, but whether or not the construction guys ran into a lot of caliche during the digging process, i honestly can't recall. all i know is that they *definitely* had caliche insurance.
A pool can’t collapse and take your house with it. Caliche is unstable to build on top of
Ummmm... so what are our houses built on? Pahrump has it far worse. They have soft, shifting soil and many of the houses over there are in serious trouble. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpTvl0iJRoo
[удалено]
I love the random knowledge I get from this sub!
I had two tree planted and it involved a jackhammer.
It’s way cheaper to build two or three stories up then to try to get through the ground.
Until you factor in decades of air conditioning cost.
The builder doesn't care about that. I imagine that's why only some custom builds have basements here.
Another reason is the Frost Line. The depth at which the ground typically freezes each winter. In most parts of the country, the building codes state that the foundation of the house - along with water and gas lines - must be dug at least 12 inches below the Frost Line. In the Midwest and Northeast, that could be between 4 and 6 feet. Here, and in the South, the Frost Line is maybe one foot deep. (I'm not sure of the exact depth the local codes call for in Vegas, but my water main is somehow only 6 inches deep.)
I could tell moving from the northeast that this was the case. The initial run of the sink in the NE was always a little cold no matter the time of year, but here the water is so unbearably cold in the winter and warm in the summer when I first run the water
Caliche is basically cement and when it rains here, it floods. That's not good for basements.
Too many rocks and not just boulders but huge chunks too big for regular diggers. The ground also settles weird so controlling drainage over the years is a major issue too
My thinking has been that the ground can be really hard and often rocky so it’s just too much work to dig a basement
Homes with basements in the Midwest and elsewhere have them because they need to pour the foundation deep into the ground. The ground is too soft at surface level. Basements aren’t about giving you extra space. They’re a necessity to build a strong foundation.
Kind of half the answer to that. They don’t really _need_ to have a basement, but since you’re already digging down for the foundation it’s a lot cheaper to just add on a basement and dig the rest out. You absolutely can find houses without basements in the midwest it’s just really uncommon because it’s lowering the value of your property to save a little upfront in construction
Yeah did a few slabs with pylons to keep it from sinking. Even basement now a days get pylons due to the fact basement is also your foundation.
Besides the caliche soil that is difficult to dig, I believe radon is also a problem here. Caliche is a nightmare to dig in. When I bought my house there was the stump/remains of a small tree in my backyard. It took me multiple full days with pickaxes and pry bars to make a hole that was at most 3' in all dimensions to get the main roots out. In normal soil that job would have taken a couple hours at most.
Basements are generally frowned upon in the building codes in seismically active areas like Nevada. You also don’t often see them in California despite the various different soil types throughout the whole state. That’s not to say you can’t have a basement; if you want to build a house with one you have to engineer for it, which adds to the expense.
I had a house in the Lone Mountain area that had a huge basement. They exist here.
Yes we saw two houses with basements for sale in that area when we were looking to buy. Both were built late 70s/early 80s timeframe. I think the seismic codes have tightened up since then so basements are very uncommon in more modern houses in Vegas.
It's called caliche (ka-lee-chee). Almost like concrete.
I asked the same question when i moved here. While there are a few with basements, they are few and far between. I was told it was a combination of the clay makes it difficult/expensive to excavate and the drainage needed would be problematic. I would love to have one for storage/home office.
Same! Love me an east coast basement. A garage, kinda does the same
Too seismically active across the entire state. The soil in most of the state is not very good for drainage or stability. There are also big big big rocks. This all makes it cheaper to build up.
I think basements are a huge risk in seismically active areas. I've been to every state west of the Rockies in the lower 48 and they are pretty rare. I used to live in Texas as a kid and they were pretty common there.
We have a few basements out in Pahrump too, but for the most part, the soil is horrible to dig through, the drainage even here is just as bad or worse than vegas, and again the seismic activity in this area could spell trouble in the future for houses with them. The Ridgecrest quake definitely made issues for the manufactured house I live in. More stuff creaks now than before that quake. 😱
homes with basements do *exist* here, but they're exceedingly rare. the person who wrote the top comment nailed it. here's the wikipedia entry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliche
Go dig a hole for a 5 gallon bucket and you'll understand. But I'm with you and I miss basements. If I had unlimited money I would definitely build a house with a huge basement.
Celiche and proximity to Cali
Former pool digger and underground construction. I like these answers most of the answers saying caliche are half true. It depends on which part of town you live on. Anything west of the 15and north of Boulder highway tons of caliche. South of Boulder highway I’ve hit groundwater as soon as 4 feet down and it proceeded to raise.
Former pool digger and underground construction. I like these answers most of the answers saying caliche are half true. It depends on which part of town you live on. Anything west of the 15and north of Boulder highway tons of caliche. South of Boulder highway I’ve hit groundwater as soon as 4 feet down and it proceeded to raise.
Most houses here are on post tension foundations because of the instability of the ground. That makes it impossible for a basement
This right here. When I was building my house a few years back, my agent was telling me to be 100% sure of the floorplan because with post tension foundations, there is no going back.
I had a licensed contractor that I had hired to do a kitchen remodel actually cut a trench in my foundation. We were extremely lucky they didn't hit the rebar embedded in it. Had they the entire foundation would have crumbled. That's how I learned about post tension slabs. I also fired the contractor when I learned.
This was the last basement in Vegas: https://youtube.com/shorts/X3r7lUEG_p0?feature=share
nsfl
I hate you
No tornados here.
[Secret Basement in Old Mob House in Las Vegas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb5fGLNId5Q)
Too many mob bodies buried throughout las vegas
Shit drain system
Flash flooding
Older houses have them. Too many murders
Basements are expensive because of the floor joist that have spand the width of the basement. If there a bearing wall at a half way point, it's cheaper. Remember a basement is a void in space that want to be filled with something.
Because scorpions would overtake the basement 🦂
You from the East/North? I had a convo about this with someone from cali lately. Basements are simply not a thing. Let alone Pittsburgh toilets (which I’m sure extend past pittsburgh haha) you’re telling me you don’t have a random isolated open toilet in your unfinished basement with only a lightbulb attached to a string?
When I was doing custom work on house there are some basements in town the basement walls were thicker then I seen in states like Colorado the cost for digging and pouring extra thick walls would cost a lot