Slab or crawl space? That is the question!

[kathsmom]

Hi, everyone!

DH and I are considering putting our home on the market this summer. We are considering sending DD to a school that is about 15 miles from us. If we do this, we want to live a little closer to the school, but not too far away from the church we have just joined. We found a great neighborhood that has all new construction that is actually in our price range. We saw 4 homes and loved 3 of the floor plans. The neighbors were all friendly when we were looking at the homes.

My question is this - are crawl spaces better than having the home built on a slab? All of these homes are on slabs, unless they have a basement. The ones we are looking at buying have slab foundations. I have always lived in homes on a crawl space. I have heard that it is better to have a home on a crawl space in case there are ever any plumbing problems. I really haven't done any research into this and am not sure quite where to look for information.

I would love to hear personal experiences from you! Thanks for any information you can give!

[mamicka]

Do you have the option of putting in a basement? I would go with that but I'm not an expert. Plus, I've only ever lived in places where tornados were a possibility so pretty much all houses had a basement.

A new home - how exciting!

Allison
The Bible--our only foundation;
Christ--our only hope;
Grace--our only gospel;
Faith--our only instrument;
God's glory--our only goal;
the priesthood of all believers--our only ministry
- Horton

[Rachels]

I just asked Clay for his architectural weigh-in. He said it's nice to have a crawl space because it's good in terms of insulation and moisture protection. The floors stay warmer, etc, and there's no moisture coming through the floor. He thinks it doesn't matter as far as plumbing goes. However, he thinks NOT having a crawl space is no big deal, though, especially if most of the houses in the area just don't have them. Newer construction will have attoned for the moisture and insulation stuff without them, and at any rate, some parts of the country just don't tend to build with crawl spaces. All things being equal, a crawl space is preferable, but he said he definitely wouldn't view it as any kind of a deal breaker if there's not one.

-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[macassi]

We have a slab foundation. While I wouldn't sell my home over it, I would probably look for a home with a crawl space in the future. There are two issues. (1) It is very hard to install a hardwood floor over a slab foundation, at least in our neighborhood where we live downhill and get a lot of ground moisture. (2) It is next to impossible to wire a room for surround sound. We got around the issue by having crown molding in our family room and hiding the wires behind the molding, but I don't know what we would have done otherwise since we have hardwood floors.

Friends of ours recently did have a plumbing problem. You need to jackhammer parts of the foundation out to find the leak and fix it. Not a huge issue, but not an easy fix either.

[egoldber]

Our house in CA was partially on slab and partially on crawl space. Frankly, it was very convenient to have the crawl space, espcially if you wanted to do work yourself, like add extra phone lines, run cable to other bedrooms, etc.

HTH,

[Marisa6826]

Jeez Toni-

I've only ever had houses with basements. But you're still up in the Northeast, right?

I would go with a crawspace, not only because of ease in getting to plumbing/electrical lines if necessary, but I would be concerned with how cold a slab would be in the winter.

Also, wouldn't there be a concern about condensation?

Good luck!!!

-m

[COElizabeth]

No, she's in the south, I believe, so cold floors aren't that big a concern! I had a wood floor on a slab, and it didn't seem to be a problem (I didn't install it myself, though :) ). I grew up in TX, where most everything was slab, so this is my first house with a basement or crawl space. Personally, I think crawl spaces and basements are a bit spooky. I try not to think about the crawl space under our basement and what critters might be in there! :)

I know in some areas crawl spaces are desirable because of soil conditions, but if all the homes in this area are slab, I wouldn't worry about it. Also, if it's a new home, you likely have the option to pre-wire the house for surround sound and phone outlets wherever you like.

Elizabeth, Mom to James, 9-20-02
EDD #2, 10-30-04

[gour0]

My SIL has a slab and she wishes she had a basement. Mostly I think it's storage issue for her. We have a basement/garage with a finished office. I don't know what I'd do without the extra room. We're actually storing a bunch of stuff for her! :)

[lukkykatt]

We are on a slab and have had no problem with it. We bought the house before we had kids though, and I have to say that I would LOVE to have a basement now. It didn't matter before, but it sure does now. I would try to get the basement for sure if I had to do it all over again!

[kathsmom]

Thank you everyone for your replies! Yes, I am in the deep South, so no cold floors for me (for most of the year anyway) :). I have always had a crawl space under my home and luckily, I am not the one who has to go under there to do anything. I make DH do that stuff ;). That way, I don't have to deal with any critters. Although a couple of cats got into the crawl space and had a big fight under our bedroom one night. Scared me to death!LOL!

The neighborhood we are considering does have homes on basements, but it does add about another $20,000 to the price tag, which would totally put it out of our budget. All the homes that don't have basements are on slabs. There are 3 homes we are considering that are almost finished, so I don't know if they have been pre-wired or not. That is definitely something I have to ask about. There is hardwood installed in the foyer, kitchen, and breakfast rooms (if I am remembering correctly). I would love to have a basement, but for the price tag, I think we would do OK having one of the homes on the slab. There are extra bedrooms that we could use as a play room/office/guest room.

The area where we want to move is mostly new construction and slab foundations seems to be the norm for the new developments (or to have basements). I have occasionally seen crawl spaces.

I think we will definitely look around a little bit more to see what is out there, but we really like the neighborhood a lot.

Thanks again!

[drsweetie]

Crawl space. Not only can you use it for storage, but my friend's father, who's a plumber, says that it really does mean the difference between having to tear up the floor (which you'd have to do for a slab) and not.

[parkersmama]

Toni, we've lived on both and honestly, I don't have a real preference.

On the slab side, they aren't nearly as noisy when you walk (since it's not hollow) and I think it's not as cold in the winter (I know that seems to be the opposite of the thinking here but it's what I've found). We haven't had any plumbing problems. We did have our house pre-wired for surround but dh has had to drop cable and phone lines and done it from the attic with no problem. We also had a new electrical drop done by an electrician and he didn't have a problem.

On the crawl space side, storage is nice but that all depends on the height of your crawl space...some are really tiny, literally *crawl* space. ;) We had more bug problems with a crawl space. We also had ground water/drainage problems with our crawl space and that made me really uncomfortable.

Out of all the options, basement is my number 1 pick. I grew up in Birmingham where practically everyone has a basement so it's what I'm used to. Here, everyone is pretty much on a crawl space. It's a good bit flatter here than in Atlanta and the builders look at you like you've sprouted an extra eyeball if you ask them for a basement! LOL!

[kathsmom]

Ellen and Denise,

Thank you so much for your replies! I am just torn on what to do. DH thinks we would be just fine on the slab homes. It is such a good neighborhood and close to the school and still easily accessible to the church.

I would definitely love to decrease the amount of bugs! We have quite a few trees and bushes, so the bugs just love our yard and home!

Hopefully, we can make a decision soon!

Thanks again everyone for your help!