Fun Fact

[walks with gun]

Fun fact, before the second world war, you could not put in basements unless you were under five feet tall. OK maybe that's not a fact, but I'm putting in a new hot water heater in my basement and it seems, mine and a lot of others I've had the pleasure of working in up here are built by dwarves. I'm just over 5'8" and can bang my head on every joist down here. OK I think I'm done ranting, maybe I'll shoot the stuffing out of this old heater just because.

[Pete44ru]

.

Quite a few years ago, I had to dig out the basement dirt floor of my Mom's house (a 3-1/2' dig, plus a cement pour, gave her house 7' headroom down there).

Of course, I first had to dig/pour footings (one at a time) so I could install three new 8' steel lolly columns under the house's main beam.

.

[stretch]

A friend of mine has a house built in 1800 or so.

I'm 6'3" or so. Let's just say that the basement ain't that deep.

The doorways are okay, though. I can walk around on the main floor and
most of the attic with no problem. But the basement is nowhere I'd like to
spend a lot of time!

-Stretch

[JohndeFresno]

No basement for me. Might dig up too many family skeletons...

[plowboy 45]

I'm putting in a new hot water heater

Why would you heat hot water

just kiddin had to ask
Good luck and watch your head

[yooper2]

The basement in my 120 year old log farm house was about 4' deep with a sand floor until I dug it out and paved it. Not a fun job!

Eric

[pshort]

My house was built in 1890.. The only way I can stand erect in the basement is to put my head between the ceiling joists.. (I'm 6'3")
My chicken house was built in 1915, I can't count how many times I've wacked my head walking through the doorway....
Did I mention that I lost track of how many times I've wacked my head..?

Paul

[Hairtrigger]

The best money I have spent on my house was picking it up and putting a 9 foot deep basement underneath of it

[TedH]

I'm not really that tall, but a good selling point to me in our new house was the 9' ceilings in the main level as well as the basement.

[.45colt]

The Farm I grew up on was owned by My Great Aunt and Uncle. My Dad told Me many stories about "Uncle Will", having the Farm, doing road work for the township using horse drawn graders. one of the side jobs Will did was digging basements with a team of horses and scoop shovel. I think this is why early basements were so short, a lot of work to get deeper.

[mikld]

CA kid here, first basement I saw I was 30 years old. Weren't basements used for "cold storage" kinda like a root cellar?. And therefore were better with "short ceilings", keeping them cooler/less temperature swing?

[MrMurphy]

In laws have a farm built in 1935 or so with house to match. House full of short Sicilians. Basement is 10 feet tall.... bigger in fact than most of the house.

[FWiedner]

Maybe it ain't a shallow basement.

Maybe it's a deep crawl-space.