I was talking to my sister on the phone while reading this thread and asked what she thought. Nothing but slab here in Central Texas and sis grew up here and now lives in NJ with a basement. She says there is no difference at all. Comparing same material - wood. She's a young 32yo but has always had problem/sensitive flat feet and ankles.

I grew up in a home with a basement and have lived in a home with a slab for over 20 years. I can't tell the difference. I miss the basement for storage, though.

Love nancy_in_michigan's true test of standing around in Home Depot! I did a lot of that while we were building our house! It HURTS!

Another problem with slab foundations: If you have any sinus or asthma problems, you are too close to the earth. My allergist said the worst place to sleep would be in a basement or on the first floor of a slab-foundation house. Best was second floor in a house with a basement. I am much better now, sleeping on first floor, with a full basement, but then it is a new house vs. an old one.

In a lot of places all homes are built on slabs. You have almost no choice.

Oh the absolute torture of standing around in Home Depot while my husband looks at tools. I don't know if it is my feet or back that hurts most. Good example Nancy!

I have lived on slab for most of my life. However for the past 7 years or so it's basement foundation.
Although I wouldn't go back to slab because I need the basement, I don't like the thumpety thump you hear from people walking above or how the floor bends ever so slightly when you walk on it. Guess there isn't much you can do about that in a 2 story but wouldn't put up with that in a 1 story with no basement.

First house slab, second house slab, third house full basement, fourth house full basement, fifth house, slab.

I vastly prefer the slabs. Both basment houses, one of which was almost brand new, were damp and moldy smelling in the basement, both of which were DAYLIGHT WALKOUT basments. With 2 dehumidifiers running all the time.

Slab houses are not worst for allergies. That's hooey. As are most "allergists".

The relative humidity in this slab house remains below 50% even with the a/c off. The basement houses always had issues with dampness, especially the one with (horrors) cement blocks as the foundation.

The slab does a much better job of keeping the house at an even temperature. Long after the neighbors' a/c's have kicked on, this house is still cool and comfortable.

Tile is hard, we have slate in the front hallway that will evenually come up and be replaced by engineered hardwoods. Love those! Will probably do cork in the kitchen.

We'll always have a slab house from now on-had enough of living underground like a mole...all our living space right now is open to sunshine and breezes.

Excellent example, Nancy! DH has bursitis & tendonitis already & we aren't even middle-aged! He always complains about his feet hurting when we are in Home Depot, the mall, or any place that has a slab. He has no choice at work but he's a computer programmer so he's not on his feet a lot there. Also, if your feet tend to get cold at all, slabs are terrible. We lived in a condo with a slab when we were first married & I thought my feet would never get warm! Even DH, who doesn't usually have cold feet, complained about it.

We don't have basements this close to the coast, so I can't speak about basement vs. slab. But I would always take a crawl space over a slab.

DH and I both have lots of ortho problems. We can't tell difference between old house (basement) and new house (slab).

Lynne Melb, have you lived in your new house (slab) very long? We have seen a lot of beautiful homes that are built on slabs. We went out again this evening looking in a lot of different subdivisions. When we built our home in 1996, you didn't see near as many slab homes as you see now. I guess they are less expensive to build. Some of the subdivisions had nothing but slab homes and DH quickly departed. I'm sure he still is having visions of a billards room in a basement, LOL.

There's a reason Trotter Basement Guard and Aqua Guard are so popular in the south-everyone's basements are either leaking, caving in, or moldy here. Those trucks are *everywhere*.

As to crawl spaces, nobody wants them in Atlanta. They're the worst of both worlds, you get the dampness and mold of a basement, and the lack of storage of a slab.

Both of the above-mentioned companies are now offering "craw space encapsulation", I'm sure for thousands of dollars. The commercials are freaky, talking about how unhealthy and pest-ridden crawl spaces are, ugh.

Downsouth, we've been here for 18 months. We do miss the storage, but basements are not feasible in Florida. On the other hand, as I get older, stairs are harder to navigate. Good luck on your search.

Slab is the only way to go.Maintinence free, termite proof.
Good freind bought a house with raised foundation. Well it soaks up water, stinks, he has a sump pump running all the time in the driveway to get the water out from under the home.

Slabs are termite proof? Can you show me where you found that? Because I just paid Arrow 800 bucks for the sentricon termite system!

Disneyrsh, this is the information I found on the web. I also wondered if a slab foundation home was termite free and the answer seems to be no, so you spent your money wisely.

"Slabs have one advantage in that they are not as subject to termite damage, at least in the floor area where there are no floor joists suspended over damp areas. The combination of a properly laid vapor barrier, good ground compaction, steel reinforcement and uniform thickness of concrete can be an effective shield against subterranean termite penetration in some cases.

By no means, however, are homes with slab foundations immune from termite infestations. On the contrary, with the proximity of the walls to the ground, subterranean termites can enter unnoticed through hairline foundation fractures or sidewall sheathing. Flying termites also known as dry-wood termites often enter through the eave ventilation ports and can infest a home in walls, ceilings, attics and garages."

Not only can termites enter through little cracks or fissure, one of the first visible indications of termites is often seen as small vertical tubes made of mud running on the surface of the block or concrete footer wall from the ground up to the sill plate. In this case it would not matter whether the structure has a basement or is on slab.

With the current trends in homebuilding the claim that a slab is harder on your feet and back is totally silly. Consider the type of activity we perform in each room. For the most part out activity in the living room, great room, dinning room, bedroom or family room is primarily sitting or lounging so we are not on our feet, and for those brief periods that we are on our feet, we opt for padded carpet in those areas. In those areas such as kitchen, laundry or bathroom where we are on our feet for extended periods we opt for tile or various natural stone materials thus duplicating the conditions of a slab underfoot, so the argument against a slab is ridiculous.

In some regions the average water table in the soil is very high so it would be extremely difficult to prevent water in a basement, therefore slab construction is the best choice. In other areas the bedrock is very close to the surface making it extremely difficult to excavate a basement.

In the sunbelt where AC is the primary concern a slab has a slight advantage because it is in constant contact with the soil and serves as a heat sink. This slightly reduces the amount of AC required.

In cold climates just the opposite is true. A basement puts the lowest floor below the frost line into the natural geothermal layer where the temp remains a mild 50-to 55degF. In this configuration the 8 or 9' of air space between the basement floor and the ground floor acts as an insulator and decreases the thermal differential between the floor temp and desired temp, thus it decreases the amount of heat required to keep the structure comfortable.

A basement provides a utility space where we can install HVAC equipment, wellpumps, water treatment systems, laundry equipment and other items that typically generate noise so the noise level of those items is is more isolated and less objectionable.

Typically a basement will double the available living space for the same size of structure footprint, thus you have more storage or a space for a workshop or family room.

A basement keeps most of the structural utility systems such as HVAC equipment & ducting, electrical systems, and plumbing lines immediately available for service or maintenance.

"Not only can termites enter through little cracks or fissure, one of the first visible indications of termites is often seen as small vertical tubes made of mud running on the surface of the block or concrete footer wall from the ground up to the sill plate. In this case it would not matter whether the structure has a basement or is on slab."

Another point of entry for termites with a slab is in the very center of the house at the bathrooms. A slab typically has a 12" by 12" hole for each sewer line (to allow the slab to move a little and not bust the pipes) and the termites apparently think nothing of having to burrow 10 or 20 horizontal feet under the house slab to get to that access point. With a basement, termites would have to burrow DOWN to get to that access point (the sewer lines) and apparently that is against their instincts.

Does no one wear shoes? Good shoes will solve most back and feet problems, ask any podiatrist. Or for that matter ask anyone who works at Costco, like my DD. When you are on your feet all day any surface is going to be a problem unless you wear the proper footwear.

Well, that's good to know. I had to give up getting a new dining room set so I could be protected against termites.

Dang most expensive ugly little green disks.

I mutter imprecations at them every time I"m out gardening: "You better be working!"

"Dang most expensive ugly little green disks."

I tried the termite home protection kits with 40 spikes from Home Depot. My neighbor has a garage that looks like it has termite damage and I was afraid the buggers would crawl over to my house so I put a bunch of termite pegs next to her garage. Sure enough, the insides of the pegs have been eaten away.
-------------------------------------------------------

Regarding the slab issue...I remember one of those Fred Astaire dance schools telling me that they build special
wooden floors to absorb shock. Maybe that can be a solution.

lazypup, those of us who know we have problems with our joints do not put ceramic, slate, or other stone on the floors we stand on for any length of time. I can't tell you how many houses we passed up in our hunt last year because of ceramic or other hard floors in the kitchen.

We have a living room, laundry and foyer in this house with a slab floor. I know the living room was very cold in the winter, DH has his music studio and computer in there and so it is his retreat. He was always cold. I was wondering how hot it would be in there this summer, thinking only about the HVAC not being sufficient last winter. Instead, it is the coolest room in the house. I totally agree with your analysis of the basement vs slab, given this experience.

When my first husband was transferred to Baton Rouge many years ago, we looked only at homes with a pier and beam construction. We saw plenty of homes, most of them older. We bought one and liked it very much.

newjerseybt, you reminded me of one of the nicest houses I ever visited. It was for sale along the route my mom used to drive me to school in my junior year. We loved it from the outside and so Mom called the realtor to tour it. It had a huge LR, breakfast nook and DR, great kitchen, big bedrooms upstairs with a double-wide stiarcase with a stained glass window at the landing. The basement was extra deep for its day and it had a hardwood, spring-equipped dance floor! Alas, they wanted $50,000, far too much for us!

Bluesbarby, I wear nothing but New Balance walking shoes - even at work and even with nice skirts. Some of us just can't have solid floors. Take it from me that you can be glad you are not one of us. You know what wearing my nice, correct shoes does for me in the kitchen? Makes me 5 ft 11 so that the counters and sink are so low that my back and neck kill me for working at such a low surface. I contend that 36" cabinets were made for 5 ft tall women. But that is another beef!

This has GOT to be regional. In Minnesota there very few homes built on a slab. Where would you put all your stuff? Say goodbye to the beloved family/rec/bar area that so many basements are used for. Our newly built home has an unfinished basement and I'm planning a fireplace, media wall, little kitchenette, french doors, lovely carpet, etc...Where do you go when sirens go off in bad weather?

I cannot imagine no basement...truly. The are simply not built around here (with the rare exception of senior planned communities...no stairs to deal with).

Nancy in Mich: actually I do have severe problems with my feet and left leg. I had polio as a child which is why I have problems with my leg. I have injured my feet (car accident, multiple surgeries) and I have a compressed disk from a skiing accident. I am 57. My current house is slab - my last house was not. Because of allergies I have mostly hardwood and travertine thruout. I wear cushioned inserts in my shoes now. It doesn't make any difference what I'm walking on - grass, sand, cement or wood my feet will always hurt to some degree but my shoes make a huge difference. I never go barefoot. I never wear heels. To keep my back in line, I exercise.

We had a slab home in Florida for 23 years. My feet were never cold and I love to go barefoot. We did have termites as did most homes... eventually. We now live in a house in Pa with a basement. My feet are always cold and I usually can't go barefoot. We have wood floors but I can't tell any difference in the hardness and I do have some joint problems. There are some really smart folks...I wish someone would come up with a great alternative to the three choices we have. Also, I had a friend in the Atlanta area who had a really hard time selling their beautiful house because it had no basement when most houses in the area did. Something to think about, too.

If slabs and concrete are just as forgiving as wood, someone need to tell the floor mat vendors, the orthopaedic surgons, and even the unions.
A major fight in meat processing plants was over toe kicks at work stations and concrete floors. Easy to clean, hell on the workers.
Buying better shoes os not an option for everyone. I have 6 screws, one plate, and 3 Kirschner wires in may ankle. Concrete is painful after about 20 minutes. Foam mats are not very helpful since the ankle bursa was horribly damaged. Soft surfaces allow to much ankle flex and are just as bad. Walking on the beach is painful after about 10 steps.
Wood, vinyl on wood, anything with give is at least tolerable.
Getting old is not for sissies.

"Getting old is not for sissies."

I DO hear you, Brickeyee!

A friend who lives near water had to use Pergo instead of wood because of the potential of termites. Others living in the same area have used Tile. Almost no one uses wood on the first floor in a slab

I do agree that basements can be damp but they are funny things, yours can be wet and your neighbors dry or vice versa. Often no idea why

Nancy, I have a basement and first floor tile kitchen, prepaing a meal is tireing. I think kitchens need to be designed for their users. My MIL hates my kitchen because its designed for someone who is 5'4" as the PO was and since I am taller than that have added to it by storing lots of things up high. My mom who is my height has no problems, MIL cannot reach much at 5' (she claims) One counter is Two inches lower than the other and it does give me a backache to prepare food on it

I never wear shoes in the house even though I do have minor foot problems. Mostly hardwoods, some carpeted. I hate tha dh is walking around my house where my children sometimes crawl, with the same shoes he wore on the NYC subway where vagrants urinate, BLECH

I am about to purchase a house in up state ny, and the one I like the best so far has a slab foundation, built 1951. Were the older slabs built to last, or should I expect problems with an older slab foundation? Other than a high water bill, what is a good sign that any pipes are leaking under a slab? The current owner has only lived there 5 years. Where could I find out the "history of the slab" Lots of ?, I know... but your advice is much appreciated. Most of the houses up here have basements, but I find a lot of them to be very damp and watery.

Mark, I dont know much about problems with older slab foundations but I do know a good amount of buying a slab home in Upstate NY. They are a hard sell on the resale market, and usually sell for less than the same house with a basement because they are so uncommon for the area. In. I would double check that the water pipes are in the slab, how would they be insulated? Also, the slab house is a colder home and harder to heat as the slab sits directly on the ground where the basement acts as an insulator for the main level.

That makes sense, linda. I meant to write "in the slab", not under where the pipes would surely freeze. The buyer does seem to be on the anxious side, and the price is low. But there seems to be a lot of houses - and some priced very high - in this particular area that are built on slabs, mostly ranch style. Is a slab foundation typical for a ranch home? I still like this house.

I'll chime in - herniated disc and no way could I live on a slab. Carpet just doesn't make enough of a difference. Nancy has it right. And as someone looking for a home in a new location, everytime I see tile in a prospective home online I wince.
Most complaints I've heard about slabs is lack of storage. Had a friend in a different part of the country with slab who had a pull down stair put in to her attic access for some storage. Her house happened to be on a damp spot and she did have trouble with beetles and spiders coming up into the house despite the fact that she had caulked every crack before new carpet installation. Some of those water loving spiders were enormous. I would have had to sell:)
I think for the young and healthy its mostly storage. And hoping you never damage your back and have to move:)
Personally I prefer basements - from Michigan, most houses have them.
Last - I built a new walkout/basement house here in Nebraska and they put the plumbing in the concrete of the basement floor. Talk about weird. The builder just laughed when I complained and gave me the same answer he gave to everything "that's the way we've always done it here". Seems stupid to me. If something goes wrong they apparently just jackhammer it up. Since finishing basements here is huge I assume they don't want pipes on the wall to deal with? Have no idea.
Essentially you have to ask yourself 3 questions -
do I have a health problem that would make a slab house painful? (I'm not sure about painful feet - maybe there is a forum out there to ask on?)
do I need the storage?
What's the regional area like for basements vs. slabs and how will it affect resale?

Mark, Slab is not typical for a ranch home in upstate NY but could possibly be in certain subdivisions.You did say there were alot of slab homes in this particulous area. In my area, there is one neighborhood of ranch style homes on a slab and they are considered mobile homes. I didnt realize your post name was "downsouth". I almost said in the first post that the majority of people that buy "slab homes" in the Northeast are from the southern areas where basements arent common. Is your realtor representing you as a buyers agent? I would ask them (if they are)how common slab homes are in the area and how the resale is for that type of home in that area. Could you tell us the county you are looking in? (It might help get some answers with some of the realtors on the board)

Mark, check out this other post, it might answer some of your questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/realestate/msg0415502029884.html?15

Lived on slab for 11 years (just moved to non slab walkout basement) - no difference to me on the feet..however in our slab home we had installed solid hardwood floors over a plywood subfloor (essentially 2 floors). The only thing I notice after moving is that the tile floor in our current kitchen seems slightly less cold to the touch than did our tile floor on slab. If I lived on slab again I would want hardwood or carpet - no tile on slab - for warmth and comfort purposes not so much being hard on the feet. We gave up having a basement for cost, location and convenience - I don't regret it.

I've looked at several houses and many of them are well over one hundred years old. A good number of these are built on slabs. I've even seen soom on slabs as old as 300 years. So , evidently houses were built on slabs long before the mobile home concept. I don't think mobile homes are even built on a slab. Linda, maybe you are thinking about modular homes or pre- fabs. I guess my ? is , if slabs are such a poor choice, why are these very very old houses still standing? Also , an engineer acquaintance of mine told me that basements present a myriad of problems like flooding, more crackage etc...

Mark, we have mobile homes here that are not on slabs,(trailer parks) but one subdivision of ranch style mobile homes with skirting that look like ranch homes on slabs. I had a client that wanted to purchase one and we all thought thought they were modular ranches until they were inspected and found to be mobile homes on slabs. I never said it was a poor choice. I simply said to ask the realtor if it was common to the area and what the affect on resale would be. If it is uncommon to the area you are looking, it might not be the right choice for resale. Again, what county in upstate NY are you looking in. This could help alot!

Interesting thread. Valid pros and cons for both.

Slab is recommended for solar passive homes so I was surprised some posters complained they are cold. To work properly though they need to be oriented the right way and have appropriate windows and ideally insulation around the edge of the slab.

In Australia we have products like Termimesh and Granitgard for termites. Granitgard was said to have been developed in Hawaii I think. This was many years ago so I thought its use would have been quite widespread by now?

BTW, do you ever have houses built on both, eg, on a sloping block the end on the levelled ground is slab and the end that's raised up is timber? Apparently the problem with those is the two parts move differently so you can get cracking in the walls near the join.

I've lived in Houston my whole life in nothing but slab homes. And I can't comment on back or feet problems (thankfully). But I will say that if I could buy a home with a basement I'd never look back!

We just moved into a pier and beam home. For years we lived in a house with a slab foundation. It was a hugh pain in the neck. Foundation issues were an expensive nightmare. Plumbing problems weren't any better.

I have horrible feet and knees. The only way around this is to install good, thick carpeting and hardwood. In the kitchen, you can alway lay a long runner or area rug down to soften the pounding on your legs and back.

Good luck. I truly feel your pain!

I was birn in the Pittsburgh area. Almost every home has a basement. We had basements. I am in Georgia now and our homes have been on slabs. In our Columbus home, the floor was hard. Here in Savannah (we got thicker carpet), you can't tell the difference. We have luckily not had any problems with the plumbing or anything.
I do miss the basement for storage space.
A drawback of a basement is radon though. We had it in our one house in PA. We had to get the mitigation system.

CPowers. You can have radon anywhere in the house. Its not just in basements. The levels are just higher in the basement because its closest to the ground. ON a slab house, the levels would be highest on the main level.

Macbirch, we have a house with both. Half of it is slab and then there's a partial basement. FWIW, I can't really tell the difference in hardness between the slab and the basement halves. BUT there is a marked difference in floor temperature. The slab floor does have slab heat embedded which makes it quite toasty and comfortable but it also drives our electric bill into the stratosphere.

What seems to be hardest on my feet is the tile flooring throughout the house. It really doesn't matter whether I'm on slab or wood subflooring. I'm looking to replace all of it with cork.

I used to walk around barefoot. But my feet have deteriorated (aging is tough) - left foot has morton's neuroma (shoes are bad) and I broke the middle toe on my right foot shortly after moving in - on the @#$@ tile floor - and didn't heal right (barefoot is bad). In both cases, hard cold flooring is awful.

Cork isn't very fashionable here these days. Don't know why not. Renewable resource. And I've always heard good things about comfort, quietness, etc. Hope you'll be enjoying yours soon.

We recently stayed in a large one level condo in Florida, all tile floors. The place was about 3000 sq feet and very long. I was absolutely exhausted and my feet hurt by the end of the week. It was torture going from one end of the apartment to the other. My kids loved the bowling alley effect as they are still little. In rereading this thread I would imagine a slab gives much the same effect. If I ever get a new kitchen I will think about doing wood

I have been living on a slab foundation for three years and I am having a lot of problems with my feet.
It is the slab.
I should have used my experience with keeping horses as a guide. All good horseman have learned not to keep their horse in a stall with a slab floor even if it is packed with a dirt floor on top and lots of soft bedding. Eventually the horse will go sore. That is why converted cow barns don't work. I always made sure my horses didn't stand on concrete, but didn't do the same for myself. Now knave spent so much time at the podiatrist getting injections and orthotics. It is not helping. I just bought some of those Skechers Shape Ups and they have been a Godsend. Does anyone know about building the floor up off the slab some how?
Thank you

I have always lived on a house with a crawlspace, so wood floor joists with give to them. My sister has a slab house. Within an hour or so of being at her house, my knees and hips ache something fierce. After a full weekend of visiting, I can barely move. There is no way I could live in a slab house. I have hardwoods at my house and had tile in a previous house and had no problems. Even though they are hard materials, the fact that they are on floor joists still causes them to have some give. That slab is a killer, though.

Basements with all their perks and problems are the norm her in the Midwest. We run dehumidifiers and spend tons waterproofing them because when the tornado sirens go off we need someplace to go. Also, when the power goes off in the winter or our furnaces die our basements are about 50 degrees, even when it is subzero outside. Buys us some time. lol

We have a basement, and I love the extra space and storage. When considering houses built on a crawl space (for the future retirement home) my mind goes to critters moving in or coming up from the soil, as well as moisture issues (southeast US).

almost no homes in our area have crawlspaces/basements
i do know an older lady and a young couple who had to replace the floors thoughout their homes because they were actually rotting - and both were over 1 ft off the ground --- water table in this area is very high and being damp all the time created rot!!!! you can treat for termites but treating for damp is very difficult
as a teacher, i spent over 30 years standing and walking on concrete, i've had 5 vertebrae fused and both hips replaced and have degenerative disc disease-- as do almost all people over 50, but i've never considered it being caused by concrete floors guess i'll have to rethink that.....