Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing units without basements?

[Bob Morrison (morrison]

  Harry Pasternak's recent posting suggests, among other things, that cohousing
units be built without basements to save money.
  This raises an interesting question. Most new houses in New England have
basements. ("Houses" in this context includes townhouse condos.) Why is this
so? On rare occasions I have seen no-basement houses (also called "slab con-
struction"), so I know it can be done. Two reasons I can think of for having
basements is that they provide a more convenient place to put the infra-
structure (furnace, water heater, etc.) and they provide more storage. But
it seems like we could save a lot of money by eliminating the basement,
especially for townhouse-type units. 
  Are there any cohousing units in the North that are being built without
basements? (I refer to the North because a furnace is usually required. In
the South, one can use a heat pump, which is located outside, for heating and
cooling and slab construction seems to be more common there.)

Bob Morrison

Home: Boxboro, MA               Work: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton, MA