How's living in basement?

[sora]

Hi,

I'm currently renting a condo but I'm considering to move to a above-ground basement suite for following reasons.

Yard
Nicer and quieter neighborhood (Condos are on busy roads although they are more conveniently located)
It's easy to store a stroller and etc if there is a covered patio.

But my husband is not willing to move into a basement suite as he says noise would be horrible from upstairs. Also he does not like the idea of living so close with people he does not know. In fact I found a nice suite but upstairs there is a family of five with smaller children. My hubby says no way.

I have never lived in a basement suite so I don't know how bad noise can be. He says I can even hear people talking and walking around. Is it true?

I would prefer a suite that is in a newer house, and above ground with large enough windows for sun. Do I still need to worry about mold in above ground? What about walk out basement (Half the suite is above ground and the half is underground)?

Let me know your experiences. Thanks so much!

[chel]

I've never lived in a basement apartment, but have lived in apartments for the past ~15yrs, just recently moved into my first house.

It is so true that you can hear everything from your upstairs neighbours and I've lived in fairly nice apartments that claim to have great sound-proofing.

I could hear our upstairs neighbour's cat sneeze!

I would never live below someone with 5 dc. Most apartments try to put families on the bottom level due to this. You do hear every step.

[PrettyBird]

I lived in a first floor apartment once that was not technically a basement but was half underground. Pluses were that the temp stayed nice year round and my power bill (all electric) was never over $40-50. I did get mold, however, pretty bad. And I agree about the noise. I have lived in many many apartments, old and new, and you can always hear neighbors upstairs.

[onlyzombiecat]

I've lived in a basement apartment.

We could hear the people above us walking and stuff. I wasn't super bothered. They couldn't hear my dd running around though so I didn't have to worry about her noise.

We had full size windows on most rooms and a door to the outside.
It was cooler in summer and winter. We did not need as much air conditioning. The people upstairs had the heating control for the house. Their level would be very warm while we would be very cold. It was hard to get a compromise.

We did once have a problem when a pipe coming to the house from the street broke in winter and flooded dd's bedroom.

[oneKnight]

You can always hear the upstairs neighbors, IME.

My parents have a half-underground half-aboveground basement. There are windows in every room but the ones on the underground side are small and at the very top of the walls. The air conditioning/fan/heat is on the same unit as the upstairs, so long as you get good air circulation mold isn't a big problem in their house. My aunt/uncle lived down there for a while, and I lived down there for a while. They have a wood stove up top and I used an electric radiator heater for myself, that's how we balanced the heat. Like the PP I really didn't need a/c down there, just fans, but I'm cold natured and never set the a/c very low anyway.

It's cool year-round, but decently insulated by the dirt so it's not ever very cold. In a true-basement, you get a lot of pipe noise, plumbing sounds and house settling type sounds. Can be a little creepy if you aren't accustomed to it.

I remember the floor is VERY hard feeling, because it's directly on top of the concrete foundation. Basements don't have crawlspaces under them they are on slabs. A well built house has good drainage and the concrete shouldn't sweat or anything like that. I'm very sensitive to smells and I could sometimes smell wet concrete scent when it rained, but only in the one unfinished laundry room where the concrete block wall was unpainted.

Also, if anything goes wrong in the house plumbing, the lowest drain will be the one to "back up." I got sewer in my shower once (not while I was in it, thankfully) because the house is on septic tank and it needed to be pumped out.

If you live where they have tornadoes (like me), you can peacefully sleep through all the sirens because you're already in your house's basement! lol

[dbsam]

I lived in a basement apartment for a year. It was in an old house in a lovely neighborhood. An elderly woman lived on the upper floor, a middle-aged woman who worked strange nursing hours lived on the main floor and I lived in the basement. I commuted and worked long hours but never had a problem with sound from neighbors - might have been different with children in the house. Parking was great and I liked living in a neighborhood rather than in an apartment or condo complex. I didn’t use the backyard much but could have. The house was across from a lake and I could walk to town. The location and neighborhood outweighed the negatives.

It was not a daylight basement so it was really dark (typical old house windows). If I would have been home a lot it might have been depressing. It felt a little unsafe, but that may have been the layout of the basement. (I had to walk through the furnace area to get to my apartment door. We kept the back door unlocked so anyone c/h been hanging out in that furnace area. In hind sight…not a good idea.) I had no tv or radio because reception was horrible - that w/b different if you have cable, etc. No mold issues.

From the basement apartment I moved into an inlaw apartment built onto the back of someone’s house. This set-up was ideal. I still had the benefits of a house and a neighborhood but had more sunlight, fresh air and decks.

Prior to purchasing our first home, I lived in many rentals and preferred renting an apartment in a house over a complex.