One of the things to be decided early in the plan­ning process is whether to do a basement construction or to build without it.

Many people find a basement construction as a necessary part of a house building process while others think it does them practi­cally no good. It is largely a matter of what a per­son is accustomed to. It is true that the volume of space added to a house by a basement is large, and the cost is small, but is the space usable and desir­able, or is it largely waste?

What will it be used for? Heating plant? These are now reduced in size so they will fit easily into a space 3' x 4' or even less, where gas is the fuel; the heating plant may even be placed in the attic. Some of these new weathertron types of heating and cool­ing systems function better when placed on a plat­form at the rear somewhere.

Perhaps the basement construction goal is to create a storage space. Of course, everything has to be carried down into the basement, and up again. And do you need that much storage space, or will it become just a junk pile before long? If you have plenty of room, why not store the extra empty boxes down there and broken pieces of furniture and equipment, and, oh yes, old magazines and newspapers? Why accumu­late so much worthless stuff? Why not give it to the "Good Will" or the "Boy Scouts," or somebody and get rid of it? It is a human trait to keep many things that we might need sometime, even though we prac­tically never use them. Even if we need something, we can't find it under the layers of other accumula­tions of time and living.

Pretty soon the basement is half full of worth­less and broken junk, and the things you want you can't find anyway.

Perhaps the basement construction is needed when you want a rumpus room, or game room, or den, or something of that kind. Then be sure to make the ceiling at least 8' high.

It is easy to make a dry basement in well-drained soil or on high ground where a drain tile can be run around the outside of the basement, but in low, wet ground beware of a basement.

Bedrooms or living space can seldom be arranged satisfactorily in a basement. If you are on a side hill where one side of the basement is almost entirely above ground so you can get full-sized windows and perhaps a door, then basement construction is worth considering, as it won't seem like a basement anyway.

Many builders feel that the money saved by not putting in a basement will provide, not as much, but enough, and better storage space on the main floor level. Remember you save the space required for a stairway, the expense of building it, and possibly more important, the leg-weary motion of making "umpteen" trips a day down and up the stairs.

If your lot is too small, then you will need to consider both a basement and a second story as well.

Should you build one or two stories? That again depends largely on your experience and background and the custom of the locality where you live. This question must be settled before you begin to plan your house, as it will have a profound effect on your house plan.

First, is your lot large enough to get all the house you want on one floor and still leave room enough for the outdoor activities you contemplate? Do you really want or need an upstairs? Many people like to sleep upstairs, because it gives them a greater feeling of security. If you have always slept upstairs, you feel more exposed on the main floor. By putting high windows in the bedroom you can partly protect yourself from this exposed feeling on the main floor.

Since for older people stairs are a formidable situ­ation, they are best avoided. Steps get higher and steeper as one grows older. First you take three at a time. Then the doctor advises that they be taken not more than two at a time. Then a person loses the desire to take them more than one at a time, and finally even that seems too much.

Most new subdivisions in the West are being built on the one-story plan. Much depends on local conditions and customs. In hot dry sections, where it would seem that basements would be ideal, they are seldom used, while in wet, damp sections, where basement construction may be a problem, they are used exten­sively.

This is not to say that you do not need the store­room, because I firmly believe that every house needs a storeroom, complete with shelves, hooks, and every convenience to store and classify all materials and possessions; 12' x 20' in size, the size of a garage, ought to be large enough for most families, if they carefully scrutinize the things they store to make sure they are worth storing and get rid of the things not worth keeping.

It is easier to live in a house on one floor; you don't have stairs to climb, and to clean, you don't have to run up and down stairs 20 times a day on little errands, call up the stairs to check on the chil­dren, or worse still to try to call downstairs to find out what is going on, and to run to answer the door­bell.

Houses of one story are easier to build. The old argument that the same foundation and roof will serve for two floors is partly true, but you have to make the joists that support the second floor much larger to span the large first floor rooms, and the children growing by "leaps and bounds" upstairs are more liable to crack the ceiling plaster below.

The stairway steals considerable space from both floors, and this must be subtracted from any benefits the two-story plan provides. A stairway is not the safest place in the house, especially if toys or boxes are left on the steps. Of course, the bride cannot make as grand an entrance in a one-story house as she can when coming down a winding staircase complete with walnut railing.

There is no purpose in taking up the area of a stairway if the upstairs consists of only one or two small rooms, as these could be provided more cheap­ly on the main floor.

The average builder will find his problems simplified, if he decides to build with neither upstairs or downstairs. Just build on the main-floor level garages and storage space are easy and cheap to build. The rooms in the house will be easier to get to and to use, and much easier to build if they are all on one floor. Stairways take a lot of work and considerable skill and expensive material to make them satisfactory. Your planning on both floors must take into account access to the stairs. To get to them and to get away from them is often the difficult thing about planning.

There may be several conditions that determine whether a basement construction is desirable or not. Is the water in the ground liable to be a problem? Investigate the site by digging down to see how far it is to water during the wet season; note the natural drainage of the site. What is the nature of the soil? Is the exca­vation going to be difficult because of rock?

If the soil is not too difficult to excavate and water is not a problem, and you want a basement, why not have one?

Do not attempt to perform a basement construction that extends down into the ground below the water table, that is, the permanent water level in the ground. Better keep a foot or two above it. Although it is possible to keep water out of a basement that extends down into it, the average home owner will find it very expensive to make the basement waterproof, as it consists es­sentially of building one basement, waterproofing it thoroughly with a membrane waterproofing, and then building a second basement inside the first one.

Then you would have to put in a sump pump if you want drainage from your basement.

If many difficulties seem to be in the way of a basement construction, it would be a good idea to study the pos­sibility of providing the necessary space on the ground level; even if it is not as large as the base­ment, it could be better organized, and you would save building the stairway.