John&Joey wrote:
valhalla360 wrote:
What part of the country are you in? My parents did it for years and the basement never heaved and thier place is in Michigan.
The basement foundations should reach below the frost line so heaving should be a non-issue. Likewise, the walls shouldn't buckle in unless there was something else already very wrong.
I'm located in zone 3a. When you have extreme cold things do happen. A few winters back we had early cold snap with no snow cover. Code is frost line is four feet down. Miners in the area were reporting frost at 7-9 feet deep in the mines. Code is only for the norm, not the exceptions. Basements do heave and they do buckle, especially if they are in clay and left unheated.
Basement floors are typicall 5-6' below ground level with the foundations another 3' below that, so basement foundation will typically be around 8-9' below grade.
Also frost heave is usually related to inconsistent quick freezing and thawing where liquid water can't get away. Once you get more than a few feet deep, the process tends to be slow and steady, so it's not as much of an issue assuming you have proper drainage (ie: backfilled with pea gravel and/or sand with drain tile). If you don't have proper drainage keeping the house at 50 degrees isn't likely to stop the soil outside from freezing and blowing out the walls. A house kept at 50 degrees won't keep the ground thawed more than a few inches beyond the basement walls.
Not saying it can't happen but it's pretty unlikely. If it's an old house not built to code and backfilled with clay, I might be more concerned but if it's been built in the last 50yrs and wasn't a duct tape special, it should be fine.
