Norm, in my neck of the woods "crawl space" is under the house not above it. I've seen it used here a couple of times to refer to an attic. Is this a regional thing. Never herd of it used for an attic till these forums. Just curious.

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Don't know if it's regional not. I just figure you have to crawl to move around whether it's under the house or in the attic.

What do you call the attic space area? OK, I walked into that one. (The attic space). Of course I lived in a house that had an attic that you could stand up full height. So to me an attic is a full standing area above the normal living space used for storage of Christmas decorations.

 

No snow load here so no reason to waste material building a tall attic. Four foot or less is average. I've been in ones that were only about 24". You will see steep roofs on some 70+ year old houses and where they were purpose built for bed rooms. That 24" one was a real bear because it was pre central A/C and when A/C was added the ducts made getting around impossible.

 

Under the floor.... where there should have been a basement.... it's a crawlspace.
In the attic where you have to crawl under the rafters it's a crawl space.

You want to see wasted attic space..... in several of the condo associations I've worked at I've used an 8' ladder to wire an attic fan.

 

Like Ray, I'd never heard of an attic being called a crawlspace until I read it on these forums. I know crawlspaces are more prevalent in the south because the majority of homes up north have basements.

I painted a 10,000 sq ft house that had stand up attic space that was as big as my entire house. No steep roof, just a massive house .... and that didn't include the attached basketball gym or the pool house.

 

I don't know if it is a regional thing but I never heard (not herd ) of an attic referred to a "crawl space" until I read it on these forums. My parent's house had a low attic over the kitchen, about 36 inches high, because that part of the house had a flat roof and was added some thirty years (more or less) after the main house was built.

The main attic space was quite tall, although only accessible through a hatchway in the upstairs hall. Nothing was stored in the main attic and I can only remember going up there (or my daddy going up there) a very few times to add a couple of electrical receptacles in the bedrooms...yep, extending knob and tube circuits with type NM cable.

I did store some junk, mostly old telephone junk, in the attic over the kitchen which was accessed through a hinged window and required a twelve foot ladder to reach. I'll add that neither attic space had one iota of venting yet I never saw any indication of wood rot or other problems.

 

I don't think an attic should be called a crawlspace.
The term Crawlspace refers to a specific type of foundation. It's unlike a basement or a slab, which both have certain standards for building.
A crawlspace consists of vented foundation walls with footings and pier blocks supporting girders.
There are standards for how high the bottom of the girders and/or joists must be from the ground.

Crawlspaces are prevalent here in Southern Cal in houses from the late 50's to early 60's. I have one and it makes running electric and fixing plumbing easier.

 

PJ said...This works for me.

Up here in the North, practically all of old Buffalo (early 20th century) and most cities of the time, all houses were built as two family doubles with full attics. These attics were often converted to dormers, spare rooms or bedrooms and maybe tiny apartments (more likely than not, not to any code) and the only difference between that space and the lower living quarters were the slanted ceilings following the roof line.

When I was a kid I thought every house everywhere was built like that. First time I heard of a house built on a slab or no basement I could not believed it.

Any one of these could've been my home as I was growing up.



Each and every top section of those homes were attic space. Notice the front porch area? No backyard patios or decks. You socialized with the neighborhood on a summer evening.

BTW...Anyone who might be familiar with the Buffalo area, this is Hamlin Park Historic District

 

Norm, I just did some Googling using the addresses of the home I grew up in as well as some of the surrounding homes. All the homes in my neighborhood were different and today it appears that of the single family homes I knew, only one has survived. As a kid it was where Bobby R. lived with his mother and on occasion his two older brothers. Eventually they moved and a new family with four children moved in. Kim was my age, Ted was older, Pauline was the eldest and I forget the name of the youngest.

Well, according to my five minutes of research Pauline still lives there. It listed her age as 75+ but that can't be true, maybe 70 or 71. All the other houses have been destroyed and replaced with apartments or townhouses. The house was built in 1900 according to the research, the house I grew up in, across the street and two houses north, was built in either 1903 or 1905. Our house had a full basement, concrete floor, finished ceiling (1x12 clear fir with battens over the seams) under the main house with a crawl space under the kitchen area. There was a little house directly across the street from us and as far as I know it did not have any basement. The house immediately north of the little house, where the Charles' lived, had a semi basement with a dirt floor but it had a walk-up attic. In fact, the attic had a whole lot of piping on the floor and when my daddy asked why the answer was that the house originally had gas lighting.

The house immediately south of the little house, and immediately north of where Pauline lives, also had a walk-up attic and the front part had been made into a bedroom, first for Jon who was my older brother's age and then for Sally who was a year older than me. This house had a full concrete basement and was originally heated by a coal-burning floor furnace although eventually it was replaced with a gas-fired forced air furnace.

The house where Pauline lives, previously lived in by Bobby, was originally a rooming house. I have no idea of what kind of heat it had but it only had a partial dirt floor basement. It was (and still is) three stories so was the tallest house in the neighborhood. Next door to our house was also an old rooming house, still used that way when I was a kid.

Here is a link to the remaining house. Notice it is all but obscured by the huge tree. You can also see some of the features of the neighborhood where I grew up.

https://www.walkscore.com/score/3649...attle-wa-98103

 

Around here, if an attic is big enough to actually be a room that you can walk or even live in, it's called an attic. If it's only big enough to "crawl" in, it's called a crawl space. I have one over my bedroom. It's barely big enough to even crawl in.
I've never known any homes with crawl space under it unless it was under an outdoor porch.
So, guess it is a regional thing.

ETA, I moved this to Basements, Attics and Crawlspaces, since it seemed more appropriate for the subject!

 

Thanks, Becky, for the move.

 

Furd, your post mentions several things that brings back memory's of my home in Buffalo. The old gas light piping and the old coal chute. And the big old furnace with the octopus pipes. I remember putting water in the side tank during winter to add humidity.



When my Mom and Dad decided to get rid of the old coal room in the basement for the gas fired forced hot air, he made a study and game room out the old coal chute room.

I remember three steel post in the basement supporting the house from the middle. We use play IT-IN-THE DARK down there and someone always walked or ran into one of those post. You'd think we'd learn, but no we kept on playing and kept on hitting out heads.

When my parents moved out of the inner city they went to South Buffalo and although the neighborhood has changed from original Irish (btw, I'm Italian) to Latino in most respects the area has gotten better in some way and worse in others. The biggest change I've noticed was when all the Elm trees had to be cut down, it opened up many of the streets to bright sunlight. I think that change brought about a bit of pride in the new group of people to spruce up the homes and the small grass areas. I think it looks better. The worse part is an increase in petty crime.

Well Becky, your comment about an attic vs a crawl space settles the argument. We'll go with PJ's idea, if under the first floor it will be a crawlspace and if above the living quarters it's called a crawl space.