Does anybody service there car from a pit?

My barber has a basement with a cellar and he can drive his car into his garage and then walk down in the cellar and work on his car from below without having to jack it up. Would it be hard to build a pit like this?

I'd venture to guess it might be cheaper than a $2000 lift and the maintenance on said lift over the years.

 

1) There's a good chance that won't be allowed in residential building codes. The issues are ventilation and danger of fumes. Commercial permitting for stuff like that gets into a lot of rules & inspections. You barber might have an older house before they made all those rules.

2) The pit probably makes it more difficult to jack up the car when you need to get the wheels off the ground. (like working on the suspension or brakes)

 

Those are some interesting points I hadn't considered. I think I'll contact my city housing division and see what they say.

My barber leaves out in the country, in a pretty small town, I imagine no houses like that have been allowed to be built in the last decade or so. Who knows, the population is something like 1,500 people. I'm not sure how small towns operate, but I'd venture to guess they care just as much about safety as bigger towns.