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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:11:49 AM EDT
[#1]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Depending on year of constructions, possibly a coal room for a boiler? The house did have a boiler and radiator heat in every room up until 3 years ago. It was probably a natural gas fired boiler at the end. The concrete shows no sign of coal. A family home less than a mile away (built 1905) that still has radiator heat had a coal room in the basement with a chute off the alley. It has long since been a gas boiler but we still find (nut) coal in that room. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:13:20 AM EDT
[#2]
Quote HistoryQuoted: What is the ceiling of the pump room? I've never seen this. The ceiling is concrete with a cast iron manhole in the center. From the outside, it has brick around the manhole. Covered in snow at the moment. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:16:10 AM EDT
[#3]
Quote HistoryQuoted: You need to remove the manhole and construct a pillbox. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/285/ED30D4D1-F1F4-4D61-9C32-44C723825299-3091009.jpg The manhole is located near the corner of an L formed by the house so the field of fire is 90 degrees of the backyard (at the time the manhole was built). Of that 90 degrees, most is now spanned by my in ground pool and my freestanding garage about 75 feet away. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:19:03 AM EDT
[#4]
Embrace the odd.
I walked through a house with a Cold War era bunker in the backyard. A little dusty and musty smelling, but dry and still functional. Should have bought that place. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:22:08 AM EDT
[#5]
It may have been a coal bunker and the manhole may have been the means to get the coal into it.
Do you have photos? |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:22:34 AM EDT
[#6]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I’m guessing the cover is directly over the well head? It’s so the well can be pulled to service the down pipe, check valves, wire, impellers and/ or motor. The truck would be topside, droppind the cable and elevators down through the hole. One dude would be in the yard stacking the pipe off to the side, and one dude down in the well room setting the elevators and coiling the wire. Depending on how deep your well is, of course. If it’s a shallow well with flexible pipe, it would be different It makes sense that it could be for re-drilling a well from topside back yard in the future. The yard of the house is massive for the town, 1.2 acres when most lots are 0.1 acre. There is another concrete well vault out near the street (rectangular, with a rectangular steel hinged door that swings up) which has a wooden ladder down with a tank of some sort. At first I thought it might belong to the city but it definitely does not, I checked. There are three or four water faucets located around the periphery of the front lawn. The house itself is on city water and sewer but it was on the very edge of town when built in 1946. It is now near the middle of town. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:23:50 AM EDT
[#7]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Without the man hole cover you wouldn't be able to Service the well. This. My neighbor put his well in his garage. Was fun watching them deconstruct that corner of the roof and a wall to get a well truck in there. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:25:12 AM EDT
[#8]
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:27:21 AM EDT
[#9]
Photos, please.
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:30:31 AM EDT
[#10]
Quote HistoryQuoted: It may have been a coal bunker and the manhole may have been the means to get the coal into it. Do you have photos? No photos yet. I can get interior photos easily but the outside is snow covered. I doubt it is for coal since it is in the backyard in a corner, not easily accessible from the front drive. The house has no alley at all (which is basically unheard of in this city, even for the very new neighborhoods). The houses behind me also do not have alleys. The house next to me does have an alley but it is on the far side from me. That neighbor house is truly large, 1.6 acres with a fullsize concrete tennis and basketball court in back yard along with a giant pool and freestanding pool house. It was built in the late 1950’s though. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:33:08 AM EDT
[#11]
Check the corners with a flashlight if you hear Yiddish at night.
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:44:21 AM EDT
[#12]
Likely just a standard precast box. There wasn’t a drawback to having the manhole entrance, so they just bought it instead of a custom job
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:44:29 AM EDT
[#13]
If is a working well then it needs top access to pull the pipe and Change the pump
It would be a good safe room with some mods Lock the man hole cover from the inside and make a hard door to the room from the basement It has a source of water and power. Add video feed from cameras and a hidden source of air and a step ladder to exit the manhole |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:45:44 AM EDT
[#14]
Quote HistoryQuoted: This. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Without the man hole cover you wouldn't be able to Service the well. This. That’s pretty simple to figure out, came to say this. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:47:11 AM EDT
[#15]
Quote HistoryQuoted:  If you google "Can a tornado lift a manhole cover," this thread is the fifth result. Kharn |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:47:47 AM EDT
[#16]
thread needs moar pics/vidyas and/or MS paint.
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Posted: 1/12/2024 9:59:02 AM EDT
[#17]
Quote HistoryQuoted: thread needs moar pics/vidyas and/or MS paint. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:06:57 AM EDT
[#18]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Check the corners with a flashlight if you hear Yiddish at night. In this town it would more likely be German. The guy who built it was def German. When I was growing up, all the locals spoke German, and there was plenty of it spoken in schools despite being outlawed by the state in WWI. My Catholic religious ed teacher was named adolph and he didn’t go by Dolph or another nickname. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:07:31 AM EDT
[#19]
1946 construction. Maybe someone was worried about something .
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:08:01 AM EDT
[#20]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Likely just a standard precast box. There wasn’t a drawback to having the manhole entrance, so they just bought it instead of a custom job Definitely cast in place along with the rest of the basement. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:09:09 AM EDT
[#21]
Does the area have a history of Tornadoes.
Tornado alley. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:09:53 AM EDT
[#22]
Quote HistoryQuoted: You like people having a way in your house? Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: It gives you a way out of the basement if the house has collapsed. I like this answer You like people having a way in your house? The morlocks need occasional surface access. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:17:23 AM EDT
[#23]
Was the house previously owned by some NY Hasidic Jews?
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:19:37 AM EDT
[#24]
Quote HistoryQuoted: 1946 construction. Maybe someone was worried about something . The house I live in now was built as a two story limestone barn in 1898. It was on the far edge of a cowboy town at that time, and the land had been subdivided out of a 20 acre plot belonging to my great great grandpa in 1885. Six lots were sold to a guy with some other nearby rural land, and that guy built a house on three and a barn on the other three. Fast forward 50 years and the barn was converted into a home for the then-owner of the farmhouse’s adult daughter and her husband in 1950. At that time they added on a three car garage with a solid concrete basement under the garage and no supporting pillars, meaning the span of one car long and three cars wide is all supported by concrete and big steel. The garage basement has a limestone fireplace, and a funny ventilation system that goes into the garage above. I think it can be sealed up against fallout. Some of the now old adult kids said the old man always said it was a bomb and tornado shelter. I recently learned the old man was a fairly bigtime NHRA drag racer who invented lots of safety gear. He was a John Deere dealer for his day job. Died in 2014 or so and I never met him. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:20:42 AM EDT
[#25]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Does the area have a history of Tornadoes. Tornado alley. The region is tornado-prone. Western KS. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:22:27 AM EDT
[#26]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Was the house previously owned by some NY Hasidic Jews? Previous to me, three german families. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:23:27 AM EDT
[#27]
So you're telling me your house has a secret tunnel so you can leave out of the basement and secretly pop up outside away from the house and you're bitching about it?
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:25:53 AM EDT
[#28]
PICS?
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:33:37 AM EDT
[#29]
Quote HistoryQuoted: You like people having a way in your house? Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: It gives you a way out of the basement if the house has collapsed. I like this answer You like people having a way in your house? No casual thief is going to bother exploring a manhole cover. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:34:40 AM EDT
[#30]
Quote HistoryQuoted: PICS? I will get some next time I am over there. Membership expired so I will have to figure out a way to post. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:36:46 AM EDT
[#31]
Quote HistoryQuoted: The manhole is located near the corner of an L formed by the house so the field of fire is 90 degrees of the backyard (at the time the manhole was built). Of that 90 degrees, most is now spanned by my in ground pool and my freestanding garage about 75 feet away. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: You need to remove the manhole and construct a pillbox. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/285/ED30D4D1-F1F4-4D61-9C32-44C723825299-3091009.jpg The manhole is located near the corner of an L formed by the house so the field of fire is 90 degrees of the backyard (at the time the manhole was built). Of that 90 degrees, most is now spanned by my in ground pool and my freestanding garage about 75 feet away. Well, you're just going to have to clear those fields of fire if we are going to move forward on this project. 
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:38:36 AM EDT
[#32]
Quote HistoryQuoted: You mean, as opposed to throwing a brick through a window? No casual thief is going to bother exploring a manhole cover. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: It gives you a way out of the basement if the house has collapsed. I like this answer You like people having a way in your house? No casual thief is going to bother exploring a manhole cover. There is a sunroom with glass along most of the back wall with windows big enough to walk through. Also, there are several window wells that could be used to get into the basement. On the inside of the manhole, there are some studs that look like they could be secured, and you still need to breach a solid door to get from well vault box into basement. If basement access is goal, better to chainsaw the door to the rear staircase. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:40:07 AM EDT
[#33]
Quote HistoryQuoted: The basement has two staircases, one from backyard and one from inside home. The manhole is about 15 feet from the backyard staircase and about 5 feet from exterior back wall of house. The basement door into the chamber just looks like a closet in the basement. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:41:20 AM EDT
[#34]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Well, you're just going to have to clear those fields of fire if we are going to move forward on this project. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Quoted: You need to remove the manhole and construct a pillbox. https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/285/ED30D4D1-F1F4-4D61-9C32-44C723825299-3091009.jpg The manhole is located near the corner of an L formed by the house so the field of fire is 90 degrees of the backyard (at the time the manhole was built). Of that 90 degrees, most is now spanned by my in ground pool and my freestanding garage about 75 feet away. Well, you're just going to have to clear those fields of fire if we are going to move forward on this project. The original home blueprints called for an external staircase built atop the staircase roof going from basement out to back yard, with a large railed patio atop the attached two car garage. With some minor mods, that could be an elevated crows nest with 360-degree fire. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:44:13 AM EDT
[#35]
If you decide to start digging in there just remember what happened to the dwarves of Moria.
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:49:56 AM EDT
[#36]
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Posted: 1/12/2024 10:59:21 AM EDT
[#37]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Pics? And this is probably who lives in siad sewer https://i.makeagif.com/media/1-27-2016/zvQRwM.gif  |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:00:27 AM EDT
[#38]
No pictures. Unsubscribed.
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:03:02 AM EDT
[#39]
Is there an old computer down in there?
 Lost Dharma Initiative Hatch Swan Station Orientation Missing Section |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:03:47 AM EDT
[#40]
Quote HistoryQuoted: The whole basement is poured concrete and several rooms have four-wall concrete. I think a tornado might be able to lift a manhole cover. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:06:26 AM EDT
[#41]
Building code probably requires two exits in case of fire, or maybe it was originally built by a paranoid and the whole thing is a panic/escape room in case of an intruder.
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:07:21 AM EDT
[#42]
I don’t know about you all. But IMO it’s a little too soon for a Hamas milsim loadout. Maybe give it a couple more years.
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:09:29 AM EDT
[#43]
Without a tunnel, all you have is a hole in the ground.
You need a tunnel. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:10:59 AM EDT
[#44]
Did you find any Hasidic Jews in it?
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:11:40 AM EDT
[#45]
Quote HistoryQuoted: It gives you a way out of the basement if the house has collapsed. ^^^^This one. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:14:22 AM EDT
[#46]
Monitoring for some ideas.
My house has a dry concrete cistern under the back porch mudroom. Its 5'x6'. Access is through a hatch in the mud room. Always wanted a secret lair.... LOL |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:16:24 AM EDT
[#47]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Building code probably requires two exits in case of fire, or maybe it was originally built by a paranoid and the whole thing is a panic/escape room in case of an intruder. I think we probably have the answer already: If you wanted to re-drill the well or get to the bottom, you’d want straight shot vertical access from outdoors. The main question now is how good is the well and is there anything interesting I can do with the facility. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:18:07 AM EDT
[#48]
Quote HistoryQuoted: ^^^^This one. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: It gives you a way out of the basement if the house has collapsed. ^^^^This one. If I can get to the concrete vault, i can get to the concrete staircase that leads outside to back yard. |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:22:10 AM EDT
[#49]
Is there any provision for ventilation? Be careful, because you may have a confined space with an atmosphere that may or may not be safe to breathe at different times. Is it dry? Does it look like it ever collects water? What kind of door do you have from the basement?
Based entirely on your OP, it sounds very strange. Possibly a DIY “fallout” shelter. When was the house built? |
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Posted: 1/12/2024 11:22:56 AM EDT
[#50]
Dang, when I had a house with a manhole in the back yard, it only led into the storm sewer. I feel cheated.
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