# Found a room in the house...now what??



## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

No we didn't clean out something and make more room....we actually found a room no one knew existed! Now the trick it to find a way to use it....could use so suggestions. (Thought I'd ask here to help Angie with her "HOPE" campaign)

Here's the situation, under our deck and mud room we found a concrete room about 7' deep from the bottom of the window, so 9' from floor to ceiling - which it taller hen any other part of the basement! Our mudroom is built over top of part of it and the rest is under a portion of the deck. Walls are poured concrete and it has a concrete ceiling. It is "attached" to the basement, and now that we know what we are looking it I can see the poured wall down there and where it slowly "changes" to skimmed over block/brick. (Oh, house is 125+ yrs old, so there are lots of "additions" and different type of construction). The only hole into it is a basement size window that is under the deck (maybe 2-1/2' x 18"). Inside the room is what appears to be a chimney to nowhere for nothing, lol. We have owned this house for 14 yrs and never knew it was there, neighbors been here 18-20 yrs and had no clue, previous owners never mentioned anything, but they had only been here 4 yrs.....it's just odd (and cool).

SO...we are trying to determine how to get into it, why it might be there, and how best to use it. I bought a 1/2"x 12" long masonry bit today, so we can explore the ceiling to see how thick it is. One thought is a trap door down from the deck through the ceiling. Another thought is to knock a hole in the wall in the basement and make a door into it (making it more "obvious").

Thoughts?? Ideas?? We know very little about masonry, so we have no idea it "popping a hole in it" is even do-able.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

A trap door *sounds* cool. but really isn't all that practical.

I'd do a door from the basement so you can really use the space.

If you have the inclination and money, you could use one of these:










http://www.dependantfoundations.com/vault_doors_option.htm


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## JuliaAnn (Dec 7, 2004)

That is so cool. I have no suggestions at all but wow, how neat!!

If it was me, I'd make some kind of hidden, secret entrance and use it as a hidey hole or panic room, and make it double as storage for supplies.


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## tallpines (Apr 9, 2003)

Sounds like it may have been an old cistern.
The "chiminey" probably was the spout that carried the water from the rain collection area (probably the roof) down into the cistern.


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## machinist (Aug 3, 2010)

Look for evidence of old pipes either in the top, or in the basement wall. You may have discovered a cistern! At any rate, it could become a cistern, it sounds like, if the walls are thick enough to stand that kind of load. Water weighs 8 pounds per gallon, and a cubic foot of water is 7.48 gallons X 8 lbs. = 59.84 lbs. per cubic foot. HEAVY. Our cistern is 7 feet deep inside, and 12' x 14' outside, which gives us roughly 6,700 gallons of water storage. When it is full, that much water weighs roughly 27 TONS! Think seriously about this before filling it with water. 

Our cistern, built with the house, is under our back patio. The reinforced concrete patio floor is the top of the cistern. It had two access holes in the patio floor, about 2 feet square, to allow for cleaning it out and any service work. These are formed square holes in the concrete, tapered on the sides, smaller at the bottom of the hole. A matched cast concrete plug fit in each of them with a lifiting ring set in the concrete. 

I removed one plug permanently and preplaced it with a 1/2' thick steel deck plate, with a hole cut to fit our hand pump. I grouted with mortar under the steel plate to keep out any dirt from the top and set the pump. 

There was a pipe running through the wall into the basement to an electric pump, but all that was old so I replaced all the piping and the pump. There is a drain pipe just above floor level that has a valve, allowing me to attach a garden hose and run it out the door of the walk-in basement to drain the cistern if needed. So, THREE ways to get the water out of the cistern: gravity drain, hand pump, or electric pump into the house system. 

OR, you might have found a root cellar. Well, it could easily BE a root cellar, if you have access to it some where convenient? Many possibilities here! :happy2:

If you go the cistern route (and they are VERY expensive to build new), then I'd suggest a product that I used to waterproof ours, called QUIKWALL. It is a fiberglass reinforced hydraulic cement, and trowels on about 1/8" thick to form a watertight and super strong "plaster" on the inside of the cistern. It isn't cheap, but a 50 lb. bag of it goes a long ways. It cost me about $300 for enough to coat our 12' x 14' x 7' deep cistern inside. WELL WORTH IT! No leaks whatsoever, and the water is pristine clean. That is our only water source now. No more water bills or outages. That gravity drain on our setup will work as long as there is gravity!


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## Freeholder (Jun 19, 2004)

It does sound like it was originally a cistern, but if that was my house, and you have no other storm shelter on the property, I'd make a couple of accessways and use it for a storm shelter/root cellar. You can cut a doorway in from the basement; reinforce the top of the doorway, though, as that wall is almost certainly supporting part of your house. But if it's going to be a useful storm shelter, you should also have access that wouldn't be covered by a collapsed house in the event of that happening. That would mean putting cellar stairs down on an outside wall of the underground room, and making another hole in the wall there. It would also make it more useable as a root cellar, because you'd be able to get produce into it directly from the outside, without having to haul everything through the house, down into the basement, and then into the new root cellar!

Kathleen


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## mare (Aug 31, 2006)

cool--root cellar, storm shelter are good ideas


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## machinist (Aug 3, 2010)

I plan to wall off a corner of the basement for a root cellar, where there is a basement window to the outside that would allow ventilation to keep the temp right in there. This is an idea from Rodale Press, the guys who publish Organic Gardening magazine. (Much cheaper to do than building a new cistern!) 

I'd use the "new room" for a cistern! For a storm shelter, we use the basement, since it is a walk-in. Making another escape route would be reasonable to do with your basement.


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## mare (Aug 31, 2006)

i would be wondering what else is there that you havent found yet


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## GlenArden (Feb 8, 2011)

I read lots of spooky books. You can imagine where my mind is going.


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## mustangsally17 (Nov 3, 2007)

What a find! That is really neat. I would see what it would take to transform it into some sort of shtf safe room..just me


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## Explorer (Dec 2, 2003)

I agree, a safe room.


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

It wasn't a cistern. The floor is "scrap rock" or gravel so it wouldn't hold water. NO pipes leading into it (only "room" in the basement not covered in pipes.....hot water heat, here).
The chimney really looks like a brick chimney (with no liner)....I think I'll just dream it was a hootch room. I have no reason to believe it was....just would be funny since we are "tea totterers". lol. I wish I had a way to get pictures of it to show you....just not possible as of now.

DH mentioned that if we cut a wall from the basement into it then line it with shelves....the number are caning jars it would hold would be staggering (we are running out of room for caning jars as it is....and I keep caning, which he agrees with, but he's worried as there is no place to store the full jars). I wonder what we would need to do to insulate it??? It's totally "outside" and has a window to the outside (which we just board up with a piece of lattice). I hate to put all that work into it and have jars freeze. Maybe just boarding up and insulating the window would be enough.

Could we "pop" the hole in ourselves, or should we have a professional do it?? We know how to build the door frame and such to hold the weight above it (it is on the "outside" wall).


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

GlenArden said:


> I read lots of spooky books. You can imagine where my mind is going.


We can see in there well enough with a flash light....nothing spooky - unless Jimmy Hoffa's in the partial chimney!


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## stamphappy (Jul 29, 2010)

GlenArden said:


> I read lots of spooky books. You can imagine where my mind is going.


Me too. Maybe they kept someone down there. Maybe they had a relative that was a bit tetched and that's where they were kept. Maybe they were horrible people and they stole people and kept them in there. Oh, the possibilities for spooky scary creepy stories is huge!!!

That being said, I think it's soooo cool you found, after 14 years, a secret room under your house! 

I'd find a way to insulate it and make it storage for things to come----keep foodstuffs, sundries, protection items, things you don't want others to know about. Also maybe let the talk die down in your area so people forget about it.


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## machinist (Aug 3, 2010)

Hire a contractor to use a diamond saw for cutting the door opening. If it is gasoline powered, he will have to have an air supply to keep from dying in the carbon monoxide. I once knew a man who died from that very thing.

If it was once before a door opening, you MIGHT get by with a compressed air powered rock chisel, and just cut it on the original line to remove where there was once a door. But it sounds like there never was a door.

Hmm. I'm thinking that this was once a cellar under a much smaller house at one time? You may see evidence of where there was once a set of steps or a ladder to access it. Mysterious!


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## NewGround (Dec 19, 2010)

With a little work you could build some pantry shelves in the basement as your secret entrance. I believe you can find plans and examples of how to make it online nowadays...


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## Taratunafish (Aug 6, 2007)

why hasn't a picture been posted yet?????? I have my own mystery structure outside of my house. Every other year, a sinkhole forms alongside it. Haven't figured out what ours is, maybe a privy. Our house is also 125+ years old. Anyone ever known of a rectangular well??


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## NewGround (Dec 19, 2010)

machinist said:


> Hire a contractor to use a diamond saw for cutting the door opening. If it is gasoline powered, he will have to have an air supply to keep from dying in the carbon monoxide. I once knew a man who died from that very thing.
> 
> If it was once before a door opening, you MIGHT get by with a compressed air powered rock chisel, and just cut it on the original line to remove where there was once a door. But it sounds like there never was a door.
> 
> Hmm. I'm thinking that this was once a cellar under a much smaller house at one time? You may see evidence of where there was once a set of steps or a ladder to access it. Mysterious!


They make electric versions of the cut off saw now (my preference) but you still have to get the dust out and the air in...


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## stamphappy (Jul 29, 2010)

Taratunafish said:


> why hasn't a picture been posted yet?????? I have my own mystery structure outside of my house. Every other year, a sinkhole forms alongside it. Haven't figured out what ours is, maybe a privy. Our house is also 125+ years old. Anyone ever known of a rectangular well??


Sure you don't have an icehouse there with a creek under it?


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## nadja (May 22, 2011)

Possibly a safe room for runaway slaves ? Some of them were pretty clever


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## wogglebug (May 22, 2004)

Just how big is this room anyway? You told us how high, but not so far as I saw, length and width. Might at one stage have been a laundry (or wash-house), or part of one, in the days when you boiled clothes in a copper boiler. Or it might have been a root-cellar. Or both, in that order. Or a coal storage room - coal goes down a chute from outside, then is used in a boiler in the cellar, in which case there should be a closed-up or bricked-over door into the cellar. An opening 30"x18" is plenty to get in through feet first to look around in detail - you just have to have something to step up on to get out again. Check the ceiling carefully - there may be a trapdoor that's been covered by the floor-coverings overhead. Or whatever it was, someone may have decided half-a-century ago to make it a tiny fallout shelter where they could sit out the worst two weeks of fallout.

If you want to use it as a storage room, the easiest way to make a door in may well be through the chimney area. I don't know whether that puts a door where it would be useful or not, though.

You can buy plastic foam insulating blocks these days. You could put them around the outside of the room, or if big enough, on inside of wall. Ceiling insulation could be inside if there's no room for it outside. Or you could cover it with a layer of broken-up foam boxes, or empty soft-drink bottles covered with wire netting, then cement render over that. Or even used plastic milk bottles - at last a use for them!


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## blue gecko (Jun 14, 2006)

nadja said:


> Possibly a safe room for runaway slaves ? Some of them were pretty clever


Thats what I was thinking. I think the idea of accessing it from the basement and putting a shelf in front of the opening to hide the entrance is a good one. With the window available it sounds like it would make a great cellar/safe room. Neat find!


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

Taratunafish said:


> why hasn't a picture been posted yet?????? I have my own mystery structure outside of my house. Every other year, a sinkhole forms alongside it. Haven't figured out what ours is, maybe a privy. Our house is also 125+ years old. Anyone ever known of a rectangular well??


No pictures, as of yet, as there is no way to really get photos of it (without taring off our deck). The few we have that my daughter took the day she found it really doesn't show you what it is or looks like at all (she's 9 and took out her camera to take pictures because she knew we wouldn't really believer her.....it's just too crazy a story!). We will be sure to post pictures as we do something with it!

We haven't measured it, but I would guess it to be 6 or 8' x 12 or 15'. DH and I are going to prob the wall tomorrow with the masonry bit. After thinking about it, it would be better to go in via the basement...so we will drill a 1/2" hole tomorrow and see how thick it etc, if re-enforced, etc. The idea of floor to ceiling shelving for caning jars is just too tempting. Right now we only have a short room with Michigan walls to store food in. 

The wall don't look like "old work". Maybe the 40-50's or so.


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## wagvan (Jan 29, 2011)

Am I the only one who thought, Dr Who?!

And I thought cistern, too until it was clarified. Very cool!


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

wagvan said:


> Am I the only one who thought, Dr Who?!
> 
> And I thought cistern, too until it was clarified. Very cool!



NO, it's big enough from the outside to not be a Tradis! Funny you should bring that up, though, we were just talking last night that Tardis would be a great name for a little dog that ate a lot!, LOL.


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

My first thought was cistern also, and I`m not taking it out of the mix yet. I do think you should go in from the basement wall side to do a look see, so that you don`t have a hole outside to plug later. I know for a fact it is not for the underground railroad, poured concrete was not around then, would have been rock and mortar back then. Most slave hidding was done in the barn or out of the way place. Most folks that hid slaves did so without telling all of the kids, the less people that knew the better. They didn`t want their kids to have to lie about something, so if they didn`t know they couldn`t lie. Anyway, I still think it could be a cistern. > Thanks Marc


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## Ruby (May 10, 2002)

I don't know why no one has mentioned the posibality of a radiation free room. That would be perfect, with an entrance door from the basement. Talk about having hope you would be set to survive IF something unspeakable were to happen. All you would have to do is cover the window with a pile of dirt.

Stock it with food and sleeping quarters, along with enough water.


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## wagvan (Jan 29, 2011)

Ohio dreamer said:


> NO, it's big enough from the outside to not be a Tradis! Funny you should bring that up, though, we were just talking last night that Tardis would be a great name for a little dog that ate a lot!, LOL.


I wasn't thinking Tardis, I was thinking of the episode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eleventh_Hour_(Doctor_Who) where there is a room in Amy Pond's house that she didn't know was there because it was hidden by being in the corner of her eye where she was afraid to look. And it had Prisoner Zero hiding in it.

I now think I shall start calling my 16yo teenaged boy Tardis.:thumb:


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## TheMartianChick (May 26, 2009)

wagvan said:


> I wasn't thinking Tardis, I was thinking of the episode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eleventh_Hour_(Doctor_Who) where there is a room in Amy Pond's house that she didn't know was there because it was hidden by being in the corner of her eye where she was afraid to look. And it had Prisoner Zero hiding in it.
> 
> I now think I shall start calling my 16yo teenaged boy Tardis.:thumb:


I'm watching Dr. Who on BBC America right now! I have to admit that I first thought of the Underground Railroad, not Dr. Who!


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## Taratunafish (Aug 6, 2007)

Stamphappy, I've considered the icehouse idea. The structure is 10-12' from our house. Our property line is along a spring run (we call it a stream or ditch when it's dry), but that's 100' away. I have considered that we do have an underground spring going and that's why I toy with the idea of a well. I think the structure is too large 5 x 6' (rectangular) to be a well. I'll do some more checking tomorrow. 
Ohiodreamer, I hate to be a party pooper, but our block structure is simply a foundation to hold up the kitchen addition on our house. It's more fun though to imagine other scenarios!!
-Taratunafish

(how DO you post a pic, anyway??)


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## Taratunafish (Aug 6, 2007)

http://williamsrdprivy.shutterfly.com/pictures#n_5


my mystery structure. All ideas will be considered........:thumb:

btw, the structure is at least 4.5' deep. Double walled with brick and large slabs of slate. 

(hope that address works.....)


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## Ann-NWIowa (Sep 28, 2002)

If it has poured concrete walls, its not all that old. Interesting tho. Are any prior owners in the area that you could ask? A cistern would not have a window. Our old house had a "cistern" with a door in the side and was wired with old electric light. I figured out it was for cool storage as it had a spring. It was spooky as it had a step down into it.


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## manygoatsnmore (Feb 12, 2005)

Since the house is only 125 years old and the Civil War was 150 years ago, it couldn't be a underground railroad stop.

I love the idea of having a fallout shelter/dry, cool storage area under your house. It would be quite likely that someone built a fallout shelter back in the 1950-60's, then either deliberately hid it, or someone else came along and closed it up for some reason. Is there any way to trace your house's history? Who was living there when, and if they have any descendents that could clue you in? What a lovely mystery!


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## manygoatsnmore (Feb 12, 2005)

Taratunafish said:


> http://williamsrdprivy.shutterfly.com/pictures#n_5
> 
> 
> my mystery structure. All ideas will be considered........:thumb:
> ...


Any chance it could have been a smoke house?


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

From what we can tell...there is no door into it, nor was there ever one. I'm wondering if the wall was failing and to repair it they decided to pour a wall. The wall wouldn't take much concrete, but all the walls together may have been enough to "order a load". I'm betting some guy in the 50's looked at his wife and said NO WAY am I hand mixing that much concrete....I just pay a bit more and put more in and have an entire room. Then never bothered to "finish" the room. Although, that idea doesn't account for the chimney.


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## Taratunafish (Aug 6, 2007)

manygoatsmore, yes, I have considered a smokehouse, but the 4.5' depth has me puzzled. Too deep? Now, that's 4.5' that I know of. I stopped digging because all I could smell was wet dog and I really didn't want to come across someone's loved companion!! The previous owners had a dog who passed away while living on the property.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Taratunafish said:


> manygoatsmore, yes, I have considered a smokehouse, but the 4.5' depth has me puzzled. Too deep? Now, that's 4.5' that I know of. I stopped digging because all I could smell was wet dog and I really didn't want to come across someone's loved companion!! The previous owners had a dog who passed away while living on the property.


Could it be a well that has been knocked down to ground level and filled in? That could account for the sink holes.


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## time (Jan 30, 2011)

Personally, I wouldn't have asked the neibors if they knew it was there. They know now.


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## Taratunafish (Aug 6, 2007)

I've thought of a well, but it's rectangular and I think the size is enormous for a well (5' x 6'). Yes, whatever it was, it's been knocked down to ground level and filled in. I snuck over to my neighbor's house (she's now living with her daughter) to check out her springhouse-type structure. Her thing has been built using a good bit of concrete, with a good bit of heavy slate, lots of field stone, and a very few bricks. My structure is double walled brick, mortar, and heavy slate.


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## Sunbee (Sep 30, 2008)

Half-finished fall-out shelter? Was there maybe a short-term owner of the house at some particularly scary point in the cold war, who might have started the project then moved? The chimney thing makes me think that maybe someone was setting up an air filtration system of some sort, or thinking of it. How big is the window? Big enough for a potential access for someone? It's obviously a well hidden access.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Taratunafish said:


> I've thought of a well, but it's rectangular and I think the size is enormous for a well (5' x 6'). Yes, whatever it was, it's been knocked down to ground level and filled in. I snuck over to my neighbor's house (she's now living with her daughter) to check out her springhouse-type structure. Her thing has been built using a good bit of concrete, with a good bit of heavy slate, lots of field stone, and a very few bricks. My structure is double walled brick, mortar, and heavy slate.


Maryland is an old state. If you property was once part of a large plantation then a large well would make sense. Might want to contact your state historical society.


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## Taratunafish (Aug 6, 2007)

tinknal, you are correct in that my house was once a tenant house for a very large gentleman farm 1/4 mile away. My neighbor's house was also part of that large farm. I have contacted the county. My house is included in the historical district, but there's very little info on my or my neighbor's house. I don't even have a true "built" date for my house since it was part of such a large parcel way back when. I've even contacted a staff member working at Old Sturbridge Village in Mass.... no answers.


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## wogglebug (May 22, 2004)

Now there's an idea! There may be plans for your home, with labels, on file at your local government offices.


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## stickinthemud (Sep 10, 2003)

If you Google "fallout shelter plans" check out the images. The combination of age (built in '50s?), location next to house but with entrance to outdoors & that 'chimney' thing (vent?) make me suspect that.


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## Spinner (Jul 19, 2003)

This sounds much like a room I have. My house is about 120 years old so they are from the same era. 

I doubt it was a cistern b/c of the window. 

I'd say it was a root cellar. The window is for air/moisture control. Can you stick a flashlight in the window and look around for any entrance that may be covered now? Seems like the most likely would be a door from the basement, but it's possible any opening might have accidentally (or purposely) been covered when the basement walls were poured (if the basement was added later.) 

The entrance could have been from above with steep steps that are now gone. Mine has the top entrance that was concealed under a closet floor and the window concealed under a porch. I'd have never known about the room if the seller hadn't shown it to me. 

Mine is completely concrete with a small window on one end very near the ceiling. The ceiling is a concrete slab that is a porch. I wish it had a dirt floor, but it's concrete too. Walls are about 10" thick, ceiling is 12" thick. No idea how thick the floor is. 

I think it was constructed as a combination root cellar/ fall out shelter. The construction and location keeps the temp in the 50's year round, even during our 120 degree temps this year, it never got over 60 degrees down there.


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## Helena (May 10, 2002)

In Ohio I would maybe think it could have been part of an underground railroad..but being cement..maybe not. How about in the 50's a bomb shelter for the Cuban crisis time..Interesting...


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## beaglebiz (Aug 5, 2008)

coal bin??


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

Spinner said:


> This sounds much like a room I have. My house is about 120 years old so they are from the same era.
> 
> I doubt it was a cistern b/c of the window.
> 
> ...


You been hanging out under our deck?? Your room sounds allot like ours. DH used a 12" long masonry bit to probe the wall in the basement....best we can tell we didn't break through to the "room". We haven't been in the room, yet (we won't fit in the window and would be able to clime the 7' to get back out), so we haven't been able to check the ceiling, but there are no signs of a entrance ever having been in the walls.

We don't know when it was built, I'm guess 50's only because it's old and poured. Not sure when they started pouring concrete, but I'm pretty sure they were in the 50's. We doubt the chimney is a vent of any kind....just isn't "right" - no way to get the air into the chimney or out. The top of it looks unfinished, or like they took some of it off to add the roof. Maybe the chimney is older then the room? But it's all attached to the "newer" side of the house---by newer we are guessing early 1900's due to type of construction.


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## mtnmom5 (Dec 21, 2009)

If you are in Ohio, it very likely was used to hide runaway slaves. I have some relatives just east of Cleveland that have rooms like that in their homes as their homes were on the 'slave route' to Canada. So awesome! I would LOVE to have a home with a hidden room - especially if it is cool and dry.


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## edcopp (Oct 9, 2004)

Check for bones and old coins.:thumb:


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

mtnmom5 said:


> If you are in Ohio, it very likely was used to hide runaway slaves. I have some relatives just east of Cleveland that have rooms like that in their homes as their homes were on the 'slave route' to Canada. So awesome! I would LOVE to have a home with a hidden room - especially if it is cool and dry.


Nope, no runaway slaves. It's about 100 yrs too young for that. There are "slave rooms" in the county, though.


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## HeelSpur (May 7, 2011)

Maybe it was a room for kidnapped victims.
I watch to many crime shows.


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## Brokeneck (Mar 1, 2011)

I'm a masonry contractor and we have done tons of these. Alot of times a person is planning another addition on the house and decides to get started with cash on hand. The walls are poured and then capped off. Then just a deck put over top to conceal until a later time when money is built up enough to pay for rest of addition. Floor us usually not poured until addition is complete because chance of frost heaving the slab and cracking. No need to heat an unused space. The door opening is always put in after addition is finished also, just before slab is poured for floor so that both floors can be at same height. If you want to turn this into a "safe room" remember to make sure door swing goes into room. All of the ones I have built are this way. Reason being, if there is a chance you could have to use it for Tornado, forest fire, earthquake, home invader, Once the danger is passed you can still open the door to the inside of the room without having to force through any rubble from home destroyed or anything placed in front of door by home invader. There are plenty of suppliers of heavy fireproof safe doors out there. Dont worry so much about using a contractor to do some of the work for you. Just make sure you use the most popular contractor you can find. My company was at one point one of the three largest in the state and we did hundreds of these additions this way. The contractor wont think anything about you doing this. Just have them cut in the opening and you can order and install the new door. We have put in quite a few of these for people who tell us exactly what they are doing with the room and I never think twice about it. 

Brokeneck


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

Thanks Brokeneck....that makes the most sense for that room being there. Sounds like if we hire a contractor we should make him crawl on his belly and look in the window and survey the room. Let him pick where to put the door it (so he can avoid the chimney and not make a bigger job of it then it already is). What would be a reasonable fee for just cutting in the door (I know there are regional differences in pricing....just a generic ball park would help)?


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## Brokeneck (Mar 1, 2011)

I think we get around $500.00 for the opening only. We have hydraulic saws for a job like that. No fumes and you can cut wet without getting a nice little shock from electric saws. When I first started we used gas saws until I passed out from the fumes. Luckily I had a helper with me out of the room watching and when I went down he drug me out to fresh air. Bought hydraulic the next day! Make sure you have the contractor cut chunks up into pieces you can handle yourself to save a little money on removal and do it yourself. Contractors always give a better deal if you will put in the labor on the heavy work!
Brokeneck


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## BillHoo (Mar 16, 2005)

Did you break any seals to get into it?

Put a thermal camera on it and see if anything comes out at midnight!


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

Brokeneck said:


> I think we get around $500.00 for the opening only. We have hydraulic saws for a job like that. No fumes and you can cut wet without getting a nice little shock from electric saws. When I first started we used gas saws until I passed out from the fumes. Luckily I had a helper with me out of the room watching and when I went down he drug me out to fresh air. Bought hydraulic the next day! Make sure you have the contractor cut chunks up into pieces you can handle yourself to save a little money on removal and do it yourself. Contractors always give a better deal if you will put in the labor on the heavy work!
> Brokeneck


Any contractor we have come to cut the hole will be blessed to have a door to the outside within 8 feet of them. So, unless we call them in the dead of winter when that door is boarded up, they won't be far from fresh air (also keeps contractors from having to drag their tools all through the house to get to the basement). Good point on us cleaning it up. I hadn't thought that far ahead!

BillHoo - no seals broken to get into it. Only opening is the tiny window 7' above the floor. We looked, no sign of animals. With the size of the room and the only access being 7' off the floor...I can't see how an animal would be able to get out if they got in.


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## Jennifer L. (May 10, 2002)

It's a bomb shelter from the 1960's. Everyone was building them then.

Jennifer


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## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

wagvan said:


> I wasn't thinking Tardis, I was thinking of the episode http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eleventh_Hour_(Doctor_Who) where there is a room in Amy Pond's house that she didn't know was there because it was hidden by being in the corner of her eye where she was afraid to look. And it had Prisoner Zero hiding in it.


Well, let's see now. There was also a hidden room in the movie "The Amityville Horror" wasn't there?

I'm also thinking of the movie "Silence of the Lambs". "It puts the lotion on it's skin. It puts the lotion in the basket."

Are there any unsolved "missing people" reports in your area?!?


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

Michael W. Smith said:


> Are there any unsolved "missing people" reports in your area?!?


Not that I'll admit to!


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## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

I think I would be inclined to get a contractor in and open up a door through the basement.

It would make a great fall out shelter in case of tornado. It would also make a great place to store valuables, guns, etc. (I'd be inclined to make the entrance "hidden" after the contractor is in.

Too bad you told the neighbor. Now if zombies invade your neighborhood and get your neighbor, your neighbor will know exactly where you are hiding!


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## Shrek (May 1, 2002)

Maybe it was a prohibition or bootlegger stash room.


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## wogglebug (May 22, 2004)

Just a thought. If you don't have a floor in there yet, you might dig an escape tunnel (concrete pipe in a trench?) to an outside exit or outside shed, before you put in the floor. Cheap now, much harder later. Lots of places should have a garden shed anyway, even if just to keep a bucket, some garbage bags, and a bale of peat moss in case they need an emergency toilet. And the garden tools. Just make sure you can open the door from inside the shed - no padlock.


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## TJN66 (Aug 29, 2004)

I cant wait to see some pics!


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## manygoatsnmore (Feb 12, 2005)

So, Jen, have you decided what to do with it yet? I love the idea of making it into a completed fallout shelter/root cellar - you'd have to have some mass to put against the window area and that wall of the basement, and more mass overhead, but if it's more than 8' high, there would be room to build a ceiling and add mass overhead. Make some beds on pulleys, stored up against the ceiling out of the way, and use the room for a root cellar or dry/cool storage room for your pantry goods everyday. Then if you need to shelter there, either for a storm or fallout, you can pull the beds down, add some pads and sleeping bags and have a comfortable place to ride things out! I'm planning my root cellar/storm shelter/fallout shelter, so I'm envious of you finding one already nearly ready for use, and inside your house! Lucky girl!


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## Ohio dreamer (Apr 6, 2006)

We are still kicking around ideas on what to do, if anything with it. Getting a door into it is the biggest hurdle. After our test holes we drilled, we aren't to sure what can of worms we may be opening.

Telling the neighbor is not a problem. He's rather anti-social and doesn't even tell his wife what we talk about (like when I mentioned that the dogs got skunked! He never told her....but she found out 2 days later when he and their dog got skunked, lol)


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

This reminded me of a thread I had read about someone finding a hidden room, fully furnished in a home they had lived in for 20 years. I just found it. http://socalmountains.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?29446.post


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