Bomb shelters

plumb4u2 · plumb4u2's Garage

My home was built in 1958, I purchased it from the original owners in 2018 who were both still alive at 92yo. Sadly I did not get to meet them as their son moved them to Massachusetts where he lives.
Mr Sherman was an engineer and took exceptional care of this house. I have a bomb shelter in the unfinished portion of my basement and I always wished I would have been able to talk to him about it. I can tell it was professionally built by a skilled mason. Anyway scrolling on FB yesterday this pops up on my feed and it is an exact replica of how my shelter was built.
Being a service Plumber I obviously go in many basements and can count on two hands how many shelters I’ve come across in my 24yrs in the biz, all shelters I have seen have been dug in the ground just outside foundation of the homes

masraum · 10-07-2021, 06:47 PM

I've always thought it would be interesting/cool to have a house with an old bomb shelter.
Did yippy mean to post an image or link? I don't see anything. I see what happened, you posted a.png. The forum doesn't allow those to be posted. Glenn always says that you can just change the extension to .jpg and pay them and that works.

plumb4u2 · plumb4u2's Garage

plumb4u2 · plumb4u2's Garage

plumb4u2 · plumb4u2's Garage

Sorry I suck at posting pics on here!

Bill Douglas · 10-07-2021, 06:54 PM

I think find out the address of the son then write (type) a nice letter telling them how much you love and look after their old house. And how you particularly like the bomb shelter and enjoy thinking about the build of it and what was happening at the time. Hopefully the son will like the letter and go and read, and explain it, to his parents. it will make their day. And include a photo or two.

plumb4u2 · plumb4u2's Garage

Bill, I have sons email (he handled settlement when I purchased house) I have exchanged many emails with pics of upgrades I have done to the home and they loved seeing them. Sadly Dad has passed but Mrs Sherman is still alive.
My neighbor Mrs Pat is 96 and is best friends with Mrs Sherman and they still write letters to each other to this day

Bill Douglas · 10-07-2021, 07:14 PM

Nice.

GF bought a house through a real estate agent from an old lady who went into an old folks home. Sadly she died a couple of days later. She had a rickety old park bench type seat on the back lawn. We still keep the seat there and call it Patricia's seat.

Evans, Marv · 10-07-2021, 08:06 PM

I remember looking at a shelter in the '50s. It was on the sidewalk in front of a store as a sample of what could be bought at that time. This particular one was sort of igloo shaped with cutaways to show the construction & the arrangement of stuff inside. I always liked the idea of living in an underground house after that.

SCadaddle · 10-07-2021, 09:59 PM

You'll need provisions and lots of beer. The keyword is survival on the New Frontier.

Nick Triesch · Nick Triesch's Garage

I really don’t think a shelter will help. You won’t to come out to the world when it’s over.

rfuerst911sc · 10-08-2021, 02:59 AM

Make it into a safe room or man cave ?

Zeke · 10-08-2021, 07:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rfuerst911sc

Make it into a safe room or man cave ?

Perfect wine cellar. I cleaned and vacuumed one about 10 years ago. The most striking thing to me was the echo. And it wasn't large at all, just like being in an empty bank vault, I guess. This ne had an access in the bottom of a closet and a ladder type stairs that would have needed to be rebuilt to use with any frequency.

It was built as part of an addition to the home, being excavated and the walls poured before the foundation for the addition was put in (part of that being the shelter). So it was under the house. It was far from being air tight or containing any air filtration system.

IOW, it WAS a wine cellar that just never got used. But they were calling it a 'bomb shelter'.

Bill Douglas · 10-09-2021, 11:02 AM

There is a house down the road with a really big room like that. I used to call the room the dungeon. A friend now owns the place and said his kids used it for band practice and the next door neighbours couldn't hear them.

I like the idea of a wine cellar. There is wall paper that looks like old bricks, umm....

911boost · 911boost's Garage

A friend had an older custom home with one as well. It had a hand crank operated air handler. Had a bunch of filters and would suck air in and push air out. Was really neat.

flatbutt · 10-10-2021, 10:20 AM

I'd need a couple of sump pumps if I were to dig one.

masraum · 10-10-2021, 10:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flatbutt

I'd need a couple of sump pumps if I were to dig one.

You'd just need to put it on the roof!

HobieMarty · 10-10-2021, 12:46 PM

My brother-in-law and sister-in-law had a house that was built in 1957, he told me it had a storm shelter. I went to look at it when they bought the house and informed him that was a bomb shelter. This thing was separate from the house and was built into a hill, you walked into it through a steel door and it had a ventilation system that looked like a hand cranked sort of thing. It was a long concrete room that had rods hanging from the ceiling so you could hang a curtain to divide the room up. The ceiling of this thing looked like bridge girders so this thing was built to last. Basically you had a fallout shelter and only would have to remain in there for about 2 weeks if I recall correctly.

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nzporsche944s2 · 10-10-2021, 02:59 PM

Reminded me of that movie "Blast from the Past"

That would be a great walk-in gun safe if the relative humidity is low.

drcoastline · 04:37 AM

A bomb shelter would be cool but around here it would act more like a sub surfacing everytime the tide came in. We had a basement in one house (very rare on a barrier island) It was more an indoor, in ground swimming pool. Four feet of water every six hours.