Concrete box under main floor bathroom shower

[fireghost (WavyGlass)]

I posted this over on OHW after reading around a little bit and seeing active users. Then I found this site and it seems to be cleaner, so I decided I would post here as well hoping to find some real community involvement that we can become a part of.

We just purchased a 1900 house that was in foreclosure. We're doing a lot of work fixing the neglect that was never done before as you would expect. Of course, we've been running in to the typical "Oh, that's cool", "That's weird", and "what were they thinking?" type situations. We either just shrug them off or figure out what their train of thought was. We've run in to one that we are really curious about and nobody around can tell us what it is.

As we were working on the main floor bathroom, that looks like it may have been a porch at one time. We've removed it now, but the bathroom used to contain the basement door.There was a TINY shower stall with a tiled concrete floor. We are in the middle of expanding this bathroom and the shower stall just needed to go. It was basically 2' square and only 6' tall. Needless to say, it wasn't good for much. As we began tearing out the rotted floor of the bathroom, and moved on to removing the shower, we started tearing out the concrete floor of it. There was wood under the concrete that was supposed to be supporting it and, of course, completely rotted through.

After we got the floor taken out, we were amazed to find a deep concrete box underneath. It is 24 inches wide, 30 inches long and 11 feet deep. There are two pieces of angle iron bolted to the "sides" and there were two 2x4s bolted to the "back". I obviously don't know what the front, sides or are. The 2x4s, all rotted, went from the bottom all the way up. They don't seem that they were attached to anything, but they could have rotted loose. The two pieces of angle iron run down to just a few inches off the bottom.

By the time I took this picture, we'd already started putting the floor back in so we can work on the wall studs and have a solid floor to stand on since all of the joists were rotted out. The pipe coming across and up the picture at the moment is an old vent pipe that we are getting ready to take out of the roof. I'm just waiting for some help with it so I don't break something doing it by myself. it does not actually go in to the box at all. The debris in the bottom is just form us tearing everything out. There was nothing in this box before we started and it looks like it is either somewhat new, which is hard to believe with the age of the shower, or just in excellent condition. There is brick stacked on top of the walls of it, but the box itself seems to be what looks like poured concrete.

It doesn't look like there are any water stains, like from water standing in it. The pieces of angle iron and the 2x4s were bolted to it, with the bolts embedded in the concrete. The basement door was next to it with the stairs running along it. There is a small basement, but the area where this concrete box is at, is crawlspace. The box goes about 6" below the level of the basement floor. There are no pipes in the walls, nor was there a drain at the bottom that we could tell. The shower did not drain in to it...there was a drain coming off of the shower, connecting to the main sewer lines.

After all of this rambling, I am actually asking a question...What the heck is this thing? The picture doesn't really do it justice, but I figured it would help determine what it is.

I appreciate any feedback or answers and I am happy to provide more pictures or information that I can if it will help out. Thanks in advance!

[csnyder (WavyGlass)]

Welcome! Other than the lack of evidence of water, my first guess would be a cistern. The house I grew up in had a cistern under the basement steps (part of a later addition), and there was another cistern under the back porch.

[Eperot]

Torture Chamber ala "Silence of the Lambs"? Joking... I honestly have no idea. It might be a cistern as Chris stated. Some older houses also had grease pits where cooking fats, animal fats, etc were dumped. That one definitely has me stumped. Are you sure there isn't a door at the bottom and this is just the entry tunnel to a 1960's bomb shelter? Now that would be cool!

Welcome,
Eric

[Gothichome]

Fireghost, I left a possable answer on OHW along with a few other peoples responses.

[Neighmond]

cooling well. There was probably a dumbwaiter that went down in there to keep butter/eggs/milk etc cool.

[phil]

Maybe it is a hole to pour money in?
I was thinking grease trap, to be connected between the plumbing and the septic tank, but you did say it is clean and no plumbing. Maybe City sewer came about shortly after it was built? or they didn't want to use it because the house became to be sitting on top of it?

[CS in Low Hud]

I like the cooling well solution proposed by Neighmond - it explains the angle iron. The placement of it (not in a corner) suggests that it is not for structural support. Use as a guidetrack for a dumbwaiter makes perfect sense and is consistent with the placement, IMO.

Edited to add:

I found a reference to a cooling well elevator in this 1899 publication: http://books.google.com/books?id=9SZPAA ... er&f=false

And this from 1917:
http://books.google.com/books?id=mzNYAA ... er&f=false which describes, "...For immediate use we are recommending the use of a circular dry well from three to four feet across and from six to eight feet deep This is lined with brick or cement It is located just inside or outside the kitchen foundation wall and is connected with the kitchen by means of a dumb waiter having shelves of wire netting Such a cooling well can be constructed often by the home carpenter at the cost of only a few dollars It serves not only to keep the baby's milk safe but it will care also for the entire perishable food supply The saving of such food each summer undoubtedly will pay for the installing of this convenience to say nothing of the saving of the energy and strength of the farm wife and mother..."

Chris