There is so much weird stuff in our new house, this is going to have to be an ongoing series. I thought about doing the first post on the basement, but when I looked at the pictures I realized there is way too much weird shit in the basement for one post. I think I have enough material there for at least FOUR posts.
So we will start with the oddest (to me) thing about the house: The Cistern.
We didn’t even notice the cistern when we first looked at the house. It is hidden behind this innocent looking wooden door about 4.5 feet up the basement wall. I should have suspected something was up when the door had a padlock on it, but I didn’t.
The cistern was apparently once used for laundry water. It is a giant concrete reservoir that holds (according to this little sign stuck on the inside of the door) 2858 gallons of water. It is deep. It goes father down than we can reach with a long stick.
Water comes in through a downspout attached to the gutters on the house (we think). There are two overflow pipes that appear to siphon off any overflow. There is also an elaborate gear/pulley system that must do something, but we aren’t sure what.
There are several pipes that come out of the wall down near the ground that must once have attached to a primitive laundry machine. It is quite possible it was last cleaned in 1956 by F. Ball. If I could find F. Ball, I would hire him to clean it again because it kind of freaks me out. We haven’t been able to locate a cistern expert, so we are making our best bet as to what we should do with it. (And by our best bet, I mean what our home inspector who specializes in old houses told us to do.) We treated the water with swimming pool shock and cross our fingers that nothing else happens.
The cistern is the first thing Mr. A shows anyone who visits. When we took M on a tour of the new house, he picked her up and showed it to her. Then he gave her a lecture about NEVER EVER opening it because she could drown in there. (As if anyone in their right mind would not only open it, but climb into that grody hole in the wall.) M is now terrified of the basement. Lovely.
One of our neighbors has a similar cistern. They have plans to rig a pump up to it to run yard sprinklers. I like that idea, but I don’t know if we will get around to it.
Old houses are cool! Now I want a cistern. But I’d keep it padlocked with little kids in the house. Miss M may be afraid of it, but her friends may not be. (That’s the reasoning behind my dad’s gun safe: he figured we knew not to play with his guns, but he didn’t trust our friends.)
Definitely use it for rainwater harvesting to irrigate your yard and outdoor plants. You won’t need to worry about watering laws if you’re irrigating from collected rainwater. I’m currently researching installing a cistern at my house and they’re not cheap. Semi-regular treatment with chlorine shock or chlorine tablets will keep anything from growing in it. Gutter screens will minimize sediment from accumulating in the cistern – but you may want to hire a septic company to clean out any accumulated sediment and check it for integrity – if the concrete were to crack and start leaking, you will need to repair it quickly to prevent foundation damage or flooding in your basement.
My mom’s house has a cistern. I only know of one way to get into it and it is under a cement slab. However, just a few months ago, I was rounding up kittens in the yard as a stray cat decided to have babies out in the backyard. One of those precious babies fell down a pipe into the cistern. We could hear her and had to tear up the slab to fish her out. My stepdad tried to go down on a ladder but the 10 foot ladder barely came up through the top. It was super deep. He gave the little one mouth to mouth and we saved her. She is now a healthy but still very small kitty.
I bet the rain brothers would be interested in seeing this and maybe have advice about what to do with it. http://www.rainbrothers.com
That seriously freaks me out. It makes me think of the hole in the Amityville House. GAH! I would poor a bunch of concrete in and replace the padlock and hope to never hear voices rising out of it saying “Get OUT!”
Or pour if I decided to proofread.
I immediately thought about collecting water for watering and such. It is ALL the rage right now, even rain barrels are expensive and you have one built in.
I would totally be freaked out by it too, but if you find a use for it you’ll be less scared:)
My old house had a coal room. I hated the door to the outside, but it was padlocked. The previous owners put shelves up in the room and it was awesome storage space. So many lovely things about older homes.
I love old houses too! There have a really unique atmosphere and there are so many interesting things to find in them. Looking forward to your next ‘weird things in our new home’ story, really.
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