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Cistern under bedroom


Mark P

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This house was built around 1940 and has a very large cisten under one of the bedrooms. The top of the cisten is cement, same as the walls, except for a small access panel in the bedroom floor. I told my clients that other then just being creepy I can offer no meaningfull advice on it. So does any one have any useful advice on this situation...?

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Looks like an optimal place for a grow; isolated, semi-secure, and irrigated.

You definitely need to advise them to dry it out and secure the lid. Joe's idea for the basement access is a good one, but in my experience sealing the water source is difficult and opening the cistern introduces a new leak into the basement. The last one I ran across originally supplied water to 3 homes. It had a 4" overflow that couldn't keep up with the spring supplying it.

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Yea - it was surely creapy; we joked about the bodies and the drug lab stuff... They are looking to buy the house as an investment.

This is what I put in the report:

"FYI: There is a large cistern under the front right bedroom; the cistern is as large as the bedroom and deeper. Cisterns were used to collect rain water and the water was mainly used for washing. It looks to have about 3 feet of water in it. There may have been a pump in the basement at one time, but there is nothing now. All I can tell you is having it under the house is very unusual (in my experience - only the 2nd one I?ve seen in 8 years); that I have no expertise with this situation and can offer no useful advice on it on what to do about it. Obviously if this is going to be a rental property or if kids are every going to be in the house the access needs to be sealed up tight."

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