Do you have a basement?

[Samsalone]

I don’t and don’t know anyone who does.

Seeing the horrific scenes from Ukraine and how many people have been sheltering in their basements to give them a degree of protection from bomb blasts. I wonder if Ukrainian houses were built with basements with this in mind .

@Samsalone Ours is a self build not a conversion on an existing house so that made it much more cost effective.

@RealRaymondReddington

No, our house is around 150-200 years old, but its quite rural and I wonder if they didn't bother as we have outbuildings for storage? Also it's an area where they used to quarry so perhaps digging into the stone would've been too expensive/difficult.

Our basement was dug partly into stone (ground is very rocky in Finland), there's parts where the rock is just there, sticking up above the floor!

My cellar has a radiator in. The previous occupant was a tailor and used to work down there. It couldn’t have been very pleasant. There’s no natural light, and while I can just stand upright in it, anyone tall would have to duck.

I am in a Victorian semi in the UK and I have one.

It is def more of a "cellar" as unfinished but I have metal shelves and use those big plastic storage boxes for things like Christmas decorations etc.

Next door has a slightly different footprint and they have finished off theirs and use it as an office.

So handy-I couldn't be without the space!

I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to be trapped in one with little food and water plus no idea of whether anyone would try and dig you out. You’d need a reinforced concrete ceiling in any case.
We lived in a house in Germany with a large cellar that had 3 different escape routes, it was split into 3 rooms, one of which was the boiler room , the two back rooms had below ground reinforced windows plus full steps up out into the garden, that would be the only type I would go into tbh as there would probably be a way out, you would need to keep heavy duty tools down with you as well, pickaxe, shovels, mattocks etc.?

Yeah I wouldn't want to be in one if the only way out was through the house! Ours has a door to the outside, with steps outside. I've been dealing with my anxiety by making some preparations down there, logically knowing we won't need them but it makes me feel better to be prepared, so there's rugs in the storeroom to put down on the floor to insulate it more and make it nicer to be on, DD's scout stuff is in there anyway so there's sleeping mats and sleeping bags. Long life food is stored in the basement anyway and all our tools. I'm stopping myself going overfar though, and not ordering a camping stove!

My last house didn't have a basement/cellar but did have what could only be described as a crawl space.

I was told by my then neighbours that they were used during WWII to hide when the air raid siren sounded.

I've lived in loads of houses and only one had a cellar.

I doubt ours is bomb proof, you can hear the oil heating system fire up below living room, so I imagine it’s pretty thin ceiling. I think it’s just wood structure with a thin cement screws over and underneath. Not like 1/2 solid protection

There’s an old woodcutters ww1 and ww2 shelter actually in the woods behind us. Although I think it was used for snipers back in ww2. That’s literally a bunker under the trees. Pretty small though, probably 2-3m2 max. There’s no door now, just a window size whole and ladder and junk inside it.

I think I know 2 people who have a cellar (large victorian houses)
We have a 1950s house, no cellar here and I'm pretty sure most of the 1930s and 1950s houses in our road dont have them.
There's a posher area of the town where I think possibly some huge, more modern houses have basements for cinema rooms etc and some victorian houses have them but I think they would be the minority.

I'm also really surprised at how many people have one.

We don't have one! It would be mattresses up at the windows for us! We don't have a room in the house that doesn't have windows.

We also have thick wooden shutters outside that can be closed and locked from inside. I’m not sure they would help stop glass breaking though

@Natsku we’re watching suurmestari (sorry, no accents!) and noticed that the taskmaster’s house has a root cellar. I did wonder if they were standard.

You must be feeling quite on edge after Putin’s threats, the other week.

@PickAChew Our neighbours have a root cellar, proper mound of earth with a door one in the garden, they call them potato cellars, even had a version in the first apartment building I lived in - each flat had their own locked cold storage in the basement for storing potatoes and suchlike. I kept a massive tub of cloudberries in there, then forgot about them and they fermented

The whole country seems to be on edge, I'm wavering between making plans for the summer and making plans for the basement bomb shelter, and seriously considering signing up a women's course with the voluntary national defence people.

Victorian housing stock is, I think, the most common type of housing in the UK. (Might have to double-check that.) I would guess that a significant proportion of these have a cellar.

Just thought.. Fred & Rosemary West had a cellar... That's how they got away with so many murders etc 😕 they are sound proof 😢