When it comes to buying a house, you don’t always have a whole lot of time to poke around every nook and cranny looking for irregularities. Even if you pay for a home inspection, you can often still find unwelcome surprises left behind by the previous owners after they move out.
Sometimes, however, those surprises can turn out to give your new home even more value. That’s exactly what happened to this man when he stumbled on an amazing structure hiding underground in his backyard.
After discovering and then looking at the original plans to his house, one man found something peculiar in his backyard. He had never noticed it despite living at the residence for some time.
To find out what it was, he hired a metal detector expert to search through his yard. The expert marked two Xs for the best spots in the yard to start digging.
Like anyone, the man had his suspicions about what might have been buried in his backyard, though he wasn’t entirely sure. What purpose could this addition have served if it was just covered up and forgotten?
He started digging, and it wasn’t long until his shovel clanked on something in the soft soil. It turned out to be a metal object, though the dirt covering it made it hard to distinguish exactly what it was.
So he continued digging. As he got deeper down, it was revealed that it was actually a metal lid, or, more specifically, a hatch. It was so heavy that he had to dig around it.
When the lid was lifted, he attempted to determine what was below it. Were those stairs? Were those blades for something? He would have to continue to find out.
Luckily, once the lid was removed, no dirt stood in the way of him entering the hole. Slowly and carefully, he descended what actually was a staircase, until his feet hit solid ground…
He was standing in a state-of-the-art bomb shelter. Impressively, it utilized some sort of electric fan and a hand-crank fan. Whoever had made it was planning to be down there for a long time…
The man wanted to make sure it was safe to be down there — and make it a viable place to just be in. To do this properly, he was going to have to get all of the debris out of his way.
After some grueling labor, the rubble was finally all cleared out. He could climb back up to take a better look at the entrance and determine what the next step in identifying the structure would be.
To fully explore the shelter, he figured it was probably a smart idea to enlist the help of his friends. Having some extra manpower — and people to help him were poking around in a hole in the ground to go wrong — couldn’t hurt.
The group did their best to reinforce the entrance so it was safe. Once the space around it was cleared, they epoxied rebar securely into place; these would help the future supports for the entrance.
When they were finished pouring the initial batch of concrete and securing the rebar, it was time to finally add some concrete forms to the exterior of the shelter. They began this process by building a wooden frame.
The next step the men took was to apply a SonoTube cardboard form. This would provide a temporary type of protection for the interior of the shelter’s entrance. They didn’t want to damage anything while they were exploring the grounds.
Now it was time to add a conduit for electricity and other utilities. No bomb shelter would be complete without some basic utilities, just in case they needed to be down there for a while during an emergency!
And when it comes to life beneath the ground, you can never be too careful about making sure there’s breathable air down there, right? A lack of clan oxygen would make for a useless shelter. It was time for an air vent installation.
Next, concrete was added between the forms. This was really going to fill in the gaps and completely add to the structural integrity of the entire project. They poured concrete between the upper forms as well.
They still needed to smooth over the concrete and make sure everything looked good. Because what’s the point of a bomb shelter if it isn’t also aesthetically pleasing?
While this almost looked like the finished product, you can see from the two-by-fours, there was still some work (and lots of drying!) to be done.
The men removed the forms from the top part of the entrance. It really was finally starting to take its final shape. Just look how different it looked from when they first began!
When the concrete was finally finished, it was time to take a trip down to have a look inside. It was like going down into a completely different structure. It looked brand-spanking new — and much safer!
The difference between this image and how it was first found is like night and day. It almost looked like he and his friends paid a real professional to pull this project off, but it was all done the DIY way!
Still, the inside wasn’t totally finished just yet. There was work to be done! Now it was time to remove the old steps. Getting them loose would be a problem, as the screws were also rusted. It was time to break out the propane torch and the grinder.
Here’s what was left of the steps. Clearly, they were about as old as the hills, and would never have supported anyone climbing into the shelter. So it was a very smart decision to replace them.
The support pole for the steps was rusted as well, so it also had to be removed. This picture provides a really good perspective of the space that the workers were dealing with down there.
They finally got a much better look at the interior of the shelter. It was nothing spectacular or extravagant, but with a little work, it could, they knew, be something truly special. Time to get to work!
Unfortunately, the fiberglass on the ceiling started to come apart. This meant that there was going to be more work than planned. Fiberglass is dangerous when it touches bare skin, and it can affect your lungs, so it needed to be fixed as soon as possible.
Bit by bit, they chipped away at the fiberglass layer until it was totally gone. All that was left was a dome of concrete. After all of that work, it must have felt like looking at the Sistine Chapel.
He wasn’t nearly finished with the shelter just yet. He had a lot of work left to do on the interior alone. Still, enough had been done that you could see how much potential it had! Some projects take longer than others, but this one was worth it.
After exceeding costs, it was time to call it a day. Some DIY projects can’t be done all at once. This one was going to require a “part two” eventually, once the group’s coffers were full again.
They still had to go ahead and clean up and haul out the garbage from downstairs! Sometimes your work is never truly finished, though he did have some inspiration for a truly next-level build.
