Prior to the invention of the ice box and before electricity was installed, some homes featured a separate cold cellar - a box located in the basement that could hold perishable items. Some of these cold cellars incorporated a dumb waiter to make it easier to raise and lower the food. We even learned that some of these dumb waiters carried the food all the way from the cold cellar in the basement up into the kitchen or pantry. Based on a review of our flooring above the cold cellar, the original dumb waiter most likely only raised and lowered the food within the basement itself.
This architectural drawing was found in a construction manual from the 1800's. Based on the plan above, you can see why I think that this is the one that closely resembles what we have discovered while excavating our own cold cellar (as if we did not do enough hole digging and excavating between the outhouse and well!). I am hoping that we can use this plan to reconstruct a simple dumb waiter and start using the cold cellar. I think it will be a neat experiment, especially working with the kids to track the temperature every day. Because I do the bulk of my shopping once a month, I have to freeze a lot of things that are normally refrigerated, such as butter, hard cheese, and cream cheese. If this system truly works like an electric refrigerator and is able to maintain a safe temperature range, I will be able to stock up without having to rely on the freezer.
Because we had to use a sledge hammer to break through the concrete "repair", we do not have the smooth sides all around the top. I am hoping that this is something that Dave will be able to fix. As part of our restoration process, we are hoping to build a lid, since the previous owners put the door to the this area of the basement to the left of the cellar. It definitely makes it a challenge to do laundry or obtain food from the pantry.
Based on my research of dumb waiters, they consisted of a wooden box slightly smaller than the cold cellar, with anywhere from two (2) to four (4) shelves and a pair of screened or mesh doors, similar to what you can see on the old pie safes. This allowed the cool air to circulate around and through the storage box itself, ensuring the food stayed cold. Since our cold cellar is only two (2) feet deep, I am hoping to have three (3) shelves. This makes the shelf spacing comparable to what we currently have in our refrigerator. I am also hoping to use tin for the doors, so that I can punch my own design.
While we were able to fairly easily identify where the original cold cellar was located, we had no idea what we would find. I mean, we did not know how the cellar had been filled prior to being cemented over. I thought that it might have been filled with sand and debris, similar to the outhouse and well. We initially tried drilling a few exploratory holes using a drill with a concrete bit. No matter how far down we drilled, all we saw was concrete dust several inches thick. We began to fear that they had used concrete to fill the entire opening. What a nightmare that would have been! Dave began tapping the entire surface area and discovered a hollow sounding spot. We began to pound away in that area until we broke through the concrete. Fortunately, the concrete itself was not that thick. It turned out that when they took down one wall of the rain cistern to open up that portion of the basement, they used the rocks and concrete debris to fill the space. Once we were able to remove the concrete top layer, it was just a matter of lifting out all the large rocks and jagged concrete pieces.
The really super fine concrete debris we are thinking about using in the driveway, similar to gravel. The larger rocks we would like to use to build a permanent fire pit.
Overall, I think that this was another fun and exciting discovery and restoration project for us. Once we have the dumb waiter rebuilt and finished, I will be sure to update with photos of the finished cold cellar, completely stocked!
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