We moved house in September and our new garden houses a Levenshulme air raid shelter which has been used as a shed. However we have discovered that it is damp, leaks and everything we have stored in it has got ruined. We would like to be able to demolish it and replace it with a 'proper' shed. Has anyone had any experience of demolishing such a sturdy structure?
I'm tempted to say " Angle Grinder" but I won't . What's it made of..I'm only familiar with Anderson Shelters which are sort of corrugated Iron .
Without a bomber you mean? ;-)
BIL and I took their concrete shelter down a few years back and it was mainly done with some big, electric (hired) Kango hammers and sledgehammer, pick axe and hack saw for some of the reinforcing rods.
Took us a weekend (and a couple of replacement Kangos) but we did it.
Cheers, T i m
Or stop a friendly passing JCB driver !!
You sure you cant repair it, I'd think it could outlast a modern replacement
NT
NT wibbled on Saturday 30 January 2010 23:59
I was going to say "tanking"... Cellar tanking to be precise.
I'm not familiar with shelters by name, except Anderson shelters. Is this a fully submerged concrete box, or a half submerged concrete box with a bit of earth on top?
I must admit, I'd look at cellar tanking techniques to water proof it then run some insulation round inside. It could make an excellent workshop, being submerged it would be quiet for the neighbours. And very pikey resistant if you stick a solid door on it.
If it is fully submerged, stick a shed on top too :)
If it's anything like the one in my grandparents' yard, it's a very solidly built brick box, with an open doorway and a foot or more thick reinforced concrete slab on top! After the war, they just used it as a shed, it being far too much trouble to remove it.
SteveW
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Steve Walker saying something like:
My parent's house had one in the back garden when I was a lad - dead solid and had a blast wall as an essential part of the construction. It was used as a shed and things in it kept quite dry, but it was an above-ground type. Like every other one in the neighbourhood it was kept in case another war broke out, but looking at Google Earth, I see it's gone now.
Can't find any such thing on google.
The reinforced concrete ones are notoriously difficult to demolish.
Like someone else said, fixing the problems might be a lot less effort, and last very much longer.
This page has information on shelters *IN* Levenshulme
Tried to google & find what it looks like, but no joy - got a picky?
Don't let the council know, they could sling a presevation order on it...
Personally, like most others in here, I'd look to repairing it and keeping it. It's stood for 60 years and unless it really is falling apart (in which case you wouldn't be asking how to demolish it) it will be a lot of effort to remove and whatever you replace it with won't be anything like as sturdy or long lasting.
The angle of the aerial shot hides where my granparents' shelter was behind next door's "extension" so I can't tell whether it's still there or not.
Just a quick aside, is "extension" the correct word for a kitchen (in this case with a bathroom and bedroom on top) that sticks out like a 2/3 width extension, but was actually built as an original part of the Victorian terrace?
SteveW
Wouldn't blame them. There are fewer and fewer of these things about, and they are a significant part of our history.
Andy
Perhaps the council could take it away to preserve it elsewhere ... problem solved :-)
Mike P
on a Usenet group that I read 6 months or so ago. It lead me to the same frutless search and came up with the site you mention above.
Google groups won't bring up the thread, but it's been broken for a long time.
I don't know if the term Levenshulme shelter does refer to the particular type, but the communal shelter shown under that link is similar (thinner roofed, but larger) than the one my grandparents had in their yard. They were in Old Trafford, which is less than four miles from Levenshulme.
SteveW
Offshoot.
Ring local history place and get them to take it away as a historically important monument
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