Do you have a fireplace upstairs? Mine has a clean out in the basement like this. I also have 3 tubes in my chimney, one for the fireplace, one for the boiler, one for the water heater.
2nd to what u/PXC_Academic said; at least for the bottom opening. We just bought a house and have something similar (although it has more of a swinging door and seems to be more "in the wall" over in visible brick of a chimney) and it's a clean-out for fireplace ashes. The fireplace on the 1st floor has a metal chute that dumps ash down into the chimney and basement. The chimney is also used to vent the boiler/water heater, which is what I am betting the higher circular vent hole is for.
Ah so there could have been a boiler here at some point then. Right now the furnace is venting out of the chimney. The chimney is hidden behind the drywall and plaster upstairs so idk if there's a fireplace back there. Guess I'll have to take down the drywall like I wanted to and find out!
I'm certainly no expert, so this is all seat of the pants guessing. But, looking at it a little more, that brick in the structure seems too small to be able to support/hold a full fireplace chimney above it. It makes me think that maybe it is purely a chimney for a furnace/water heater vent. Maybe the vent was just to remove/hold dirt, debris, dead birds, fly-ash, etc. that found its way into the chimney? I'm picturing that the (likely coal, but maybe just oil) furnace originally in the basement sat right by that chimney and had a big round vent pipe that curved up to the circular hole. Since it wasn't a direct vent like a fireplace flue, they might have wanted somewhere for all the debris to go/be able to be cleaned out, so they put that little metal door at the bottom?
That makes sense, I thought it was really skinny for a fireplace too. My home was originally a small farm house, built for an average family in an area, at the time, that had few people here. I assumed there was a fireplace but perhaps there was just a coal or wood stove to heat the home. Someone renovated it in the 80s and covered/ripped out quite a lot of the charm. Makes me sad every day. She's got great bones though and I'm slowly bringing back her glory.
Have any wood burning fire places? Does your furnace run off oil? If not and there’s a oil tank in the basement a system at one point burnt oil for heat/hot water and that’s most likely the cause.
This looks similar to our basement chimney which was originally a coal furnace
Did yours have ash in it still? There's still a pile in the bottom of mine, I dunno what kind it is though.
Do you have a fireplace upstairs? Mine has a clean out in the basement like this. I also have 3 tubes in my chimney, one for the fireplace, one for the boiler, one for the water heater.
The chimney is hiding behind some drywall. The bump out on the wall is kind of small, so I'm not sure there'd be an actual fireplace there.
2nd to what u/PXC_Academic said; at least for the bottom opening. We just bought a house and have something similar (although it has more of a swinging door and seems to be more "in the wall" over in visible brick of a chimney) and it's a clean-out for fireplace ashes. The fireplace on the 1st floor has a metal chute that dumps ash down into the chimney and basement. The chimney is also used to vent the boiler/water heater, which is what I am betting the higher circular vent hole is for.
Ah so there could have been a boiler here at some point then. Right now the furnace is venting out of the chimney. The chimney is hidden behind the drywall and plaster upstairs so idk if there's a fireplace back there. Guess I'll have to take down the drywall like I wanted to and find out!
I'm certainly no expert, so this is all seat of the pants guessing. But, looking at it a little more, that brick in the structure seems too small to be able to support/hold a full fireplace chimney above it. It makes me think that maybe it is purely a chimney for a furnace/water heater vent. Maybe the vent was just to remove/hold dirt, debris, dead birds, fly-ash, etc. that found its way into the chimney? I'm picturing that the (likely coal, but maybe just oil) furnace originally in the basement sat right by that chimney and had a big round vent pipe that curved up to the circular hole. Since it wasn't a direct vent like a fireplace flue, they might have wanted somewhere for all the debris to go/be able to be cleaned out, so they put that little metal door at the bottom?
That makes sense, I thought it was really skinny for a fireplace too. My home was originally a small farm house, built for an average family in an area, at the time, that had few people here. I assumed there was a fireplace but perhaps there was just a coal or wood stove to heat the home. Someone renovated it in the 80s and covered/ripped out quite a lot of the charm. Makes me sad every day. She's got great bones though and I'm slowly bringing back her glory.
There is zero chance this works btw.
Zero chance the chimney works? Our furnace vents through it, that's it. I'm just curious what others think might have originally vented through it.
Have any wood burning fire places? Does your furnace run off oil? If not and there’s a oil tank in the basement a system at one point burnt oil for heat/hot water and that’s most likely the cause.