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Crawl space

CarsonChris

Elite Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2019
Messages
1,911
Location
Carson City, NV
Anyone have luck detecting under a crawl space? I have permission at an 1865 building that was built over the top of the pony express that was there in 1859-62.
 
I don’t, but I’d do it. Awhile ago I remember looking through the windows of the Shanghai restaurant downtown Auburn, no floor, dirt with some pits and a bunch of old bottles visible. Seems it was a couple decades ago (?) and way before I was into detecting unfortunately.

In a crawl space my biggest fear is black widows :lol: but it sounds like it may be worth it, if not an iron rich environ.
 
when I was about 12 (about 100 years ago) a neighbor asked if I'd would crawl his "crawl space" and find a tool or some thing ? ? ? & I said "sure" & found over 2 or 3 dollars worth of coins, all 1940~ dates & gave them back to me, was I rich !!! I wish I could remember what I was looking for...



any way ----Yep -----I wish I had a detector then LOL
 
As a youngster we lived in a house that was 70 years old. My brother and i would sift the dirt under the front porch finding indian head pennies. The place you are looking at may be worth the effort.
 
It is definitely worth a look because the potential for great finds is there, and a fair amount of detectorists wont make the effort it takes to check such spaces. Just yesterday my girlfriend crawled into a spot (literally) on the offchance it was a hiding place for the Underground Railroad she might find something slave related to prove the home owners theory. Alas, nothing found this time, though I'm thinking of going back and removing the top 2-3 inches of dirt which was laden with aluminum backing from the deteriorating insulation. Good luck!
 
Yes, I've found stuff in crawl spaces. Mostly when floors are torn out of yesteryear board-&-batton buildings. So I'm not technically "crawling underneath" the floor. But on some occasions have needed to do it, and yes, have found stuff.

It defies the imagination on how coins make their way through floors, but they do. One way is that, up to the 1940s, refrigerators used real ice (and you'd replace the block of ice 1x per week or whatever). So proprietors and homeowners would make drip grates for underneath them. And underneath soda machines (the old floor-model ones that had real ice in them). And proprietors would sweep the floors and just conveniently use the drip grate for the sweepings.

Or obviously, for a case like yours, when a building is second generation (assuming the ground level wasn't screwed around with at the time the subsequent structure went in).
 
Not only Black Widow spiders, but other dangers may lurk in crawl spaces, depending on the part of the country you are in. Namely, snakes, scorpions, rodents, broken glass, sharp pieces of cut off siding and flashing, etc. Wear protective gloves, knee pads, carry a flashlight and examine the area above your head space for protruding nails, screws and other stuff you don’t want to be jabbed with.

I’d also take a pinpointer and small container to clear out a lot of potential nails and metal bits that might mask a good target.

Good luck
 
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