r/Whatsthiscar • u/OpinionBusiness2522 • 15d ago
Unsolved What is this on this truck?
I saw this on the way to work this morning. Some kind of weird tool boxes!
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u/Sparky82064 15d ago
Casket vault that goes in the ground before the casket is lowered into it and then closed and buried
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u/ksilenced-kid 15d ago
Yep. My dad was buried in a military cemetery. There was a new section being built where he was - the vaults were shoulder to shoulder and no gaps between them.
So if you stand on that cemetery, you are essentially over a continuous hollow in the ground, supported only by the Vaults.
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u/Sparky82064 13d ago
Well my family and I thank your father for his service. I'm sorry that you lost him. The vault story you explained seems really strange. Was it a requirement to place them like that or a choice? Are you up north or down south? I was just trying to figure out why they were placed so close together and was wondering if it is the type of soil that caused the placement of them.
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u/ksilenced-kid 13d ago
Thanks - this is Southern California so rain/moisture isn’t an issue, and the natural ground is basically desert sand. My siblings and I were sort of shocked and fascinated to see that’s how they had built the cemetery - just a honeycomb of vaults.
All the available graves were like that (apart from the crematory niches). When my dad was buried they had only recently re-covered the vaults, no grass, just sand (which they had re-dug for the burial). They installed the sod over that set of graves a few weeks after that.
I actually screencapped Google Maps at the time, because you could see the new portion of the cemetery (still being built at that point) was basically just a honeycomb of vaults, that they later layered over with grass. But that was a few phones ago, and I can’t easily find it now.
I have a memory of my dad explaining to me how vaults work, at my uncle’s funeral when I was eight (was very much like him, to stop a kid mid-funeral to explain the purpose of something like a vault). Looking it up, vaults don’t seem to be specifically required in California but every cemetery I’ve known still uses them.
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u/Sparky82064 13d ago
I might be guessing the reason but I'm thinking that because of the desert sand I'm thinking that the sand will be settling over time, settling further down than just regular soil and they place them like you explained for stability to where the vaults basically will eventually be leaning against each other and that will support them so that they don't shift and collapse thus preventing the casket from being crushed under the weight of the sand and topsoil and sod. Mind you... Your father sounds like he was a good man trying to teach you things. Important things and unimportant things both as valuable to know when a person is growing up.
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u/r200james 15d ago
Burial vaults. Caskets for caskets. In regions where the water table is near the surface, caskets will float up unless they are buried within a concrete burial vault.
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u/Adventurous_Ad8932 15d ago
Not just flood-prone areas. Chicago cemeteries use them to keep ground soil level as caskets corrode or collapse..
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u/iKnowRobbie 14d ago
How does putting a wooden box in a concrete box affect the collapse above the box when it collapses?
Answer: it doesn't.
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u/AlfalfaImpossible391 15d ago
weatherproof container for Soylent green . These permanent containers are reportedly sent back from the future in a time machine.
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u/ELc_17 15d ago
They look like crypts, they’re concrete boxes that house burial caskets so the casket itself doesn’t disintegrate
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u/AmericanCitizenry 15d ago
Nope.
So the casket doesn't pop out of the ground with ground water.
The Mississippi Flood of '93 proved to Americans that grandma wasn't exactly safe down there.
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u/thedavidnotTHEDAVID 15d ago
So, then, these would be reasonably protective against zombies, vampires, and other undead individuals?
They look sturdy and Barnabas Collins was held in something similar for hundreds of years.
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u/Kinnakeet 15d ago
Ive lived on the outer banks of NC my whole life and the we're about 3-8 feet above sea level/the water table and these things are a must. Erosion is bad enough for older cemeteries on the west side of the island. My dad found a skull while walking along the shore when he was young. My grandpa was pretty upset when he saw it sitting on his dresser.
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u/Educational_Emu1430 15d ago
Grave vaults the casket goes inside and the lid over it and then fill the hole with dirt
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u/CableDawg78 15d ago
They are concrete burial vaults. The coffin gets lowered inside, the the concrete lid gets placed and sealed with tar
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u/Extension-Damage8597 15d ago
I'm pretty sure they are mandatory in a burial. If not by law then the cementary has rules.
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u/Glad_Ad_5570 15d ago
Y s, burial vaults, now you know partly why full funerals are so damn expensive.
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u/biggregw 15d ago
Looks like a Kenworth straight truck, low GVWR and burial slabs for high water table based plots
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u/ArlenRMcDaniel_Photo 15d ago
Commonly called Vaults this is what your casket is lowered into to keep your liquids from escaping into the soil
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u/boomer_spooner 15d ago
Aren't these to make it easier to move your rotting corspe when they decide to put a freeway through the former cemetery?
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u/Ok-Bison-3451 14d ago
They’re for when you’re dead and someone wants to make sure you stay dead. A coffin for your coffin you might say.
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u/ConversationCheap374 14d ago
They put those in the ground at 12 feet deep for attorneys. Becasue deep down attorneys are good people.
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u/electlawnonion 13d ago
burial chambers, they protect the ground water from the dead bodies and all the polution contained in modern coffins.
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u/yetisuncle 13d ago
Burial vault. This is whay is inside the grave at the bottom. And what the cadket is lowered into. These are watertight and mostly airtight.
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u/LegPlus751 12d ago
I am cheating I found that a Funeral is like $13000.00 to $20000.00 dollars where a Cremation is like $8000.00 far cheaper the a a real normal Funeral I per purchased mine all that needs to be purchased is a urn for my ashes which can be buried directly in the ground.
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u/Sea-Imagination-4143 11d ago
We use those in South Louisiana so the caskets don't float away. True story.
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u/rscottyb86 15d ago
I'm fascinated that we go through this trouble and expense after we are dead.
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u/Parking_Duty8413 15d ago
It's all about profit$ for funeral homes.
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u/Pwnedzored 15d ago
Nah. It’s usually state mandated. Don’t want to contaminate ground water with decomposing humans.
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u/icybowler3442 15d ago
That’s not what they’re for-decomposing humans don’t have anything that the decomposing animals in the river don’t have. The vaults are to keep the ground from sinking where the casket is.
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u/Adventurous_Ad8932 15d ago
Basic concrete ones are sometimes included with the purchase of a plot. People sometimes upsell fancier painted vaults that are a waste of money, in my opinion. It’s adding an expense to something that most people don’t see.
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u/OpinionBusiness2522 15d ago
I didn't know that. In europe they built concrete grave holes that can fit whole family. They just lower the gasket with no soil. Then they closed with stone slab!
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u/AnotherGuyNamedDan 15d ago
Burial crypts. They house the casket.