Safe room and vaults

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[Diesel]

Well you are building your new house right?

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Well you are building your new house right?

Yes. We will be building.

[Diesel]

man oh man what I would do if I were building right now! The sky is the limit for you!!!

I'd build my safe room atleast 2 stories below ground

and maybe even try and convince the contractor to do an add-on room via tunnel that is off the book/records/blueprints so that nobody knows about it, country or anyone.

also add a hidden way out too

[Death & Taxes]

First post - Love the site! :D

You might consider checking out the 3rd Edition of the book "The Secure Home" by Joel M. Skousen. It is a 674 page bible on the topic - The subtitle: "Architectural Design, Construction and Remodeling of Self-Sufficient Residences and High Security Retreats."

http://www.amazon.com/Secure-Home-Joel-Skousen/dp/1568610556

Here is his site:

http://www.joelskousen.com/Secure/secure.html

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Great information. Perhaps this should be listed in the resources forum as well? Or maybe part of a resource sticky for this forum?

I have not decided on a bunker yet. I was leaning towards negative but have not made the decision. The properties are up in the mountains away from major roads. You will have to be going to our land in order to get there. There is no "passing by" in general. It would take a very dedicated effort to get near us is what I'm saying. Also being in the mountains I "assume" (terrible word) that the geography would protect me from most fall out type situations.

Our house will be placed in the highlands of the property overlooking the spread. (this is must for us). The barn however will be towards the lower or flat parts. Perhaps if I did a bunker it should be down there?

Safe room is something temporary as I mentioned would be an "OH $%17" "we were caught off guard" scenario. Something where I needed to put my family someplace very secure very quickly for a very short period of time. The vault would be simply for storage of stocked ammunition, food, paperwork, general valuables.

I have learned about the general construction of vaults and safe rooms. My only concern is the reenforcement of the floor needed to support the weight of a safe room. (block, steel, the door, etc) My contractor is going to have a field day with me I think.

I have also investigated motion senors and weight sensors linked to cameras, large flood lights (stadium style) and an in-house alert system. This of course means nothing if we were to lose power. I am looking in to low tech solutions for these scenarios as well.

[Diesel]

if you are building a home froms cratch you have a pallet to work with.. make your home an piece of art to you.. perfect to you.

If this is where you are planning on staying for good.. why not throw it in?

If you do a sub ground vault/saferoom do it all poured concrete .. make it your safe room, and your vault.

Make it a place where nobody can get to you or your familly nor can they get to your food or ammo supply if the shtf. you never know what can happen or how people will act... also make a hidden secret way out.

This really could go a long way for you in many many situations.

If your new home is going to have a basemet... then this is cake simply have a nother section created off of it, or go even one level deeper for the ultimate in safety.

Imagine the peace of mind.

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if you are building a home froms cratch you have a pallet to work with.. make your home an piece of art to you.. perfect to you.

If this is where you are planning on staying for good.. why not throw it in?

If you do a sub ground vault/saferoom do it all poured concrete .. make it your safe room, and your vault.

Make it a place where nobody can get to you or your familly nor can they get to your food or ammo supply if the shtf. you never know what can happen or how people will act... also make a hidden secret way out.

This really could go a long way for you in many many situations.

If your new home is going to have a basemet... then this is cake simply have a nother section created off of it, or go even one level deeper for the ultimate in safety.

Imagine the peace of mind.

While I throughly agree the only issue that comes up with a combo vault/safe room in the basement is this. If the zombies somehow got on my property without me knowing and all the way up to my house with out the dogs getting them, they will probably be breaking in on the bottom floors. If my safe room was in the basement my family would have to get down there. The chances or running into them are high compared to having one upstairs to get into fast. I'm more concerned with my wife and daughter. I would more than likely throw them in there, shut the door, and get to the business of zombie extermination.
This is a long process but I want to do it right. I'll post up some information a little later that I've found.

[Diesel]

really depends on how you design that now doesn't it? I'm envisiuon a fire pole behind a hidden wall in a closet ;) with a steel door you can shut behind ya

lol

Vivid huh

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really depends on how you design that now doesn't it? I'm envisiuon a fire pole behind a hidden wall in a closet ;) with a steel door you can shut behind ya

lol

Vivid huh

lol, I've though about a ladder in the closet. Never a fire pole though. HA!

[kenno]

OK I am going to rain on a few parades. I have a friend who litteraly sold the farm and built a very, very nice home on a hill side with a huge poured foundation/daylight basement. He included a concrete safe room in the plan and the county went nuts untill he changed the plans to say "storage area". Building inspectors are a royal pain in the ash when it comes to underground human habbitats and secret rooms etc. Placing a shelter near a barn, 65 feet or more away (according to local code) from a home makes it a AG building and that comes under much less critisim and oversight, especially if there is no electrical wireing to be inspected. If you can add-on the secret rooms after the inspectors go away all the better, you do not want your shelter on file with the building dept. do you? Just my 2 Cents worth.

[TheUnboundOne]

Bug_Out,

Kenno has an excellent point. You don't want any kind of safe room that requires you to say: "Big Brother, May I?" to a building code inspector or a zoning board. The moment they know about your plans, the safe room is compromised.

And as added incentive, I might add that Dennis Rader, the notorious "Bind-Torture-Kill/BTK Murderer" was a code inspector. Get a load of the creepy bass-turd in his Nazi-like brown shirt:



Before you build anything in your home or have anything built, I would say the first thing to do would be to make the perimeter of your property so well-watched and so well-guarded that no Zombies would want to do a home invasion in the first place.

If you are in the country, not only would it be good to have a fence, but also a gated dirt road leading up to your home, shut at night, of course. Also, surround the perimeter with blackberries, raspberries, rose bushes, and other plants with briars and thorns. Have an apiary (bee farm) of hives near all of these sweet, pollen-producing plants and forming an inner circle around your property as well. Thus, you have not only sellable crops and honey, but two layers of protection as well.

If you have woods, it would be good to have human silhouette targets hanging on trees and demonstrating your marksmanship (real or manufactured.). Also, keep both a big pitbull-type dog as well as a small, noisy, yapping dog, and a big set of Herman Munster-sized workboots on your front porch.

Have outdoor motion-triggered flood lights and concealed CCTV cameras with Infrared lenses attached to a time-stamped digital DVD-RW recorder. This may prove useful if you need courtroom evidence of your home invader's malicious intents.

If all of this fails and you still have home invaders, there are still other options.

Iinstead of keeping a house light on at all times, as was once recommended, use plug-in timers to turn lights on and off at random times of the day and night. It would be good if you could use a remote control to turn off all breakers, especially the stair lights, at will, so that any unwelcome persons climbing the stairs are in a dangerous and precarious position.

As for shelters, I am no expert on building but I do know some basic principles of marketing that would apply to building a shelter.

Companies that sell products spend many hours and millions of Dollars trying to get their products displayed in retail stores at the eye level of customers. No customer is going to look for a box of frozen fish on top of the freezer unit, nor will they look for a pack of gum under the register racks. They always look at eye level.

Companies that sell products in retail stores also strive to get their products within the peripheral vision of customers, especially with bulk-stacks and displays in the middle of the action alleys of stores.

Thus, if you want to keep you and yours from becoming someone's human inventory, you have to keep your safe area above or below eye level and outside of the peripheral vision of those looking for you and yours.

Also, companies seek to display their wares with distinguishing packaging, color, shape, and brand names and symbols. Thus, to keep from becoming a play-purty for human traffickers, any safe area should be indistinguishable from it's surroundings.

Instead of building a new room and attracting attention to yourself, there are several other possibilities: You could have a game room with hollowed-out arcade-style video game machine housings to hide in (with realistic-looking screens.)

You could have a hollowed-out but solid wood-covered area and a concealed door underneath a pool table or a roulette table.

You could have a human-sized crate with a concealed door in a room corner covered over with paneling, sheetrock, stucco, pseudo-brick, wallpaper, with moulding at the top and bottom, anything as long as it matches the surroundings decor of the room. You could also even put in a realistic-looking vent, so it looks like it leads to the central HVAC system.

A human-sized crate could also be on its side and covered with floor paneling and carpeting and made to look like a stand for performing music. Large speaker shells could be big enough to hide a person as well.

The possibilities are limitless. I'm sure you can come up with even better ones.

[Omegaman]

If you are pouring a foundation have a room formed in the foundation. On your plans if you have to file them with the town. Then call it a pantry, dry storage or water heater or utility room. we don't have to have the foundation inspected until after it is capped and that is just to make sure it meets the plans for placement and set backs. If you form the room inside your foundations footprint you wont be able to see it from out side the foundation. After final inspection install false wall or Browning panic room door or safe door and it is now your little hiddy hole.

[txcorruptor]

New Plan

I am designing mine at the moment. I plan on making a 20x20 rooom with 10x4x2 footing in center for added strength. Floor, walls and ceiling all 1 foot thick concrete. then have access on one end from above and escape hatch at other end. I am making it at one end of the house so when house foundation is poured it will add another foot of concrete to ceiling. Then at the end where access is make smaller room width of house about 10 foot wide. with hidden push panel access to steel door. also concrete. To the unsuspecting eye will appear as end wall of house. just not sure where to get doors and how I am going to do plumbing and ventilation. figured power would be 12volt with solar panels. Figure i will need pump for plumbing to get it up and out of shelter. Had the design in my head for years I am just going to put of extra high fence before digging and hire different concrete companies to do the pouring and once slab is poured no one will be the wiser to whats below.

[RossA]

Why not just tell the inspector that it's your wine cellar? It needs those thick walls for insulation.