if you get 5 ft underground, it STAYS 50F degrees.

[registror]

so why bother with heating with wood post shtf? Why cook yourself in the heat of the south, when you dont have to do either one? You can have a tunnel that protects you just fine in 2-3 days, Then you're not sending up smoke signals for enemies to see from miles away, or leaving tracks in snow for them to follow right to your location.

[grumpygremlin]

I dont like tunnels or dug outs, confined spaces are not for me, I like being above ground so I can see what is going on and spot anyone moving about.

[registror]

it's more likely that they will spot YOU. You can sleep peacefully in a concealed tunnel. 30 ft long. A spiderhole at each end. Only needs to be 30 ft long. When you detect men or dogs at one hole, you pop out of the other one and shoot them, toss a pipe bomb, toss the smoke grenades, move to a new area, dig another tunnel.

[grumpygremlin]

with the low survival rate of the general public and my remote location other people will be few in number.

[registror]

only takes one to kill you. Can you even GET to this location? if you can't do so on foot or by bicycle in 2-3 nights, then you probably WONT get to it and if you can, then it aint all that "remote". There's 8 million motorcycles in the US (google it) and all of them can carry enough jerrycans full of gas (and a BOB) to have 1000 miles of range. they'll find a gas resupply in that much searching and some will double that mileage, too. No place in the lower 48 states is more than a night's ride on a motorcycle and a night's walk, from MILLIONS of people.

[grumpygremlin]

I'm a life long biker and you are wrong.
motorcycle tanks arent that large and the custom tanks are even smaller and once the collapse happens they will be just as out of fuel as any other road user.
anyone who isnt a prepper or survivalist isnt going to have spare supplies of fuel and I dont know about the USA but over here people drive on empty and only refuel when the warning light comes on.

[Nik]

Snag with semi-improvised dug-outs is they need a lot of stabilising. Think what it takes to 'secure' a utility trench or valve-access pit that's more than waist deep. Shuttering, props etc etc. Plus provision for ample drainage. Plus the problem that snow-melt or storm may make overburden very wet, very heavy, very suddenly. Consider the regular fatalities in artisanal mining, plus slope-failures and mud-slides that may swamp or expose access...

You've made provision for brush & forest fire ?

Also, IIRC, two metres 'ordinary' over-burden is not sufficient for EMP protection...

Corrugated 'gulley' pipes seem rated for such burial, but you'd have to get a back-hoe in. and fit either a 'grounded' mesh over them, or equivalent within. Interesting engineering issues...

[registror]

depends upon the soil. In clay, you dont need any shoring. The Viet Cong needed none, 30 ft down, to be protected from our 500 lb bombs. The Great Escape guys tunneled 32 ft down, to evade German detector dogs and devices. You dont need to be 5 ft down except for really cold weather and not even then if you have enough insulation in the form of debris.

Fire is not an issue with deciduous woods. and also not if you clear the pine duff from a given area or the wind does so for you in evergreen forests. I worked a wildfire in Durango, CO in the spring of 2002-3, I forget. It just creeped along most of the time. I'm not talking about a taj mahal, ,just 3x3x 7 ft of sleeping chamber . ?The rest of the tunnel, intended for tactical advantage, only needs to have a foot of overburden. As you can imagine, It took the Great escape guys months to dig 3 tunnels 1/3rd of the way and then one of them all of the way. It was 100m long. They dug 10 ft per day, at best, by always faking the head counts by 2 guys, One had to be pumping air to the digger and they had dirt disposal problems for the first 3.. I only need 10m. of length. to give me the advantage I want . I've just got spiderholes at present. the tunnel will be dug when it's needed. I"ll take my chances. It's much, much safer than being above ground will be.

When I was a 13, I dug a 4x4x7 ft start on a well in one day. in hard clay. that night, a gully washer flooded it. and filled up the creek, so we didn't need a well. I had no help and no shoring. That was frigging dangerous, but I didn't know it. Dunno if my bro-in law did, either.

The holes are nearly at the tops of hills, in brush, so the root system will hold up the 1 ft of over burden of the normal tunnel depth, Compared to being out where people can see you and your stuff, this is highly safe, actually. I'll shore up the deeper chamber if and when I need to dig it. I didn't claim you can be stupid and lazy and make this work.

[Tugaloo]

We live in the mountains of NE Georgia. Here, the soil is reddish clay after one digs through the brown dirt from composing leaves.
With the downpours we get here, I'd advise a large umbrella or a camouflage tarp over the entrance or you'll be wading in water. During WWI, they called the results of feet being immersed in water trench foot.
This time of the year, black bears are foraging for food; so, don't give them a good reason or smell to join you.

BTW using your 4x4x7 excavation as an example, just what did you do with all the dirt?

[Nik]

Thinking about 50s research on nuke shelters, derived from tornado cellars and shelters, extended use was a big issue. A 'soakaway' for your tunnel would be very useful, as keeps zone dry, and provides 'hygienic' disposal...

[Tugaloo]

In the fifties and sixties, they were an actual concrete shelters and not a hole dug in the ground.
Registror never explained how he would dispose of the dirt he dug to avoid its detection; nor how did he plan on disposing waste? In an radioactive environment leaving the shelter was not common sense.

A "soakaway" filled with human waste products doesn't sound too hygienic to me and in time, the smell would be nasty; OTOH, YMMV. Or I guess one might built one right after another?

Registror would need to harvest game to eat. However, not every part would be edible; nor would be leaving hides, gut piles and what could not be edible be wise to leave laying around again into the "soakaway?" It better be a mighty big "soakaway."

Registror or gun kid is an infamous internet troll. Are you saying you'd follow and believe in his ideas? LOL!!

[Nik]

Just curious: How deep is your water table ? And does it fluctuate much ??

Tangential, I was looking at something else, came across a mention for why many of those ancient Egyptian tombs, the 'Valley of Kings' tunnels, had what seemed a 'pit trap' in front of the entrance. It might be at foot of ramp, or entrance door might be half-way down a vertical shaft...

No, not an anti-theft device, but protection from infrequent but vicious 'gulley-washer' flash-floods which storms could send roaring down those dry arroyos. The pits caught debris and mud, per 'protection' basins up-stream from small dams etc, and had a soak-away / French-drain arrangement at their base.

Noticeable, apparently, that the wall-paintings, stone-work etc in such 'protected' tunnels were in much, much better condition than those just dug with an approach ramp...

[Tugaloo]

We have two year round springs here that would easily supply our needs for water.

One of our daughters married a man from Argentina. There, apartment buildings have an airshaft between 4 apartments.
He told us that thieves would lower themselves down the air shaft and steal a refrigerator that would fit through the window and haul it up. In addition, they'd steal anything else worth stealing if the refrigerator was too big.

AFA, the Valley of kings in Egypt:

4. The valley is not subject to much rain throughout the year, when floods occur on its own path and sediment is left only at the entrances to cemeteries, as happened in the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

https://hurghadalovers.com/valley-of-the-kings-luxor/