Cheap storm shelter?

[Zerk]

I don't live in storm country, so no idea about any of this.

Is it really that hard to walk through the yard to a shelter., as opposed to putting it under the house?

Isn't a tornado going to tear apart anything above ground, unless you spend alot more money then what you would spend for underground?

Curious for my stand off.

 

[EddieWalker]

Here, we pretty much watch the tornadoes coming. Turned out that we had 7 of them in the area on Friday with two being EF-2s and the closest was ten miles away. The destruction is just amazing. I mostly want a place to go when we know they are out there. Sitting on the bathroom floor doesn't have any appeal to me. So far I've never had to deal with that decision, but it's something that's bound to happen sooner or later.

While I agree with Soundguy that in the ground is the best place to be, I think the ability to build a safe room above ground won't be all that hard. The FEMA plan I linked to earlier has a very easy to read, follow plan that is well within my abilities. The hardest part will be cutting out my existing concrete slab so I can pour a new footing according to their design. The rest is just repetition.

 

[EddieWalker]

 

[Soundguy]

My point for in ground vs in house is it eats up part of your house! I don't have any part of my house that I could just close off and say that this is only for when the wind blows!

Lastly.. I'd like to get some dual purpose... storm is fine. but radiation.. while the threat is ultra low.. is possible. If I'm going to build a shelter.. it might as well be multi purpose.

Good luck to you.. I hope you are never in that situation that you have to use it once you have it. be safe my friend(s).

 

[Redneck in training]

I will turn my into a sauna.

 

[r porter]

zerk

you will never 'walk' through the yard to a shelter. it is always a toad strangler when the need arises and you will be soaking wet by the time you get to the shelter.

so given this, you dont go until you hear the train coming. which is a gamble that you even hear it in a storm.

 

[oosik]

Zounds - - all this scary talk of wild storms, ripping things apart and flooded shelters. I guess I often fail to appreciate where I live. Not that we don't have our own brand of bad wx but never anything like whats being discussed here. I guess we live a somewhat naturally shelter life here.

 

[bcp]

Zounds - - all this scary talk of wild storms, ripping things apart and flooded shelters. I guess I often fail to appreciate where I live. Not that we don't have our own brand of bad wx but never anything like whats being discussed here. I guess we live a somewhat naturally shelter life here.

Five active volcanoes in Washington. Not worth the effort to try to build a volcano shelter.



Bruce

 

[oosik]

You are right bcp. There is still exposed areas on my property where the Mt St Helen's ash is on the surface. And then there is the Yellowstone super volcano thing. A volcano shelter is called a tomb.

 

[EddieWalker]

Soundguy. Finding the the place to build it was very dificult. I'm going to loses several storage shelves that are going to end up in a shipping container. To make the tornado shelter more iseful, I'm going to install a safe door on it and use it as a walk in safe 99% of the time.

It is becoming more common here to make the master bedroom closet a safe room for tornadoes. I've seen several of them. Two sets if doors. The regular one you use every day and a heavy steel one on the inside. They have concrete ceilings a foot thick and walls made out of cinder blocks filled with rwbar and concrete. Then the walls are frames and sheetrocked. The last one I was in wad massive. Easily big enough for 2 dozen people. It even had a TV in it!!!

 

[Soundguy]

I hear ya. We did a reinforced bedroom walk in on our last house, concreted, etc.

Just make sure you don't pack it so full that you can't get in in an emergency

be safe!

 

[Gary Fowler]

This is what I have. Never used it SO FAR. It is supposed to be good for 8 people but they would have to be packed like compressed sardines to fit that many, 4 and my dog would be more realistic and then it would be bench sitting only and knee to knee. But it is a certified shelter up to 250 MPH winds.

Please excuse the sideways photo, it is upright in my photo file. It is just inside the man door inside my garage. I should get a little clearer path to it however it is easily accessible as is.

 

[Soundguy]

I was wondering if you had to lay down

 

[Panik]

It is becoming more common here to make the master bedroom closet a safe room for tornadoes. I've seen several of them. Two sets if doors. The regular one you use every day and a heavy steel one on the inside. They have concrete ceilings a foot thick and walls made out of cinder blocks filled with rwbar and concrete. Then the walls are frames and sheetrocked. The last one I was in wad massive. Easily big enough for 2 dozen people. It even had a TV in it!!!

That's similar to what we lucked into when we purchased our home several years ago. Didn't realize at the time but we're in Dixie Alley......When the previous owners built the home they had a storm shelter poured as a portion of walk in basement living space. Poured walls, an I-beam and corrugated steel roof and poured concrete over top. The downstairs walk in is built into the side of the slope and the storm shelter is situated as the furthest space underground. I have no idea what factors were used to determine the size but it is way way larger than anything that our family would need for shelter and there are six of us.

I have dreams of one day using it as a multi-purpose area - storm shelter, wine cellar and fermentation room for

 

[Zerk]

I picture an argument with the gf locking me out, or refusing to get in with me

 

[dmccarty]

When I was designing our house, we wrestled with the idea of a storm shelter, which got down to in ground near the house/under the house or built INTO the house as the house structure.

As mentioned, FEMA has all sorts of good information on building storm shelters.

I had pretty much decided to build an in house shelter but then we had to decide which room(s) would be the shelter. The problem we had was that there was no good room that we could duel use as a storm shelter. Our master bathroom or closet was the best we could do but it would have some design hits that we did not like. The extra wall thickness of the storm room would also force us to expand the size of the house a bit but that little expansion was going to cost quite a bit of money. Just a simple estimate put the initial extra cost at around $10,000. Then there was the expense of the materials to build the room and how would the shelter door match the rest of the house?

So I had a cost but then what was the risk? I did some digging and found out that my county does not have many tornadoes, and the ones we do get, are small ones with a very strong one being an F2 every once in awhile. We would survive a hit by an F2 just sitting in the house. Our county is odd in that tornadoes and strong weather seems to by pass us for some reason. I have watch fronts moving our way and man times they split apart or disappear as they get to us. It is very odd but I am thankful. :thumbsup: We had a very bad set of storms that came through back in the fall with multiple tornado warnings and watches. Very bad stuff with schools having to actually perform their tornado procedures. Knock on wood, but the mess did not do anything in our county. As granny would say, count your lucky stars.

We did not build a strong room. BUT, if we were in a different part of the state that receives stronger tornadoes, the decision would have been different. Either a strong room in the house or a concrete below grade shelter outside. Any shelter needs at least two ways out AND doors/hatches that open IN along with supplies for a long stay and tools to cut your way out.

Later,
Dan

 

[Gary Fowler]

When I was designing our house, we wrestled with the idea of a storm shelter, which got down to in ground near the house/under the house or built INTO the house as the house structure.

As mentioned, FEMA has all sorts of good information on building storm shelters.

I had pretty much decided to build an in house shelter but then we had to decide which room(s) would be the shelter. The problem we had was that there was no good room that we could duel use as a storm shelter. Our master bathroom or closet was the best we could do but it would have some design hits that we did not like. The extra wall thickness of the storm room would also force us to expand the size of the house a bit but that little expansion was going to cost quite a bit of money. Just a simple estimate put the initial extra cost at around $10,000. Then there was the expense of the materials to build the room and how would the shelter door match the rest of the house?

So I had a cost but then what was the risk? I did some digging and found out that my county does not have many tornadoes, and the ones we do get, are small ones with a very strong one being an F2 every once in awhile. We would survive a hit by an F2 just sitting in the house. Our county is odd in that tornadoes and strong weather seems to by pass us for some reason. I have watch fronts moving our way and man times they split apart or disappear as they get to us. It is very odd but I am thankful. :thumbsup: We had a very bad set of storms that came through back in the fall with multiple tornado warnings and watches. Very bad stuff with schools having to actually perform their tornado procedures. Knock on wood, but the mess did not do anything in our county. As granny would say, count your lucky stars.

We did not build a strong room. BUT, if we were in a different part of the state that receives stronger tornadoes, the decision would have been different. Either a strong room in the house or a concrete below grade shelter outside. Any shelter needs at least two ways out AND doors/hatches that open IN along with supplies for a long stay and tools to cut your way out.

Later,
Dan

The back of my house is actually below about 5 foot of grade. Under the raised patio to the west end (tornadoes always come from the west around here) would have been a good tornado shelter. But after thinking about having to go outside in the rain and dark, climb down a hill to get inside I decided that an indoor shelter would be best. Also the builder quoted $10K extra to build a 10x10 room under the patio of reinforced concrete.
We got the steel storm shelter installed for $4000 and the state reimbursed us $1500 (program now discontinued) so it was much cheaper to mount it in the garage space in front of the mandoor. Outside freezer sets beside it also so that space would have been mostly unused anyway.

 

[davrow]

Not in storm country here, and have always wondered why no one simply puts it in the master bedroom and sleeps in it?

No need to listen for storm warnings, or fight your way to the shelter, or go outside in dark and rain...

Obviously it would need to be big enough, but posts in this thread suggest they often are.