Cheap storm shelter?

[MossRoad]

Watch this video from a couple days ago. About 45-50 seconds into it, it gets real scary. Watch it a few times. That's the wall of a house or barn coming into the road. That seems bad enough.... then watch how fast that wall leaves. Insane. I'm going underground.

 

[travlitt]

Why not buy a shipping container,,cheap ,steel ,secure

Not a good idea, it will cave in. Ask me how I know.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...m-concrete-floor-quonset-shop.html?highlight=

 

[EddieWalker]

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.

The window would have to have a more then just a heavy duty shutter on it. I know that the door for those rooms is on the interior of the house and swings in so that if the house falls down on the room, you can still open the door. Whatever went on the window would have to be substantial.

The closet that I mentioned is huge, but it's not wide. The span at it's widest is probably only 8 feet. The bigger the span for the ceiling, the more effort it is going to be to create it. While in this particular case, money isn't a concern, I don't think the average homeowner could afford to do build a bedroom that was safe from tornadoes big enough for a bedroom set.

 

[prichard]

I was working on a water plant less than 1/2 mile from this one when it went through. I never knew it. I was on the opposite side of the building watching the weather. The project engineer showed up with pictures, he was walking across the parking lot at the time.

Unknown to me everyone else took shelter in the bowels of the plant, lots of concrete in those areas. It just now occurred to me that had the tornado actually his the plant those people could have very easily drowned.

 

[dmccarty]

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.

The problem is the building code. Per the code, a bedroom needs to have a door to get in and out, duh, and at least one window of a given size so people can escape from the window. For a storm shelter the window and doors will have to be strong enough to survive a tornado. For a door, this is not impossible but I don't know how a window, even with storm shutters, will survive a decent sized tornado, say F3 and above.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

.... 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. ...

Our problem with an indoor shelter is that we would have had to increase the foot print of the house by at least one square foot in both dimensions. That extra space was the real price increase. The price of just the structure was no big deal but adding the space FOR the structure was the cost killer.

We do not have a garage though we badly need one. The plan was to add on a garage but life has prevented that from happening. We have a garage plan with a storm shelter built in but alas it is a plan only.

The house is on a slope and there is a good five foot height difference between one side of the house and the other. We thought about berming into the hill, but in the end, decided that was not what we wanted to do. It had some big advantages for a storm shelter though...

Later,
dan

 

[davrow]

The problem is the building code. <snip>
Later,
Dan

Eddie and Dan, thanks for your responses. I wasn't picturing making the bedroom safe, simply including a saferoom inside the bedroom just large enough for a bed. No windows, and the bedroom itself would meet code. It would simply be a matter of choice to sleep inside or outside of the saferoom.

Would take up a lot of space, but most houses these days seem to have too large of master bedrooms anyway.

 

[RSKY]

There used to be a show on cable called Redneck Rocket Scientist or something like that. They actually build a tornado proof outhouse and used an air cannon to launch 8' two by fours at over 120mph at it to see if it would stand up. It did. It was made of steel reinforced concrete blocks with concrete poured in them.

 

[MossRoad]

Anyone else see this picture this week? That poor kid was home alone and as I recall from the story, he was on the phone with one of his parents, who told him to go to the center of the house to the bathroom with no windows. He lived. Holy cow! Ain't nothing left but two walls and the toilet. Man!

 

[Soundguy]

Not a good idea, it will cave in. Ask me how I know.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...m-concrete-floor-quonset-shop.html?highlight=

That's easy, just case it, dont direct bury it.

 

[FTG-05]

There used to be a show on cable called Redneck Rocket Scientist or something like that. They actually build a tornado proof outhouse and used an air cannon to launch 8' two by fours at over 120mph at it to see if it would stand up. It did. It was made of steel reinforced concrete blocks with concrete poured in them.

Rocket City Rednecks. It was either S1E13 "Tornado Proof Outhouse" or S2E15, "Doomsday Shelter". The version I saw was constructed in a junk yard and they used a crane to drop a wrecked car on it. The shelter survived just fine.

 

[FTG-05]

Not a good idea, it will cave in. Ask me how I know.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/...m-concrete-floor-quonset-shop.html?highlight=

You would think that people that give that horrible advice would spend maybe 5 minutes researching why that's a bad idea. - before they give it.

 

[dirt ditch]

Good info on why not put a shipping container in the ground.

http://graywolfsurvival.com - why you shouldn't bury a shipping container for a shtf bunker

FEMA installed this shelter made out of shipping containers. Dirt was piled up around them and the tops were protected by concrete. These shelters were only in the ground 5-6 years then removed and used as storage containers. In that short of time they were no worse for wear.

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Around here you can buy a concrete storm shelter for $3000+ delivered.

View attachment 468297

 

[EddieWalker]

I didn't see this. Was this in Oklahoma? I wonder why those walls left standing remained standing? Could it be the vent pipes in the walls?

Anyone else see this picture this week? That poor kid was home alone and as I recall from the story, he was on the phone with one of his parents, who told him to go to the center of the house to the bathroom with no windows. He lived. Holy cow! Ain't nothing left but two walls and the toilet. Man!

View attachment 468248

 

[Soundguy]

Good info on why not put a shipping container in the ground.

Could be better titled, on what you need to do to put one in the ground.

casing it would be fine.

 

[JerryK]

What ever you build, try to have at least two ways to get out.. Nice big tree blocking your door can happen..... or a car/someones roof/etc...

 

[EddieWalker]

My thinking is that if you are hit, and you are trapped inside a safe room, it doesn't really matter where you are, people will show up pretty soon. Helicopters will be flying as soon as it's safe and they will zero in on every house that is destroyed or damaged. Then rescue workers, police, fire department personnel will head that way looking for injured people. Having a cell phone inside there with you is a bonus, but who knows if it will still work. Cell towers might be gone too. Having enough supplies to last a day shouldn't be too hard. Probably a bucket for going to the bathroom is going to be the biggest discomfort and embarrassment if it comes to using it. Thinking about that, I'm going to include air freshener to my list of supplies to keep in there after I build it!!!

 

[prichard]

Maybe include a jack for help prying on the door? Lots of water, if it's hot out afterwards it could turn into a sauna sitting in the sun.

 

[JerryK]

My thinking is that if you are hit, and you are trapped inside a safe room, it doesn't really matter where you are, people will show up pretty soon. Helicopters will be flying as soon as it's safe and they will zero in on every house that is destroyed or damaged. Then rescue workers, police, fire department personnel will head that way looking for injured people. Having a cell phone inside there with you is a bonus, but who knows if it will still work. Cell towers might be gone too. Having enough supplies to last a day shouldn't be too hard. Probably a bucket for going to the bathroom is going to be the biggest discomfort and embarrassment if it comes to using it. Thinking about that, I'm going to include air freshener to my list of supplies to keep in there after I build it!!!

It's just that I like to have an out, goes back to a couple tours in S/E Asia in the late 60's courtesy of the Army... Don't like being trapped like a rat in a hole. Sort of a ' wipe mine own arse ' type thing... [ or, maybe a mental defect... ]

 

[Deere Dude]

I just wanted to share a few pictures of my storm shelter build by me and my wife in September 2014. We used 8" of concrete in the floor, walls and the ceiling. We used 1/2" rebar in the floor, walls and rood and all welded together, although some say don't weld rebar but to bend it and make an arc to concrete in. That would be to much work for me. I did put pretty heavy cattle panels in the floor, wals and roof also to help hold it together in case of a hellacious wind.

The concrete was stubbed out with 1'/2" rebar in the wall protruding into the footing going around the perimeter.

The door is a commercial door but not one with the 3 bolts for a latching mechanism. I am using an angle iron brace on the inside to keep the door from blowing in.

Inside I have 6'8" wall to wall so I built some angle iron bunks bolted to the walls. The roof is 7' inside dimension and was just right for my tractor to dump concrete into the formed roof. All the concrete was mixed by hand which was a bear but I didn't want any concrete truck squashing my blacktop, plus there wasn't anyway to get concrete to the roof, economically.

We built this and framed the garage around it and it works for us. I know I didn't follow federal guidelines for a commercial shelter like someone posted here, but I am just a handyman trying to scrape by.