Earthen Sheltered Home vs BOL Bunker

[Audacia77]

I recently picked up about 23 acres of rural property about 30 minutes out of town. I originally picked it up as an investment / place to shoot / place to camp with my son / BOL. I have been working with my brother-in-law on either burying a shipping container or using concrete to build a bunker / supply cache.

Over conversation with my wife the other night, she suggested we go ahead and construct a new home, on the property, to our spec's and liking. She wants the typical things a girl wants (big kitchen, her own closet, blah blah blah). I want a home that is solid, fairly easy to defend, efficient and fairly inexpensive to insure. Leading me to the idea of the earthen shelter home.

I have mentioned this to a few associates at work and seem to get a negative response on the whole idea. They either look at me like I am a tree hugging hippie or a TEOTWAWKI nut job. Irony is that most found the idea of a buried container pretty good. So I say the heck with it, I'll go someplace where some likeminded folk are and pose the question.

Earthen Sheltered Home vs. BOL Bunker?

[mrjones]

Build a reinforced basement to store everything and then a nice home with a big kitchen for your wife on top of it.

[Vic303]

Buried shipping containers have condensation issues. Also they are not built for that stress of loading. You'd have to reinforce it seriously to make it work properly.

Concrete would be my choice provided it is properly constructed to limit the inevitable cracking (in the midwest the clay soils will eventually ruin any concrete...).
If you are not looking for a large "bunker" then look at the septic tank storm shelters--they do actually have multiple sizes available.

As far as a berm home, they can be very nice if you hire a good builder. My in-laws had one for a number of years and it was very cozy.

[Nathan_Bell]

ICF construction.
I have been out fo the game for a few years, but an ICF building would run about 10-18% more to build, but you have a house built out of reinforced concrete.

Several companies offer the ability to pour the intermediate floors as well. When I had access to the software to do the # crunching it looked quite easy to have an attached garage with a thick concrete floor and a semi-secret place to stash your stuff, as most attached garages DO not have baement under it.

To deal with the clay, get a good engineer, but it is generally defeatable.

[RWBlue]

When I think about building my own home, I think about building a reinforced concrete home with bullet/impact resistant windows. It will look normal, but be much stronger.

[losbronces]

When I think about building my own home, I think about building a reinforced concrete home with bullet/impact resistant windows. It will look normal, but be much stronger.

Concrete is in use for building homes and apartments in many parts of the world. With a properly designed foundation, columns and beams they are very earthquake resistant as well.

Now the downside for concrete, the walls tend to release some water over time increasing humidity (first one or two years), access to conduits or pipes requires knocking out concrete (at least that is what I've seen in S.A.) and fine cracking in the walls is common.

[LippCJ7]

ICF construction.
I have been out fo the game for a few years, but an ICF building would run about 10-18% more to build, but you have a house built out of reinforced concrete.

Several companies offer the ability to pour the intermediate floors as well. When I had access to the software to do the # crunching it looked quite easy to have an attached garage with a thick concrete floor and a semi-secret place to stash your stuff, as most attached garages DO not have baement under it.

To deal with the clay, get a good engineer, but it is generally defeatable.

The problem as I see it and I could be very wrong is that garages have to deal with the weight of a car or truck and that's why they don't have basements, the structure to build the basement roof(the garage floor) would be substantial and therefore cost prohibitive.

I have seen in several houses here in CO including my sisters house where a custom home builder puts in a steel reinforced concrete safe room in the basement, while its not huge at 15'X20' I think its the most plausible for others since most people including myself can utilize 2 walls and a floor of existing basement concrete and add 2 more concrete walls and a concrete ceiling to form your Basement shelter/safe room fairly easily but costly,depending on your upper management(wife) of course. The trade off is that your wife would have a nice house but you get the ultimate man cave and be the envy of all involved.

Lip

[Nathan_Bell]

The problem as I see it and I could be very wrong is that garages have to deal with the weight of a car or truck and that's why they don't have basements, the structure to build the basement roof(the garage floor) would be substantial and therefore cost prohibitive.

I have seen in several houses here in CO including my sisters house where a custom home builder puts in a steel reinforced concrete safe room in the basement, while its not huge at 15'X20' I think its the most plausible for others since most people including myself can utilize 2 walls and a floor of existing basement concrete and add 2 more concrete walls and a concrete ceiling to form your Basement shelter/safe room fairly easily but costly,depending on your upper management(wife) of course. The trade off is that your wife would have a nice house but you get the ultimate man cave and be the envy of all involved.

Lip

Lite Deck. Is the product I am speaking of. You would want to run the reinforcing channels perpendicular to the axis of the car that will be parking above it. Not as Uber expensive as an oldstyle steel mezzanine type constructed concrete deck.

[torquemada055]

You mean something like these?

http://www.hardenedstructures.com/2050727/default.aspx
http://www.cement.org/homes/
http://www.monolithic.com/
http://www.undergroundshelter.net/new/home/home.php


And before you ask, YES, my wife thinks I am a bit nutty. Must be from too much time in bomb dumps when I was a young Marine and working in a prison for the last 20+ years of this lifetime.

[Mike581]

Check out these guys.