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If you were building a new house........

Depends on who you are protecting against. In anti-terrorist protection, it is very hard to design something that a determined terrorist can't penetrate given 30 days. I can't share any of the designs we use since they are safeguards information but you wouldn't want to use them anyway. If you observe the area every 24 hours or less that limits their penetration capability. If you are protecting from casual thieves, the normal gunsafes would do.

reinforced concrete will stop all but determined professionals but you have to deal with a door and humidity.

I think what I would do is buy a double wide 70" tall gunsafe ($8k) and then bolt it down. Frame a wall around it with no clearance and reinforce that wall with steel or other material so that they could never get under or around it. Put it in the center of the house away from exterior walls. I've seen a jewelry safe in Ranch0 Sante Fe (San Diego old money) pulled through a wall with a chain and loaded onto a boom truck and driven off.

--Jerry
 
Good info here I'm thinking about doing this myself. Hope to start in spring. I was considering poured block covered with ply or OSB. This wI'll be a room in the basement. I live in the mountains so on side of the basement will be completely exposed (front side).
 
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In my life it's about fire...... always about fire.

"security" is a moving target, "Safe Rooms" are borderline wackoparanormal, but FIRE is real. Fire and water damage and a place to store business records, photo negatives, wedding/heirloom/mom's wedding ring type stuff.

I actually save a significant amount on my home/business insurance because my vault is more secure against fire than perty much anywhere I could rent.
 
If you decide to go with reinforced concrete walls/ceilings, then ICF (Insulated concrete forms) can be a good option. It eliminates the need for an additional trade like a mason for CMU (cinder block). As a structural engineer, I've designed several safe rooms with ICF including my own that I built myself. They work we'll.
 
wupterchook said:
If you decide to go with reinforced concrete walls/ceilings, then ICF (Insulated concrete forms) can be a good option. It eliminates the need for an additional trade like a mason for CMU (cinder block). As a structural engineer, I've designed several safe rooms with ICF including my own that I built myself. They work we'll.
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wupterchook...hmmm. I know wupt, I know WUPM, I know chook but I got no clue what yer license plate sez.....

But innyways.... I'm going to agree with you. As a foundation contractor (with THREE of the stupid things on my schedule right now) I despise styrofoam houses BUT, he's right. They can be a GREAT option for vaults.


We use them in elevator shafts.
We use them in those tight spots where you can't get normal forms out.
We use them in spots where we need to waterproof a section of wall and don't have room to get the rock and pipe in.
And for homeowner use, for self-installation they're completely self-contained. They can be installed by a crew of women and children and when yer all done there're no nasty forms to deal with.
 
Mine is a 12' X 8' room that has 12" concrete block walls. I stuffed a bunch of 1" re-bar down every core and poured it with concrete. That should give 'em something to peck on for a while. I ran a heat/cool duct to it also with a vent. Small and has re-bar in it too. The ceiling is panned metal with 6" of concrete poured over it. I don't remember the size of the re-bar that went into that, but I used a lot of it too. Seen too many poured and block walls smashed in with a hammer and raided. The safe door back then was the same cost as a big gun safe.
 
If I'm building a new home, it's going to have a poured room off of the basement. I have one now in the house I bought. It was one selling point for me. It's only 5x16 but 12" concrete walls 4" ceiling and 6" floor. The only thing left is a door. I keep guns, ammo, loading supplies and important papers in it.

If I built it; things I would do for my purpose

Sump hole in the floor with and overfill drain pipe routed down and away from the yard.

Piped sprinkler system. I don't live in town so it would have to have a hookup for the fire department by the road because the well pump will most likely lose power.

Buy the door first and pour it in.

These are the guys I'm talking to now for my door
https://www.smithsecuritysafes.com/vault-doors/standard-vault-door
 
alinwa said:
Hokay..... I'ma' go out on a limb here with some stuff. Going to throw some random brain-fodder out. Some things to consider maybe?

I've actually lived with underground vaults in my home for 25 yrs as well as having friends with them and building more than 20 others ranging from 8X8 to 20'X60' and several with shooting lanes extending further underground.... and some with living quarters for surviving Armapocalyptigeddon with 2yr nuclear winter.

Some a' ya's gonna' hafta' remember THESE ARE MY OPINIONS!!! These are things I've actually experienced. They may be completely irrelevant to others....and

I'm not arguing with anybody.

GUN vaults.....
-#1, "waterproofing" the walls does little or nothing to prevent rust. Nor does heat. In My World.....AlWorld...... I want the "relative humidity" to be kept under 35%. Cuz it works.

Note the word "relative."

And the room's gonna' breathe. The same way water gets into your Obamafuel while it's in the gas tank, water will breathe into your vault. I recently burnt up my twohunner'dollar dehumidifier unit and am currently running a new one, a new brand, into the bucket on the unit because I was without for 3wks....and I'm a curious guy....... I've pulled 3 QUARTS of water in a couple days..... Once it stabilizes I'll hook up the hose and stuff it out thru the hole into my footing perimeter drain system...... IMO it's imperative the room have an electric dehumidifier unit. One with a permanent drain.

#2, Poured concrete or block? Once you've established just WHAT your goals are (gun storage? Ammo/powder? Hideout shelter? Food/valuables? etc etc) you will decide on a door. One thing you'll consider is width of this door. Doors weigh anything from a couple hunnerd pounds to tons. Mine, in my home weighs 1700lb. An acquaintance of mine bought a salvage bank door for cheap, basically hauling, and it was heavy..... REAL heavy. We've moved, hung and adjusted a lot of doors and believe me a 1000lb door is no joke. My point concerns the wall itself and how the door is fastened at the hinge side. And just how much pressure is on that upper hinge when the door swings open. In simple terms, I wouldn't hang my own door into a typical homeowner-filled CMU wall. Nor even a poured cell, grout-filled w/pre-mix CMU wall unless the header was side-reinforced.... just sayin'

#3, Air management. HERE'S where the money goes. Especially if you consider the room to be a "Safe Room" for the helpless ones when the boogeyman cometh. I say, "forget the boogeyman and make a gun-storage room." Unless you're rich. Bottom line, for gun storage YOU DON'T WANT AIR INGRESS!!!!! We just did a vault in a "Homes For Heroes" project and I was PISSED! The designer (backed by architect/engineer/etc etc, basically every JAFO on site) drew it up with the home HVAC system plumbed into the room. Basically wrecked the room..... heat and AIR are required for sustained combustion and damage. seal out the air and fire becomes a non-issue.....

But I digress, lest this become a funding diatribe ;)

Point is, it is my considered opinion that for GUN STORAGE and including paper valuables (records/recpts/certificates) and photo/digital you want air ingress kept at minimum. I pour my wiring conduits in, pour my door-frame and drill out any drainage holes. AND..... because I'm weird, I personally drill some extra holes leading into a box of screen with a piece of scrap pipe running out. And plug the holes.... so if the house is burning down and I'm IN THE ROOM, or if the zombies come and WE DO hide in the room, I can pull the plugs and breathe (suck air) thru these tubes but without compromising the integrity of the room.

#4, drainage..... drainage drainage drainage. And protection from flooding. The room MUST be isolated from water table, flood table, storm water etc and never believe that "water-proofing" will stop water. Shucks, (from actual experience) if you DO SUCCEED with your boat it may well pop right out of the ground like a coffin some day....... just make sure the floor of the vault is ABOVE any water by surrounding the footers with free-draining material/pipes etc. PERIOD!!

Whewww, sorry.... I get carried away.

I'll stop now but offer these points of thought/discussion;

GUN vaults with AMMUNITION STORAGE..... self-contained oxidizers, HEAT is the problem...

HIDEOUT rooms or "Safe Rooms"....... Time frame?? Air?? Air-tight gun storage inside??

FOOD/FAMILY HEIRLOOM storage......dry-dry-dry. My family dries and keeps wedding/bridal flowers hanging in the rafters....

LONG TERM underground shelters..... for instance toilet facilities and gravity-flow water or hand pump (seriously)
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By the sound of it, this is a good guy to pick his brain. He hits a lot of points that not too many think about. Experience is important to avoid missing things that will be more $$$ to retrofit after the fact
 
wupterchook said:
If you decide to go with reinforced concrete walls/ceilings, then ICF (Insulated concrete forms) can be a good option. It eliminates the need for an additional trade like a mason for CMU (cinder block). As a structural engineer, I've designed several safe rooms with ICF including my own that I built myself. They work we'll.
Click to expand...
^^^^+100%
 
moondog said:
This, Sturdy will build it to your specs, size
No extra.
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I bet I could cut through that door with a dewalt cutting wheel from your own garage.

And then I'll use your pry bar and the neighbors won't even hear me do it because it's in the basement!
Just saying...
 
My situation is different, I live pretty rural and don't worry about theft to much. You would have to have a
death wish to go on a crime spree in my area. But, I ain't a crook so who knows. Fire and Water are what scares me. If I lived in the Burbs, I might do it different.
I Would put a safe in my safe!
 
Since we are just talking around the camp fire, in my business (home building and codes) the order is Life Safety/ Health/ Property in that order of importance. Fire suppression systems are designed to allow you to get out" not necessarily to put the fire out all the water from putting out a fire will find its way to the basement where your safe is, will that water seep in?
Is there a level below the safe like a bilge?
Just a thought
 
Wow guys, lots of great ideas! This will be for gun and ammo storage only. If armageddon comes then I intend to shoot my way through it.
Lots to contemplate here. Some sort of reinforced concrete seems to be the favorite choice so I will look into that further. I'm still a bit confused about how to keep moisture out, but I will research that further - this is just the beginning of planning it.
As others have stated, fire and water are my biggest concern. We had major wildfires here in Kalifornia last year (why we are building) and that threat is ever present.
alinwa - i would like to talk with you further about this.
 
PS - No basement where I am building. I was thinking more of an external add on room or maybe an internal safe room.
 
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