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Twisted Avatar | 08-08-2009 12:05 PM
Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes, by B.B. In the summer of 1995 I decided to build an underground multipurpose survival shelter. I purchased the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson H. Kearney and went to work. If you want to know about shelters and what it will be like living in one, then purchase his book. My brother helped me for a while with the construction, but I did the majority of the work alone and it took me two years to complete the project. Let me say up front that I’m an amateur who used a brilliant book to build a shelter. Along the way I made many mistakes and had some unanticipated problems. Hopefully if you decide to do something along these lines you can learn from my many mistakes. I purchased used 40 foot x 12foot diameter and 20 foot x 8 foot [galvanized steel ] road culvert pipes. The 20 foot long culvert would be used as the entrance to the larger pipe. The first step of my project was to enclose the ends of the 40’ pipe. In the back I used heavy angle iron to frame the end then 2x12s to enclose it. Welding on galvanized metal was a problem for me so I also bolted the braces to the pipe. When I finished enclosing the end it didn’t look right so I placed black roofing felt over the 2x12s and covered it all with a layer of plywood, painted it and then tarred it. I cut a hole in the back at floor level and inserted a 12’’ plastic pipe into the hole and ran the pipe up to the top for airflow. In the front of the pipe I framed it in with angle iron and just used 2x12s. I used 2x12s so that my front solid core entrance door would be right. I used metal channel iron to enclose the floor of the pipe. I cut the floor frame channels to the proper length so that the floor was about 8ft in height so that I could walk and not hit my head. I installed a plywood floor and placed 4 foot square inserts in the center that would pull up and out for easy access to the lower level. This lower level gives me 4 foot x 40 foot storage under the floor with 8 feet of headroom on top. Along the sides I used two 2x12s wide for bench seats the entire length of the pipe on both sides. This is more than enough seating and is not in the way when you walk around in the pipe. I don’t want to gloss over this part but it took about a year for me to complete the inside. After I completed the construction of the pipe I was ready to bury it. To accomplish this I rented a 988 Cat[erpillar brand wheel loader with a excavation bucket] and dug a hole for the 40 foot long section. I then buried it to the proper height so the 8 foot piece would match the door and then buried the whole thing. The 20 foot x 8 foot piece extended out the end far enough to prevent the soil from burying the front door. From the bottom of the pipe to the top of the soil is about 22 feet. After burying everything the front didn’t look right. There wasn’t anyway to secure the entrance to the pipe so I then I built a 20x20 wooden shed on the end to secure the entrance. I placed the pipe west to east so the airflow would work and buried the pipe with about 10ft of earth on top of the main 40-foot pipe being sure to protect the plastic air pipe on the end. The book says you only need three feet of compacted earth to protect you from radiation but 10 feet works for temperature control. [JWR Adds: In my experience, only foot depth of clay or loam soil is required to take full advantage of the ambient ground temperature, at least outside of permafrost zones.] The temperature is constant summer and winter and it is pleasant inside. I checked the level of the ground for drainage and adjusted the drainage away from the entrance. Alongside my buried pipe shelter I placed a Santa Fe Railroad boxcar for storage. This was the real deal and made of solid metal. I filled the boxcar with lots of stuff that could be used for barter or just be used to keep us comfortable. After loading the boxcar with stuff, as a precaution, I welded the two large solid metal doors shut. The doors slid sideways to open so I felt it wouldn’t take much to prevent them from opening. After I finished construction, my pipe complex was 80ft long, with a storage boxcar alongside. There was water, food, bedding, clothes, everything I could think of that I might need, I stored in the pipe shelter. There is water close by and I also had 8 - 55 gallon. used white plastic Coca-Cola syrup barrels filled with water inside the pipe. When I open the entrance door and the 12’’ plastic air flow pipe you can feel the air flow but according to the book that isn’t enough air for [very] many people and the book tells you how to increase the airflow for more people. On the right side of the pipe there is electrical plugs for 12 volt DC power and 2 Heavy equipment 12 volt DC batteries for power. On the left side of the pipe is 120 volt AC power [conduit and outlets] to be plugged into a generator. The boxcar was for extra, non-essential items. My family and I could go to my pipe shelter without bringing anything with us and stay there for at least one year. Lessons I have learned: My first and biggest mistake was in believing that my property was secure. There is no possible way to secure property if you aren’t there to secure it. I have 120 acres fenced in and the pipe location is out of sight of the main road. I thought the location was secure but it only took the druggies a couple of years to find it. Once the word got out what was there everything went down hill fast. Now the property is always being broken into and trashed. They will steal anything and everything and then trash the rest. I live in the city and the [unoccupied] pipe [shelter] is 200 miles away from my home in the country. The pipe is located in the middle of my land but it doesn’t matter. (Hindsight) When you use wood to enclose your shelter eventually the Prairie dogs and druggies will find a way into it. 4 Wheeler [ATV]s can go anywhere and they do. Not only did they break into my pipe [shelter] and destroy and steal everything, they used a bumper jack to attach to the bottom of my metal door on my boxcar, jack it out and steal everything they wanted. Then when they had everything worth something they burned the boxcar. The interior walls and floor of a boxcar are lined with heavy wood and burns real hot. So here is where I am now: I had to rebuild the front of the entrance to the pipe. I originally had some windows in front of my pipe complex to help add a little illumination so I used crusher screen cloth to cover the windows and doors. After the druggies broke into the pipe they left it open and the prairie dogs ruined everything left inside. I have cleaned out everything in the pipe and threw it all away. Now the pipe is empty but at least it is still usable, but my boxcar is a burned-out shell and unusable. If you want to have a place in the country to escape to Good luck. You have to be there to be able to protect it. I also buried some plastic 55gal barrels with some extra #10 cans of food in them. They have been in the ground for about 10 yrs and I have learned another lesson. There is enough moisture in the barrels to rust through many of the #10 cans. The barrels didn’t leak water but many of the #10 cans still rusted through. If you want to do something like this dip your cans in wax and that will protect the metal #10 cans from rusting. You can buy lids for 55 gallon barrels that snap on to the top of the barrel. They are thin but if you place a piece of rolled plastic on top of the lid and then some �’’ plywood over the top of the barrels they will be fine. Mine were buried on end with about two feet of soil on top. You can bury 8 barrels with a single piece of plywood over them and have a lot of #10 cans of food safely stored in a cool temperature. 10 yrs. of storage isn’t a problem if you store wheat, rice and beans as you can fill in the gaps later with storage easer to get to. I find that this type of storage in 55gal plastic barrels buried in the ground works for many different things. [Some information on another topic deleted, for brevity. It will eventually be posted separately.] I hope this information is helpful. - BB JWR Adds: I've heard may similar tales about unoccupied retreats being ransacked. BB's experience underscores the oft-repeated need to either: 1.) Live at your retreat year-round, or 2.) Have a retreat caretaker, or 3.) Have a trustworthy year-round resident neighbor that lives in a house with line of sight to your retreat buildings. Anything less than that cannot be relied on! There is some utility in motion-queued web cams, but there is no sure substitute for the Mark I Human Eyeball. I consider web cams just a good backup, and a means to capture images of would-be burglars and their vehicle license plate numbers. If it is an underground shelter, then you might get away with a completely hidden entrance. Typically, this is done with a large scrap/junk pile. (Two of my consulting clients have done this, thusfar with several years of success.) Although it is labor intensive to remove, the "scrap pile camouflage" technique is fairly practical for a property that you visit only infrequently. But all it takes is just one untrustworthy person that knows about the shelter's existence to make this approach ineffective. (The goblins will keep looking until the find the entrance.) Given enough time, miscreants can reduce just about any obstacle to entry to an unoccupied and unobserved structure. They will come back with a cutting torch or even a backhoe, given enough time!! http://www.survivalblog.com/

Jimfrancisco | 08-08-2009 01:00 PM
Re: Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes My BO place is out of sight, pretty much out of reach to your average J6P. I'm bringing over a shipping container to bury over the winter. They need a bit of reinforcement to witstand being underground, and a mopping with bitumen to withstand rust, but can easily be made totally waterproof. No plans to store anything in it yet, I just WANT it - it's like being a kid building a den!

morganchaser | 08-08-2009 01:01 PM
Re: Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes So in other words: bury the entrace, keep the investment contents dipped in wax and burried elsewhere, and don't make it so complicated it can't be relocated?

Canadian-guerilla | 08-08-2009 01:26 PM
Re: Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimfrancisco (Post 1858427) My BO place is out of sight, pretty much out of reach to your average J6P. I'm bringing over a shipping container to bury over the winter. They need a bit of reinforcement to witstand being underground, and a mopping with bitumen to withstand rust, but can easily be made totally waterproof. No plans to store anything in it yet, I just WANT it - it's like being a kid building a den!
who is going to do the burying, yourself or others how deep ? - maybe dig into the side of a hill ? ( above ground level - water ) shipping containers :ok:

Jimfrancisco | 08-08-2009 01:54 PM
Re: Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes I'll bury it myself - my place is an island, I already need to rent a JCB to dredge out the dock a bit deeper. They won't know I'm using it for anything else! The island rises up pretty steeply towards the centre, is around 100 acres, so a nice place to bury it shouldn't be much trouble. And yep, concealed entrance - I do a lot of cutting wood on the island, so end up with huge brush piles. Some I burn, some I don't. This one - I won't! Also being near the lakeside, moss and ivy grow like you wouldn't believe, even without my messing the thing would probably just look like a dirt mound within a year!

Twisted Avatar | 08-13-2009 11:07 AM
Re: Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes Follow up article......... Storage Underground or in Humid Climates Hi; [In response to the comment on varnish steel food cans,] I have some experience with long term storage and especially underground storage. Since there aren't any books that I could ever find on this subject, trial and error is how you learn (or maybe you get lucky and the subject is covered on SurvivalBlog!). Metal cans eventually will rust and especially if in an underground shelter or root cellar. Moisture is always in the air, no matter how well your structure is built. This may not be true if you have the means to have something professionally designed and built, for for everyone else, expect some moisture. Sometimes cans will have a tiny dent in them and the edges of that dent will be weak and rust through right there. So glean out any dented cans, and check them periodically, just because they weren't dented when you bought them does not mean they aren't dented now. If one can rusts through the liquids inside will leak out onto other cans and provide sticky moisture that will rust those next. The best way we found to store cans is inside food grade buckets or barrels. As long as there is no moisture in that bigger container, you will be safe. But, if you put in a dented can and it springs a leak, then all that moisture will be trapped in your bucket and every can in there is doomed if not found fast. Watch those dents. Buckets are also nice because you can grab the handles and move a bunch of cans fast. If you need to, they can be buried and hidden. If buried the metal handles will rust/rot and be ruined, so after digging them up moving them will then be harder. Plastic totes are worthless. They are too thin and do not have a waterproof seal. When stacked with anything heavy the ones on the bottom will collapse. We stored toilet paper in these and plastic trash cans and ended up with a lot of soggy and worthless toilet paper. No, duct taping the lids on won't avoid this. Don't use totes for anything. Army surplus medical chests are a gem if you can find them. They split into two [clamshell] sections and will hold a lot of cans (or weapons, gear, etc). They have a big rubber seal to keep them air and water tight. These are great for #10 cans. They are made out of aluminum so they won't rust, but the 4 handles are steel and will rust. If you tar those handles these can be buried for a nice cache. Or you can stack these in a shelter to protect your food or anything. Need to bug out fast? Moving these will be heavy if loaded with food, although not bad for gear, blankets, etc.. These can be moved and dumped into a forest fast. They are OD green so they blend in. There is a scenario in "Patriots" where this would be an obvious advantage. (I don't want to post "spoilers" that would ruin the book for anyone that has not read it yet.) You can sometimes find large plastic [or fiberglass] crates that are military surplus. These are also [usually] water and air tight, but harder to find. They can be found up to 4'x4'x4' and come in all sizes and shapes. Check these for cracks and splits. Make sure that their rubber gaskets are not torn. I've had people tell me that they store food in ammo cans. Ammo cans are great for some items, but I would avoid them for food. Some cans have a residue of gun powder [or other chemicals] inside them, and they may have been used by the military to store something else after the ammo was emptied out. A chemical in a can that touches your food or food container and ends up in you could make you sick or worse. Metal 55 gallon barrels work well, too. Just make sure what used to be in them won't poison you and have them completely cleaned. You want ones with removable lids. They are steel so they may rust after a long time. Watch for mice and rats, they will wiggle into any shelter you can build. They will chew up all kinds of supplies and may chew through plastic containers. I've never had them chew through buckets or barrels, but they have chewed through plastic totes. Metal medical chests will stop them. We had metal cans of lantern fuel stored and after about 10 years every can developed a tiny pin hole somewhere. The result was once that pin hole developed, the fuel evaporated out. So while the cans looked fine, some were 1/2 full. No odors from the fuel to warn us. Batteries should never be left installed in the item you need them for. If they get too old they will leak acid and can destroy a critically needed item. I would store batteries in a way so that if one leaks it won't contaminate all the others. You can try zip lock bags to separate a dozen or so. If you are considering storing fuel to cook or for heat, consider coal. All oil-based fuels will eventually go bad. Wood rots after awhile (I'm talking long term here), so you can't cut a 10 year supply and have it last. Chainsaws make noise that may attract people and require gas and oil. A chainsaw cut to can be deadly or at a minimum it will take some medical care. But coal is basically a rock. It doesn't go bad, evaporate or require a noisy dangerous saw to produce it. [JWR Adds: But coal should be stored out of the rain to prevent deterioration.] You can buy wood/coal cook stoves and heat stoves from Lehman's in Kidron, Ohio. (They also stock spare parts and know about what they sell so they can answer questions) You can buy as much coal as you can afford and stockpile it. If you want to hide it you could dig a trench, fill it in with coal and bury it. If it's fine sized you might want to line that trench, but if the pieces are big you might not need to. Or you can fill big culvert pipes. Use your imagination. If you are burying containers you will want to defeat metal detectors. It isn't practical to dig to China with a backhoe to go real deep, someday you want to dig that back up, and then you might only have a rock to scrape the dirt. So your cache may be found unless you can fool the detector. Consider burying your cache in a junk area full of scrap metal. A few junk cars with old pipes, barrels, anything strewn about will help. Bury some metal around as well. Nothing obvious, just a few pieces of junk to discourage people from looking any deeper. Stacks of old pallets, lumber, all kinds of junk can make a good junk pile as a distraction. You could even stash some old tools [hidden above ground or buried just below the surface] to help dig up your cache! Hopefully this will help someone and save them spoiled supplies. - Don in Ohio

Jimfrancisco | 08-13-2009 02:07 PM
Re: Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes I've had mice chew through GLASS JARS at my place, over a series of years. I just left it there and looked every 3 months or so to see how they were getting on. Guess what they were chewing to get into? Curry powder! We must have immigrant mice...

hoarder | 08-13-2009 03:04 PM
Re: Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimfrancisco (Post 1866658) I've had mice chew through GLASS JARS at my place, over a series of years. I just left it there and looked every 3 months or so to see how they were getting on. Guess what they were chewing to get into? Curry powder! We must have immigrant mice...
This post requires pics!!

farscott | 08-14-2009 06:24 AM
Re: Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes Quote:
My first and biggest mistake was in believing that my property was secure. There is no possible way to secure property if you aren�t there to secure it. I have 120 acres fenced in and the pipe location is out of sight of the main road. I thought the location was secure but it only took the druggies a couple of years to find it. Once the word got out what was there everything went down hill fast. Now the property is always being broken into and trashed.
That is why our property is less than 60 minutes from our home via bicycle, and why we are always stopping by at random times. Curious and nefarious people are an issue, so we try to be prepared for whatever we might find. There is no cell coverage at our place, so we use three 2-meter Motorola HT1000s to communicate. The HTs also serve as a means to contact someone, usually our daughter or my in-laws, with a cell phone if we need/want 911. I am truly convinced that those people whose bug out plan involves getting to a place more than 30 minutes drive from their primary residence have a bad plan. At one time, we lived about 200 miles from our emergency place, and it was a PITA for maintenance. First, somebody used it as a dump. I had to haul two old refrigerators and who knows how many rusted car parts out of it. Then, somebody used it as a location to hide a still. Third, it was hard to find the time to get stuff done as it also involved a four-hour plus round trip drive. Fourth, people were hunting it without permission, which opened up a liability issue for us. In a true BUGout situation, traffic would be much worse, and those 200 miles would seem like 2,000 miles. Then we moved, and those problems went away. Local law enforcement was MUCH more helpful once we were full-time locals. My wife is from the area, and we live less than a mile from where she was raised. She knows everyone, and everyone knows her. When we talk to a deputy, it is usually one of her classmates or the husband of one of her friends. Suddenly, the issues with trash and stills were gone, it is a lot easier to get projects done, and life is much simpler. Get close to where you plan to be. Ideally, be where you plan to be.

Jimfrancisco | 08-14-2009 11:15 AM
Re: Underground Survival Shelter Construction and Security--Learn from My Mistakes Quote:
Originally Posted by hoarder (Post 1866770) This post requires pics!!
No pics I'm afraid - as soon as they got through it, they left a big pile of curry powder and a small jar with a hole in the bottom. Seems they liked the smell, but not the taste! Goddamn Paki mice...:biggrin:

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