I am building a new house that is focused around sustainability and living off of the grid. One of the main designs to be incorporated in the house is a safe room to be placed in the basement. All walls will be constructed of poured concrete with chicken wire placed inside of the concrete forms to prevent breaching. I have plenty of available space for the room. Ideally, it will be around 20x20.
I’m looking for pics of already constructed rooms or ideas from others that have been planning their own. The room will serve a double duty as my arms room and storage area for sensitive items and a supply of emergency rations to last a month or so until I can gain access to my stockpiled caches around the property…
Great question, I will be following your thread. I have an unfinished 16 x24 room on concrete slab floor next to my garage that I wanted to reinforce for storage, including gun safes and storage food & supplies.
It will be heated and air conditioned but currently has conventional exterior walls.
Since I am DIY, as a minimum I was going to skin the walls and ceiling with screwed-in 3/4 plywood. The Ceiling joices will need to be added to-- spaced closer & larger to carry the ceiling weight. Also replace door and door frame along with bars on the windows.
But , if you have the money, this is a possible idea to consider for finishing a basement:
Unfortunately, money isn’t unlimited like some people I’ve met on here! I am not forced to pinch pennies or cut corners but it must be reasonable. Especially since my wife is in charge of all executive decisions and she doesn’t appreciate the need for a safe room like I do!
I think it is a good idea as either a walk in safe or panic room. A good steel door with a digital combo is nice as well (so you don’t have to look for keys to get in).
If possible, put the room under the front or back porch slab (so that someone couldn’t cut their way in through the ceiling.
We just built a two years ago. I had them put in block walls, filled with rebar and concrete. The ceiling is a quarter inch thick steel plate,with six inches of concrete on top. I had a custom safe door made in northern Ohio. I will send you some pics via im.
You got any more details on this? Moving back to Ohio when I get separated from military this year, and was looking into this. I’ve heard of someone local doing vault doors/safes but have been vague on the details.
Very interesting and timely discussion as my wife and I are in the preliminary stages of designing our next house and one of her requirements was a “safe room” / storm shelter in the basement designed exactly as described here.
Check the construction standards in Ch4 for SCIFs. Not a bad place to start for a safe room based on likely attack vectors for a home that’s been invaded by reasonably unprepared BGs who are limited to what they brought with them or what you leave sitting around that they can adapt to an attack on your safe room.
They don’t meet storm standards if you’re in tornado alley. There are code sections elsewhere for those.
With existing construction it is harder to properly reinforced a room with portable materials. I had three different contractors submit plans for a 360 degree armorer safe room and estimates were from $24,000 to $32,000 for a small 12x14 room. Most of the materials purposed used 0.5"in steel plate and 1"inch concrete board with a serious multi point locking steel plate door.
I plan to use a few 4’ cylinders to open a sliding door with a biometric scanner (if I can find one resonable) or a fingerprint scanner. If nothing else, it will put a huge smile on my face every time I open it!
Yes sir, I will get a name and number when I get home. They were great to deal with. Contractor built the opening to wide for the door. I called the door maker and they custom built a door for the new dimensions. Lucky for me, I got a larger door at the contractors expense.
I used Smith’s Security Safes, out of Tontogany Ohio. smithsecuritysafes.com
They were great to work with. The only problem I had was getting enough guys to help me set the door.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
I am a licensed structural engineer in multiple states. If anyone needs safe room advice, please PM. I have designed structures from tornado shelters to federal courthouses (including blast/progressive collapse analysis).
