Interesting vid:
The big problems in shelters, from what I have read is heat and moisture. If you leave concrete or metal against the cool earth, it cools, and when you draw 50% humidity air at 76 degrees down into the shelter, the cool walls cool the air down, and it goes to 100% humidity, and begins to condense on the walls. Add in a few people exhaling moisture, and before long, everything is molding, and you can kiss your rice goodbye.
These insulated blocks look great, and will allow that 76 degree, 50% humidity air to stay warm, and will prevent wall condensate, but once you keep the heat inside, you have to have air flow-through to cool it, because a few people and a few dogs can impressively warm temperatures in a sealed, insulated structure, making it quite uncomfortable. So vents would be a good addition, if properly camouflaged.
The gravel leading to drainage around it is good too. I wonder if it would be worth the time to seal the structure, from top to bottom in EPDM rubber sheeting, to avert all water intrusion.
The only thing I would want beyond air quality though, from my readings, would be at least one more exit, because if something happened and debris blocked his one exit, he would have problems. Vault-co also raised the issue of structuring the floor plan with cover, secret hallways, and fatal funnels for use in the event an enemy made it inside and you had to engage them to defend the Vault.
I’d like to add in a room that was capable of growing vegetables under LED lighting, because as Cleve Blakemore pointed out, an above ground garden will be stripped clean of all vegetation within minutes of discovery by the outside world once everyone is panicking. Even your tomato-less tomato plants will be ripped up in the middle of the night to be planted in someone else’s backyard.
A gym, a gun room, a power generation plant, a good store room, and Vault-OS, and you’d be good to go.
It is strangely alluring, on a deep primal level, to imagine watching the Apocalypse from down there.
And as I look at what is coming, it is only getting more so.
I just finished watching this video on rich, elite, San Francisco preppers and their bunkers. I am not so sure the robot apocolypse is what will be coming but I bet this crowd will take much of the blame, earned or not.
“Silicon Valley’s Doomsday: Prepping For An Economic Apocalypse”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1zVAfE0YdA
from https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/
“It is strangely alluring, on a deep primal level, to imagine watching the Apocalypse from down there.”
At this point this is just boomer posting.
Western Nations are already abolishing the concept of Fallout Shelters cause in case of Missles flying, they will be useless anyway. And to think in case of a real emergency you just can crawl down in your hidy hole and “watch” because for some reason Cable is still running is beyond pathetic. I rather wrap a claymore mine around my chest and drive into the carnage then getting a heart attack in some useless bunker.
Also, i worked on a concept once to break up such little hidy holes with a combination of a Burrow fumigator chainsaw and NaOH in combination with chlorine to create chlorine gas in the process. Because those are the fat fucks i would gunning after. Canned meat in their hidy holes with a lot of stuff. Whoever cracks them up has better use of their stuff then they have.
I’m sure you will feel very smug until that hidden nozzle starts spewing napalm at your legs and crotch and you hear the “click” of the spark igniter.
Your plan will be great until you hit the bunker made by someone who understands sieges. To overcome a defended fortification, you’ll need at least 10:1 numerical superiority, and have to plan to lose at least 20% of your force.
You don’t even get to pick which two friends you are giving up to crack that can.
Unless you have like a Gas Lock Door you won’t tinker around with Napalm. Napalm produces poison gases when it burns up so it can kill enemies hidden in shelters. Remote control Turrets is just fantasy posting. A bunker isn’t a fortress, a bunker is a hideaway place and everything that adds to visibility, like turrets, will be seen at some point and while you sleep you don’t know whats lurking around out there. Possibly your bunker gets undermined in the classical sense. Someone is digging a shaft from your abandoned houses basement to your bunker walls and you can’t do a thing about it besides sitting there and waiting for the end. And even if you have some anti-gas filters at hand, they just switch to carbon monoxide, cause thats the basic CO filter no one thinks about.
There is no hidding from this. No rat hole to crawl in. No escape.
The flames will be much more of a problem for the guy being roasted than the fumes will be for the spectators. A fougasse is well within any bunker-maker’s abilities. Besides, the undermining is why there is a second exit that can be used as a sally port.
No bunker cracker is going to bother taking more and more losses trying to crack a nut that doesn’t open right up. In fact, they probably aren’t going to move to the second bunker after cracking the first — they are just going to sit there.
Two words. Tesla Coil.
Or crack open a microwave, turn the emitters outward near where the threat of intrusion is, camouflage them, and turn them on when they are trying to get in.
Rebels in Syria undertunneld whole districts and blew up army checkpoints using mines like in WW1. Everything you thought a smart idea was done before and countered before. You can’t hide. Your whole approach with “no bunker cracker is going to bother” and “everlasting” is the whole attitude of the rathole community summed up in one sentence. Bunker dwellers are sated, affluent, fat fucks who think they can hide, lean back and their concept will never realy get tested. There is no hiding from this. Evolution is constant, merciless testing.
It depends. If today you were the only one in the world who had food and nobody else did, and everybody knew, you might be right. Everyone would come, and dig until they got in.
But what will happen in reality is that first those cities will become meat grinders. Because the rabbits who mindlessly give the government power live there, they will send in the Feds with orders to take out the predators, and the fed SWAT guys will have their gloves off. That will kill back a lot of the people who would raid your vault.
Meanwhile the criminals, who are r, will be looking for easy marks, and their numbers will diminish as they are killed back just because one out of every so many encounters will go bad statistically. By the time somebody finds your bunker, who has the gumption to get into it, they may not have the gas to do a siege, or the resources and tools to crack it.
And if you are really smart, you have an empty, seemingly abandoned house with a few items of value above your well-hidden vault, and when the predators enter it, steel plates will slide up over the doors and windows, and the Carbon Monoxide will quickly fill it up.
Everything in life is a problem, and there are always solutions. I think that is why the Apocalypse appeals to many survivalists. It is a puzzle.
Plus, all of this is like Darwinian selection, or better yet, running from a bear. You don’t have to be super fast, just faster than most of the other people. And you don’t even have to do it forever. Eventually the storm will pass, civilization will re-emerge because it arises from disorder, just like disorder arises from it, and you will have come out of the other end of the tunnel intact.
The Vault is a perfectly rational solution, and more so because who knows if global nuclear war could happen. We’ve never seen a world in global war-level amygdala, like WWII, with Nukes in play on all sides. We lucked out in that we ended that last one as the victor with the bomb, when nobody else had it, and then entered over a half century of peace and prosperity.
Global war will happen again someday, and I would not bet on the loser giving up and letting us take over their nation, if they can unleash a volley of nukes on us. Especially where Islam may control a European state’s nukes, given how it is going over there. All they need is to get control of one nuclear power, and they will view launching as Allah’s will.
Whats the point in boobytrapping a house just for the sake of traping people who could be part of a scouting party or just refugees. At this point it degenerates full gear into impotent revenge fantasies. All this nonsense because america was seperated for so long from a real theater of war while at the same time they are affluent enough to always move away from bad places like the inner cities. Stock up on guns and food and move further out, further away from dangerzones, get a generator, dig a hole, move away, never to be tested. And speaking of flight animals and rabbits, you know what kind of animal digs holes in the ground and hides in them?
I knew guys who were full K when I was a teen. Hardcore war vets, one SF. They were bad dudes in every sense, and even as I was like family with them, there was an edge around them. They were predators, and made no bones about it, and even though they wouldn’t have preyed on me, it was a coldness and unnerving focus compared to the jokey, amusing jesters I rolled with in my own generation. They talked about less jokey stuff, they didn’t clown around, and you knew they were not to be messed with. Thinking about it now, I wonder if that edge was triggering my amygdala and creating some sort of path to later K in me.
K is not just like now, and I think people who come out of it K-ified are different in ways we, living in ease, may not like. But I also recognize that the change may be necessary, and having undergone it may not be a bad thing. True K is live or die. You don’t spare an enemy because of morals, you don’t go easy on a stranger because you want to win and be nice, and you don’t take on conflicts that can be avoided. Those guys reinforced in me that K is different that I am used to. I am not even there now myself. But I know what it is and am open, and when the time comes, if I have to, I expect I will adapt.
Factor in, none of us have been through true K, with the exception of vets, and they often come out different people. The way we view things now will change.
Yeah. Wolf spiders and badgers.
And the everlasting in my name has nothing to do with life on earth.
You could always have a few of these guarding your bunker(s). EMP hardened, of course. Amazing that DoD was too cheap to put these on all of our MRAPs. Could of saved alot of lives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p411Til7VC4
In the Silicon Valley, the tycoons are all building basements. The main reason is that land is scarce and due to zoning restrictions it is hard to consolidate lots and build out or up so they go down. If you want to double your 5,000 square foot house just dig. With some of these mansions there is no expense spared.
I’ve said on the vault many times that the simplest, cheapest way to build a vault is to pile up a big pile of dirt in a catenary curve (on top of waterproofing laid on the ground, think plastic or other). A catenary curve is the shape a chain makes hanging between two points and is the strongest curve. It would of course be flipped to make the vault. This is covered with concrete and reinforcement. If you have the equipment Shotcrete, gunite or sprayed concrete is cheapest but you could just mix the stiff up and pour it on the hill. This when dried has the lower waterproofing pulled up onto the walls and more waterproofing is added. Now the important point to reduce water problems. Pile up another two feet of Earth then possibly another thin layer of concrete “and water proof that”. Why? Dirt is a great insulator and it will dry out over time and slow the transmission of cold and heat. The second layer of dirt at the bottom(footer) you place sharp gravel so that the top Earth layer will breathe but not suck up water. It will drain. Add two more foot of topsoil or whatever to plant grass or bushes on. Then you shovel out the interior of the vaults dirt and wash the rest off with a pressure hose. I suggest making the whole thing round like a doughnut so that air will circulate.
Where I got the idea for the dual layer dirt with water proofing is from a guy who makes huge insulating mounds for all tear round air conditioning and heating. He makes big mounds of “dry” dirt and circulates cold during the winter to store for the summer and heat during the summer to store for the winter. It averages out to give you a good all year temperature with only a fan running to blow air through the pipes in the mound. Making mounds with varying materials is very much inspired by this guy. Worth reading if you’re interested in alternate house building.
http://www.planetaryrenewal.org/ipr/ultralc.html
http://www.planetaryrenewal.org/ipr/ubs.html
Instead of piling up dirt you could use his inflated forms and cover with plaster, then cement. I would suggest some vertical ribs formed in to add strength to the shell.
Notice I say use dirt and concrete. Very low cost stuff and the high cost stuff in used in thin layers. Insulation is real expensive. Have you priced blue board these days? Dirt is cheap. A further increase in strength by a lot if you have access to straw would be to use Cob, straw and clay, for the first dirt layer. If you keep it dry cob has the strength of 1/10 cement but it’s not bad. Houses made of cob exist that are hundreds of years old in England. As the first layer is covered in waterproofing and then a second layer it shouldn’t get wet and should last.
Good stuff, thanks!
The difference between a bunker and a tornado shelter is the difference between a hang glider and an airliner. Both can get you off the cliff and onto the ground, but the airliner is designed for so, so much more.
A tornado shelter is designed to handle a specific situation for a few minutes, and to be occupied for an hour or two at a time, max. It handles all of its jobs simply by having a reasonably strong roof and being below grade. Tornadoes are low-pressure events that are done in a few minutes.
A bunker has to be designed to handle overpressure from a blast, have NBC capable air handling, air circulation (something of little concern when its only occupied for a few minutes for a tornado), and a myriad of other things, like water and sewage handling, power, comms, etc.
All of that is a long way of saying, if you live in tornado alley, don’t let the expense and complication of a bunker keep you from building a tornado shelter. The tornado shelter doesn’t need to be complicated, and it doesn’t even need to be comfortable. It just needs to be something you can put up with for an hour.
FWIW, this guy built a terrible shelter for the expense he put in. It’s just a tornado shelter, and not a very good one at that. He doesn’t have a secondary escape hatch, and his flat entry door is going to be covered by his house. It’s a good thing he has lots of room in there, because it might take days for rescue teams to uncover his door so they can get out. There is no air handling other than his little AC in the wall, no water handling, etc. He’s built a half-assed basement.