Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 5:23 am Post subject: Re: A simple bunker idea..."the tube"
Looks like a great idea and congrats on the gumption to actually follow through and making the thing... there sometimes be more talk than action on the issue of prepardness.
Regarding all of the critiques it seems to me that hope for the best is often the enemy of doing something productive. Is "the tube" fool proof or perfect? Probably not but it is something. _________________ "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
-Friedrich von Schiller
"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Kenneth Galbraith
Joined: Aug 04, 2005 Posts: 425 Location: Traded the man in front of the tank for a cat playing the banjo
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 5:43 am Post subject: Re: A simple bunker idea..."the tube"
By the way, I've heard some guys made a bunker burying an old school bus, you can get one for less than 2.000 $ and its quite strong. _________________ When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem.
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 7:09 am Post subject: Re: A simple bunker idea..."the tube"
kevincarter wrote:
Nice, but having so many guns I'm surprised you don't have anyway to shoot from the inside out. Have you thought about making the top of it more foxhole / warbunker like? So that two or three people can stay in there and defend that position while having most of their body underground?
Nice idea!!!
Pstarr and others have mentioned before...community bonding is key.
I hope I have picked a location where it does not come to mano a mano combat...I hope a couple simple road blocks...a massive die off of the phx metropolitian are, and luck prevail.
I have two young kids...I really just want us to slip away...and return to something when the first and second waves have done their jobs.
Grim I know, but overshoot is a bitch. _________________ 500 MPH into a brick wall - me
Joined: May 24, 2004 Posts: 3429 Location: California, USA
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:17 am Post subject: Re: A simple bunker idea..."the tube"
Nice job. Any ideas about recon while inside? Also communications. Also sanitation: sewage and garbage, and washing your body and clothes. Water supply?
The thing that will give away any underground hidey-hole is the thermal signature of warm air being exhausted from a vent somewhere, visible with the right types of infrared imaging systems. IMHO a tight neighborhood minimizes the chance of having to fight outsiders on home turf; they have to get into the neighborhood first; the perimeter of the entire neighborhood (or hopefully, region) becomes the point of contact with routine hostiles.
Someone in our group mentioned burying corrugated steel culverts as expedient fallout shelters. Interesting to see it done. I was thinking of large diameter concrete sewer pipe rather than steel culvert. This could be backed up with additional concrete poured in place atop it, before backfilling with earth.
Northern CA is not on any of the nuclear target maps, but just the same, I get a certain uneasy feeling about the risk of nuclear war, given the resource competition expected in this century.
Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 3:45 pm Post subject: Re: A simple bunker idea..."the tube"
Storm shelters and root cellar round up
==================================
Classic
Concrete block or poured. Building to code probably requires inspection in most areas.
Alternative materials like sandbags or timber might be used, but may not pass more modern building codes if that applies to your area.
-------------------------------------------------------
Hillbilly
The "OMG you built that yourself, are you sure that's legal?" root cellar. It works if there are no building codes and no neighbors... Also a great way to make bases for paintball!
Medium cost and structurally sound. Also since many designs use materials that the city uses and require installation by a contractor, they are less likely to conflict with building codes (depends on area).
Roccland used the large can design. And with the locking manhole cover on top, it is large yet subtle in appearances.
Barrel root cellars are a classic and subtle way to store apples and root crops without building a more extensive structure. They can be easily added to most gardens and are unlikely to conflict with building codes. Though they do not provide human shelter, they can be made using many different materials and can be an excellent asset to any remote garden.
Joined: Jun 25, 2005 Posts: 257 Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 11:37 am Post subject: Re: A simple bunker idea..."the tube"
I'm sorry, but I really don't get the point.
A root cellar should have a level entrance for easy access carrying supplies in and out, (built into a hill is good) and an airlock door system.
This looks like a bomb shelter, but it's a death trap. I wouldn't want to retreat into that from any threat.
I hope that you have access to the top of it severely restricted, because if I was a marauder, and not the peaceable soul that I am, my move would be to park a car over the manhole, run a hose from the exhaust to your vent, and move off a short distance, perhaps have a beer while I wait for my new supplies to become officially mine.
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 9:42 pm Post subject: Re: A simple bunker idea..."the tube"
oiless wrote:
I'm sorry, but I really don't get the point.
A root cellar should have a level entrance for easy access carrying supplies in and out...
I think being difficult to unload could be a good thing. If you're long term storage is a truck with wheels, somebody may roll away with it. But if you're storage is harder to unload, theft is simply more difficult and hard not to notice.
oiless wrote:
This looks like a bomb shelter, but it's a death trap. I wouldn't want to retreat into that from any threat.
Depends on the threat... Angry raiders, probably not. But it would work fine as temporary shelter, storm shelter or shelter from fallout.
oiless wrote:
...because if I was a marauder, and not the peaceable soul that I am, my move would be to park a car over the manhole, run a hose from the exhaust to your vent, and move off a short distance, perhaps have a beer while I wait for my new supplies to become officially mine.
A good point individual castles and pipe fortresses are not a good way to win against angry mobs. However strategically, having multiple home-bases with supplies and small entrances that are easy to conceal, that could be advantageous in many situations.
Also things could happen a lot of ways. Like the famine/genocides in Ukraine, perhaps everyone will go into town to get their alloted government rations. Rocc goes into his very empty looking shed to get his backpack. Comes out, goes to town and comes back with his alloted rations for his family + a few extra rations from the supplies under the trap door. "Sorry neighbor, but they give me better rations because I'm doing important work for them...", Or "I don't know why I haven't gotten sick at the work camp(antibiotics), I guess god must be protecting me..."
And there are many other scenarios where a person could take advantage of having well hidden supplies when the store shelves are empty... So whatever happens, having a hiddy hole or several as Rocc is working on, is like having multiple bank accounts. And as the US Empire crumbles Rocc's investments may become like multiple big winner lottery tickets (unfortunately with better odds).
I see this sort of thing as something that can provide personal security on so many levels, in a time when everyone depends on Walmart's three day inventory of food and the good times to never end... Plus hey, it's big cool and made of metal! How can you not like that! It's not he made it out of a converted septic tank?
The converted septic tank "root cellar"
"Hey, want to hide from the angry mobs with me, I know somewhere no one is going to look..." Or "Why does this apple smell funny?"
"Just doing a little cleaning..."
This is usually where somebody starts chucking beer bottles...
Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 10:11 pm Post subject: Re: A simple bunker idea..."the tube"
Excellent Mike - thanks for the air support...I would have answered nearly exactly the way you did.
I am dealing with AP on 911.
I really should drop out of that thread, but now that most all my preps are done...I can play a little.
BTW it has taken me well over 4 months to load that cellar...one box at a time up 12 feet and down 12 feet...it would be extremely difficult to unload.
I make another trip tomorrow - Mountain House food and more ammo. _________________ 500 MPH into a brick wall - me
Joined: Jun 25, 2005 Posts: 257 Location: British Columbia, Canada
Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:11 pm Post subject: Re: A simple bunker idea..."the tube"
Roccland wrote:
BTW it has taken me well over 4 months to load that cellar...one box at a time up 12 feet and down 12 feet...it would be extremely difficult to unload.
I guess that was my point. My parents were homesteaders, "back to the landers", I grew up in the country. We packed litteraly tons of potatoes, carrots, onions, bottled preserves, and so on, into and out of our root cellar, year in and year out. It was built into a hillside and had a level entrance to facilitate this.
I think maybe more Americans have a siege mentality than Canadians, you expect to have to hide stuff, and maybe yourselves, while we probably feel that it won't come to that.
Not as survivalistic I guess.
BTW, if you want to booby trap a root cellar, which should be airtight by design, place something like a kerosene lamp in it. It will burn until it runs out of oxygen, meanwhile filling the air with carbon monoxide. The air will remain lethal for quite some time. You can come home and drag (hoist in your case ) the dead maurauders out at your leisure.
You can also produce lamp black this way.
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) the dead maurauders out at your leisure.
