# retrofit shelter



## Asatrur (Dec 17, 2008)

I live in an urban area on maybe if I am lucky 1/5th of an acre most of which is either house, garage or garden for feeding us. I am wanting to build a shelter somewhere and was wondering if people had done this type of thing or had ideas. I have a slab garage that is used for storage and not cars and one idea I had was to see what it would take to pull up some of the slab and dig out for a shelter. Any input/ideas would be great.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

What I might suggest is finding out first where all your utilities are run and start working from there. Underground water, sewer, power, gas - etc could make for a very bad day.

From there, I would suggest maybe cutting out a small section of your garage floor and digging it out to become a stairway to a "pit" in your backyard - fill the pit with concrete blocks, cover with a concrete cap and then backfill the whole zone and replant your lawn / garden / etc.

Rebuild your garage from normal stick to cinder-block walls and a double-insulated garage door and full-steel man-door - again - seal it fully. For the roof, do a sheet-metal ceiling with wooden-rafters to a light-guage sheet-metal inner-roof, wooden outter roof topped with tin-roofing. Put a steep-pitch on the roof (so that nothing can collect on it) and you should be good.

Once that is complete, you have a fairly well protected upper-level as well as a fully protected lower level. Nothing short of an atomic-blast will move a garage built like that and underground you would be safe from everything but flooding waters.


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## Doomsayer (Apr 6, 2010)

Yes find your utilities, but my sugestion would tunnel from your basement using cinderblocks and timber shore up wall and roof. cut through your basement wall and start digging.less people to what u are up to. dig out til under garage


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## bunkerbob (Sep 29, 2009)

mn_homesteader said:


> I live in an urban area on maybe if I am lucky 1/5th of an acre most of which is either house, garage or garden for feeding us. I am wanting to build a shelter somewhere and was wondering if people had done this type of thing or had ideas. I have a slab garage that is used for storage and not cars and one idea I had was to see what it would take to pull up some of the slab and dig out for a shelter. Any input/ideas would be great.


 Been there, doing it... http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f38/continuing-shelter-2005/

http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f38/prototype-co2-scrubber-2150/
http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f38/co-2-scrubber-2109/

http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f38/continuing-shelter-2120/
Its under my workshop slab. This is the second one.
Thus the moniker *'bunkerbob'*


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