# Above ground fallout shelter?/food storage



## UniqueOldGal (Mar 7, 2012)

Has anyone built a fallout shelter with 4ft cement/earth walls or whatever above ground and covered the roof? We are just too old to dig and a contractor to bury a cement "root cellar" with walls good enough as a backup fallout shelter seems like too much money around here-sigh. I just think combining a shelter and root cellar ought to work well and be a disguise(for the fallout shelter part) too!


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## Von Helman (Oct 31, 2009)

If I am correct the reason root cellars are in the ground is the earth / soil around the walls helps them maintain a cooler temperature. 

above ground root cellar.. not sure if it would work the same


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## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

Any basement will be a fine fallout shelter. even an above ground interior room that's at least one room removed from a room thats facing outside is quite sufficient.

_Distance is as good a shield, or better, than earth and concrete!_
radiation lessens by distance to the 3rd power!

So a dose rate that is 100 rads per hour at 1 yard, will be 1 rad/hour at 10 yards!!
And that's not even including the shielding inherent to your walls.

In other words a dose rate that WILL kill you if you stay in place outside your window, will turn into something very very managable and likely give you negligible dose (not by current regulatory standards but by post nuclear war thinking) in the 3 days time byt the end of which it has mostly decayed away.

Now not everyone can be 10 yards away but even 5 yards will make a tremendous difference!
Quite likely in many cases the difference between a significant dose and a one that you would never notice.

Just give yourself distance from the windows while you sleep/work/wait and you will be fine in nearly all conceivable cases.

Short trips to areas close to the windows would be fine too in if you need to get food/water/ammo or to use the bathroom. (And no your stored food will NOT be radioactive even if it <is> stored near the outside!)

My source is 15+ years in civilian and military WMD emergency response including the occasional dose rate and shielding calculations.

Cheers,


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## dahur (Dec 18, 2009)

I think I read somewhere it takes 8 ft of earth to stop 100% of the gamma from fallout. And after a month or so it's mostly decayed away.

Don't remember where I read it...maybe on here.


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## LongRider (May 8, 2012)

UniqueOldGal said:


> We are just too old to dig and a contractor to bury a cement "root cellar"


You can rent a Backhoe cheap by the day. If you can mix and pour concrete you can run one. In the ground will be easier to pour than above ground. I am sure Von Helman can correct me on that if I am mistaken. Under ground will be more efficient and affective than above ground By definition under ground has far more insulation and protection


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## CVORNurse (Oct 19, 2008)

Read some of Jerry Young's fiction stories, available here in the fiction section. I believe he does research on his stories. He has several where the people built above ground double wall shelters. With dirt compacted between the walls for the protection factor.

I am going to search because I have seen plans for an above ground shelter that was set as a pool house or something like that

Here is a link to plans for an above ground shelter, this is the one I was thinking of:
http://www.survivalring.org/shelters/aboveground-fallout-shelter/


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## jmofaustin (Oct 14, 2012)

*Shelter*



UniqueOldGal said:


> Has anyone built a fallout shelter with 4ft cement/earth walls or whatever above ground and covered the roof? We are just too old to dig and a contractor to bury a cement "root cellar" with walls good enough as a backup fallout shelter seems like too much money around here-sigh. I just think combining a shelter and root cellar ought to work well and be a disguise(for the fallout shelter part) too!


Have you looked into this one? http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Build-an-Earthbag-Dome/ I was thinking about building one with bags of concrete mix instead of filling dirt bags.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

http://www.ki4u.com/

Try the site above. They have reams of info regarding nuclear war survival.


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## kappydell (Nov 27, 2011)

My late spouse's aunt & uncle built a fallout/root cellar combo on their farm back in the 50's. It was basically a double long root cellar with a dividing door. Anyone peeking inside saw veggies, if you opened the door behind the moveable shelves, voila, there it was, ready to use. The nice thing was, that if you needed to live inside, the food was handy in an adjoining room! I always liked their design....


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## oldasrocks (Jun 30, 2012)

The trouble above or below ground is water seepage. If you hand mix the concrete you will have way too many cold seams for water to seep through. You need to pour the base, install "waterstop" in the concrete before it dries. Form the wall and do the same in the top of the wall before pouring the roof. Waterstop is a rubber barrier that you stick 1/2 way down and pour around the other half with the wall.

Been there and done that with a wine cellar in Colorado a long time ago. As the concrete dries it shrinks enough to allow water through the seams.

Another problem is seepage through the concrete itself. It's expensive but you can add a chemical that makes the concrete waterproof. If you don't it will be damp all the time regardless of how well you tar the outside before you backfill or over cover it.

Do it right or don't do it because you will never be happy or safe otherwise. Be sure to put plenty of rebar in the concrete and fiber also.


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## capt. (Dec 15, 2017)

Again FM 5-34 will show you how to do this. One way is to bury a shipping container ,BUT !!! you must use a Gabion rock fence around it, as the container will not support the dirt. This can be done above or below ground level. At the entry you will need a 90 degree turn with gabion and dirt wall to stop a straight line to the entrance, and a top strong enough to hold the weight. Above ground you can reinforce a container with a simple post and beam system,(use cedar/oak/steel, anything you can get) and it is easier to retro fit air (need to exchange it), filter it! , water , heat ,etc above ground before you cover it up. Bags of redy mix on (sale )stacked around a inside box and will harden up and work, also adds mass. Put dirt over it and plants so the root system helps hold it, and camo it from view. MASS!!!!! . You will need mass earth sand rock at least 4 ft. more the better. You can partly put in ground and finish off like the older root cellar' s that had a high water table. Surviving dooms day (book) may have it?. but The Army 5-34 eng. hand book gives a lot of info. I have built a lot of bunkers over the years and I wish I had a nice one to go to. Guess I need to put one in my back yard too. The other thing that helps is distance like you in basement and a 2nd floor roof to keep fallout farther away. Only reason we caused so much damage in Japan was most of the buildings were paper/wood, without concrete. Watch some of the footage it will tell you a lot. Should only need to stay in about 2 weeks, Get a Meter. Good luck. For water you can spray foam it , kit form from home depot. Lots of info out there, get books,digi data may not survive.


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