[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Ultimate House (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 3/13/2010 3:32:32 AM EDT
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If you were to build a house what would you do to make it easy to defend and easy to live in for SHTF?
How would you bullet proof walls and windows? What features would it include to make day to day life eaiser? How would you lay out the floor plan? Anything at all that you would do, post it here? |
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I have seen some pretty cool things done to old stone churches that have been zoned for both commercial and residential. Huge open floor plans and kick ass bell towers for...well, we have all seen Saving Private Ryan. Bonus- a parking lot usually is on the premisis so you can have killer BBQ's and your friends wont have to park in the street.
Of course, you will be that freak living in a church... |
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I have thought a good bit about this. Police response times where I live are not great, so ones home need to be secure as help is not a few minutes away. First, nasty bushes under low windows. Second, 3m security film and break alarms.
Lighting, motion lights if you like but a good flood light to turn on from inside that illuminates the yard is a definite. Doors, solid wood or metal with serious frames and screws. I also have a kick bar for the interior bedroom door. For real SHTF a solar array would be great as well as a close water source or a hand pump well, and a wood burning stove. I am interested in rammed earth construction as I figure it would be quite bullet proof and fire resistant as well. |
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I have seen some pretty cool things done to old stone churches that have been zoned for both commercial and residential. Huge open floor plans and kick ass bell towers for...well, we have all seen Saving Private Ryan. Bonus- a parking lot usually is on the premisis so you can have killer BBQ's and your friends wont have to park in the street. Of course, you will be that freak living in a church... Doesn't matter, I am already "that freak living in the shitty house." |
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I'm going to err on the conservative side and say that i just want a nice all brick Cape Cod with a serious backup generator capable of running a well water pump and top of the line insulation. Garage size would have to be huge - at least 3-4 cars, to allow for plenty of storage for preps and to keep things like tractors and other valuable items out of sight and out of mind. The Cape cod typically has dormers which make good shooting platforms for the front ––- but also make a cozy place to get away and read the latest ish of SOF or whatever when things are not hectic.
Motion detectors close to the house would be essential as well as an alarm that would alert me if anyone of human size enters (dont want my kitty cat to set it off every 5 minutes). A nice brick and iron fence and gate across the front to keep anyone from simply driving up, and i would like the house to be set back at least 250 feet from any main roads. This type of space would require at least 5 acres i would think, but maybe as little as 2 or 3 (but more is always better) Basically i want something that still looks like a nice house on the outside, but with upgraded security and backup systems, good field of fire out the front if needed and hidden egress out the back if needed. I dont want something that looks like a fortress, just something with a lot more thought put into it than the typical suburban McMansion |
| Your cape cod would be nice but your "shooting platforms" are a weak point since they offer only concealment. If the garage is detached it is just another building to be defended. Think basement with window wells. The ones I have are large enough to use as fighting positions and have bars on the windows that only open form the inside. Even so it's mostly pointless. As the great William Shatner once tried to sing: Live life like you're gonna die.... because you are.... |
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Castles were built with all those things in mind. Get a 600 year old castle and modernize the inside. http://www.castlemagic.com/ Build new |
| Parabolic stress skin Watch the whole series and you'll get plenty of ideas. I'm looking at training rooms green houses and an underground cistern, |
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Castles were built with all those things in mind. Get a 600 year old castle and modernize the inside. http://www.castlemagic.com/ Build new That's some cool castles. My wife wouldn't go for it. |
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on a more serious note what are the long term need of a structure and historic precidents?
Requirements: Shelter from the elements- Temperature moderation- Fire resistant- Long lasting or repairable by primitive methods- Natural lighting- Historically different areas of the world had traditional housing types based on the local climate and available resources. For general survivability some form of masonry structure would be superior. Preferably either a monolithic dome with a good coating or some form of ferro-cement type structure as brick structures require maintenance and periodic repointing. some form of natural lighting is necessary, preferably in such a form that it can be easily closed off with some form of shutter to protect glass, and cover the area when glass is no longer available. Location, location location. One must build your structure some place useful. On a riverbank, on a harbor or a strategic viewing hill. Having the last surviving house in the ruins of a city is a moot point as there is little trade value, agriculural value and much cover for ones enemies. |
| Any above ground structure is going to be subject to vehicle ramming or a gallon of gasoline and a match. Ideally, go underground with dome or corrugated steel pipe, keep it secret, and hide multiple exits and air vents as these will be the weaknesses. If it can be connected to an existing home, you can supply it and get into it without anyone noticing. At least one air vent and exit should be away from the home because of fire potential in the main house. If you live in a place that can't have basements because of the water table, you're going to want to move. |
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I would use the idea of the military ammunition bunker. Solid concrete walls, roof and floor covered by earth. I would have triple pane wire reinforced outer windows with 1-1/2 inch polycast inner windows. Outer doors would be constructed of ar500 steel with Kevlar sandwiched between the inner and outer layers.
I would have a backup generator incorporated into the construction, as well as the water well. I figure that would deter most manmade problems as well as mitigate most natural occurances while being energy efficient. |
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Great ideas everyone. A couple of things to keep in mind:
My wife has to live in it so it helps it looks normal from the outside. I DO have a budget, so the patriot missile defense system will have to be put on hold. It will be built on 10 acres. I have thought a basement built half above ground and half below. the walls for the upper half will be filled with 1/2" gravel for bullet proofing. How do you keep vehicles away from the house if they are going to ram the house without providing cover for the enemy like digging an anti-tank ditch would? What ideas do you have for bulletproofing windows? Shutter? Does anyone have an idea on price or pictures of solutions? |
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There is a company that makes columns that rise from the ground to protect against vehicle rammings. I remember seeing them on an episode of Home Makeover. Hydraulic Bollards - Don't know anything about them, just the first google link. |
| There are companies that offer foam insulated concrete homes built to your design. These have 8" thick walls.I'd go with 2 stories with basement. Gradual slope away from house 360 deg all directions. Use "vents" at basement level as firing ports to provide for grazing fire at close range. Narrow windows 1st floor at all approprite places. Prepare bullet resistant shutters for those you cant defend. Arrange all landscaping so that it provides only concealment, not cover( I doubt that your wife will let you get away with a totally clear field of fire). Steel doors with a double bar system with wedges as supplementary bracing. Should look pretty normal. |
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This guy has his windows protected. Has a big fence, a big TV, and more. http://damncoolpics.blogspot.com/2010/03/house-with-moving-walls.html |
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This guy has his windows protected. Has a big fence, a big TV, and more. http://damncoolpics.blogspot.com/2010/03/house-with-moving-walls.html Good lord, how much did that place set him back?! |
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I have heard that you can put plywood on each side of the studs on the exterior walls. Then fill the space in between with gravel. Then sheetrock over the top of the sheetrock. That gives you a bullet proof wall.
What is the best way to bullet proof the windows? |
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Concrete Monolithic Dome would be the main dwelling, and all windows/doors would be protected with shutters.
Design the landscape properly and you'll be a force to reckon with. |
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Define what you have to have and how the wife affects how it can be done or if it can be done. Running searches on domes will show you that they can look somewhat normal if you build it into a hillside or just make it half a hill and work on making the inside seem normal. In today's world of ever changing utility prices the domes are nice because of how cheap they are to operate. To some extent I don't really care about purchase price at times, I get killed by monthly operating costs though so I watch those much more closely. And domes can be cheap to heat and cool. Well and septic give you some ability to do your stuff yourself but these days these are getting more and more regulated so you need to check things out for the area you are looking at. Around this area there are some really old homes that were partially or totally made, exterior wise anyway, of the local rock. And there are a lot of brick homes that are older as well. I would look in your area at what homes have stood the test of time and start considering how they survived that long. The house I rent was built in 1939 or so and while it has some window and electrical and well upgrades a lot of the old stuff is still there but it is mostly wood. But compared to today's wood this house is made of serious wood. Still not as nice as an older rock house would be. Then again you won't always be putting that addition in when messing with older rock and brick homes. So there are limits in everything, depends on what you are wanting to do. Property can be landscaped to solve some concerns about people pulling up to your house in the middle of the night and what not, depends on level of wife involvement. As mentioned a pond or something can be used and around here some huge rocks, boulders really, are used for landscaping in many places. As far as concern about a tank trap giving attackers a place to hide, consider that a gift. You have an attractive place people might gather while thinking about how to do you harm. Put a bit of thought into how to take advantage of that, but don't expect everyone to congregate there. I like the old church mention and to some extent some of the old commercial buildings or newer brick commercial buildings that are sitting empty are something to consider as well. Commercial stuff is often built pretty strong compared to some of today's little stick buildings. I personally think finding the right property means a lot. Regardless of how big a chunk of land is, if the house is built in a poor spot it is built in a poor spot. While I rent a house on 28 acres there is another house on the property and due to main road placement and locations of neighbors it is not really as isolated as it might sound. It is nice compared to the burbs but it is not as nice as it could potentially be. If the wife is set on something that looks stick built then I would look into the insulated concrete forms, search icf, and figure out what to do from there. To some extent having your house on grid power with an instant on backup generator can make things pretty safe if you set up your garage doors with quality openers so they work on the genny well and you pay attention when pulling into the garage. Having the garage attached to the house then lets you avoid getting out of the vehicle when coming home or leaving home. But a garage is someplace most people expect you to go as well, so what is a strength can also be a liability. Plus I know a lot of folks who don't watch their mirrors on the car to know if the local stray dog or cat got in the garage with them, let alone a burglar. I wind up wishy washy on lots of gates on a long driveway because gates are something easy to disable and you have to then leave your vehicle to check it out when trying to leave or come home. I kind of like the gates that operate with a motor but I consider them easier to disable than a garage door. |
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Any above ground structure is going to be subject to vehicle ramming or a gallon of gasoline and a match. Ideally, go underground with dome or corrugated steel pipe, keep it secret, and hide multiple exits and air vents as these will be the weaknesses. If it can be connected to an existing home, you can supply it and get into it without anyone noticing. At least one air vent and exit should be away from the home because of fire potential in the main house. If you live in a place that can't have basements because of the water table, you're going to want to move. As has been stated, landscaping can cut down on the ramability, and good luck trying to burn down a concrete house with a gallon of gas. Used as a bomb, you might be able to crack it, but you'd better know what you're doing if you want to do any non-cosmetic damage. |
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Another vote here for ICF or Internal/Integrated Concrete Form construction as a good way to build an extremely rugged house that looks "traditional" if all the monolithic dome and earth bermed/buried home ideas are a non-starter.
It's also still very energy efficient which is another SHTF concern. Commercial grade doors, 3M shatterguard on the windows, and maybe something clever with shutters would leave you more secure than 99% of the homes out there. |
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If you were to build a house what would you do to make it easy to defend and easy to live in for SHTF? How would you bullet proof walls and windows? What features would it include to make day to day life easier? How would you lay out the floor plan? Anything at all that you would do, post it here? The only problem is, in the situation when you will really have to defend your stuff, static positions are undefendable unless you have artillery or air support. One guy who knows where you are and can drive a bulldozer can have out of the house in short order. Not saying hardening a house is bad, but not a cure all..... I am more of the "If they don't know where I am, they can't try and take my stuff" mind set. Read the short story, (was it "The Survivor"?) where the guy bunkered in under his house in an old missile silo... I'm not so dramatic as to buy or build the equivalent to a missile silo, but an unoccupied house on the surface while living under ground in a well build hidden shelter might be a better solution depending on the situation. I guess it all depends on the different degrees of failure you might think the society is heading for, planning for each degree is hard. prepping for the worst is almost impossible.... WDS |
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Think about your ultimate goals when hardening a home, or building a harder home.
As others have stated, you cannot withstand a siege forever. Even with a water well, tons of food preps, and anything else you might need, it will eventually run out. As stated by others, your home cannot be completely hardened against a determined attacker. A bulldozer or breaching charges will make openings where there weren't any before. So, against what are you defending? Do you want to deter or prevent burglaries or home invasions? Do you want to bug-in for short or long term? Do you expect the government to come take your guns? The first two would be fairly easy to deal with if you're able to plan ahead when building. You could make some changes to your existing house to make it harder. But no matter what you do, you cannot resist a government force with basically unlimited resources. Let's say you're starting from scratch. You have several things to consider when designing the house, and all of them have to be balanced with your budget constraints. You can't really defend a home if you're foreclosed upon and have to live somewhere else. The things you've got to think about are: -Floorplan -Building construction -Location -Escape -Actually living in it -Preps When it comes to floorplan and layout, this is a criterion that affects every single other item on the list. You're trying to make sure you can defend the home from the inside, either with active defense, or just by the nature of the way building construction and location deter or prevent unwanted entry. First and foremost, you want to be able to see around your home without leaving your home. One of Jeff Cooper's books goes into this a little bit, and it's what I'll draw upon for this part. Most homes have HUGE blind spots. Some entire sides of a home have no windows at all. There are some ways to fix this. Some architecture lends itself to these ideas more than others. You either need areas on an outside wall that stick out just a little bit, with small windows facing back down the length of the outside of the home, or you need some other way to make a window stick out from a wall. Bay windows are an easy way to do this. They give you 180 degrees of view from the inside of your home. I really like Victorian architecture for this. It often uses entire octagonal turrets with windows all around. Sections of wall are bumped out away from the rest of the house, and could easily include a thin window that would peer back down the wall. In this manner, no one could stand outside your home without you being able to see them. In the same breath, you want to be able to view the front door without going to it. You want someone walking up to your door to feel like they're already inside your home, enveloped by it. In this manner, you have alternate views of them, as well as alternate points of attack. You could accomplish some of the view issues through cameras and video systems, but these systems are defeated, expensive, and still don't allow you to shoot at the person you can see in those blind spots. Your floorplan needs to address how you would defend yourself and your family if someone DID enter your home. Having doors at the ends of hallways, for instance, gives an attacker a running start. Having doorways that oppose each other makes your home much harder to clear than if doorways are staggered or all on one side of the hall. Building construction is something that has been discussed at length in this thread so far. But not in depth. You need to seriously research various building construction methods available to you. They have inherent costs and limitations. For instance, dimensional lumber has better fire resistance than engineered beams or trusses, but you won't find boards that will span as far or hold as much weight as the engineered structures. Fire destroys a lot of homes. The type of wood frame construction used in most residential homes these days only accelerates fire spread and structural collapse. Dimensional lumber and heavy timber construction are more expensive and have design limits, but they hold up to fire far better, because the increased mass takes longer to burn to the point of failure. If you intend to make your home resistant to projectiles, you're going to spend a lot of money. Evaluate the importance and the chance of this threat. It might be better to make PART of your home bullet resistant. Either a safe room, or the lower halves of walls or something like that. I don't know that I would worry about bullet resistant glass. If you build your home like a gun safe, you have to open the door to get out. You want a way to be able to get people away from the door before you open it. Shooting through walls or glass might be the only way to do that. Keep in mind also that whatever locks people out also locks you in. If you do experience a fire or other emergency inside your home, you don't want to die at the door or window, fumbling with locks or window bars. This means that you might want to consider non-double-keyed deadbolts, and make sure there are no windows within reach of the doorknobs. Window bars are deathtraps for occupants and firefighters. They're not usually that hard to defeat with a little knowledge. Attachment points can be sheared with an axe and a striking tool, or just plain yanked out of the walls. Either way, look at some of the laminated glass products that won't allow someone to break your windows and get in. Consider also that you won't be able to break them to get out. Windows can be forced open, as can doors. There are plenty of methods to make this harder, but it's never impossible if the person trying to get in is determined and/or knowledgeable. Please consider a sprinkler system. Water damage and fire damage are both bad, but if only one sprinkler head pops, you can at least save a whole lot of possessions from smoke and fire damage. That same fire without a sprinkler would likely destroy everything that the sprinkler water did, plus the structure, plus smoke damage, plus the water damage created when the fire is ultimately put out. Where you locate your home on the property is very important, as are the grounds around the home. Your home needs to be on some sort of high ground, both for drainage reasons and visibility/defense. It's harder to attack your home uphill, and you can see farther than if you're in a valley. You may want to clear the area around your home to eliminate hiding spots and the risk of fire if you're in a forested area. Landscape to conceal any preps you may want hidden, such as underground access, generators, etc. Plant mean bushes around your home to keep people out from under your windows. You can use these to create natural defenses such as hedgerows, too. Creation of berms and ditches will prevent vehicle access to your home, except through driveways. You can make your home secluded and invisible from the road, but this also means that you're harder to find and access by emergency personnel. It means that you need to really plan your exit strategy. If there's only one way in and out, you're stuck there very easily. Being secluded leaves your home more vulnerable to attack when you're not there, because the attacker feels hidden in his actions. No one wants to try to break in if he thinks the neighbors might drive by and see him. If you're drilling a well, that may affect the location of your home. Finally, think about another category- actually living in your home. When you clear cut around your home, you make it harder to heat and cool. Try to orient your home with one wall and a lot of windows facing south. On this south side, you want deciduous trees (ones that lose their leaves in winter), tall ones, that will block a lot of the sun in the summer months. They don't have to be close to the house if they're big enough, but you want them to block a lot of the direct sunlight if you can. You don't want them in range of falling on your home, either. On the north side of your home, you want a windbreak made of a row of evergreen trees. Something like cypress that grows 20-30 feet, but covers from the ground on up would be good. In the winter, many of your strong winds come from the north. This could be different for different areas of the country, so adjust accordingly. As mentioned a couple times so far, you don't want to be forced into a siege if you don't want to be, just because you've left no way out. This doesn't mean you need a tunnel leading to a secret escape hatch a half mile away (that'd be nice). It means you need to consider your exits in all emergencies, from fire to break-in, to JBT's coming down the road. There are immediate needs, like getting out of a room or out of the house. This is where building construction and floorplan are important. If you have no way out because you're on the top floor without an escape ladder, and your main means of egress is blocked, you have failed to plan for escape. You also need to figure out how you will get away from your home if you need to get AWAY from your home. With or without a vehicle, you need a plan to bug out. Even if this is a bug-in location, you may need to bug out. Unless this is your Hitler bunker, and you and Eva Braun are going to die there. If you've only got one road to your house, you need a vehicle that can go off-road. Or you need good hiking legs and supplies for hiking. Someone mentioned a detached garage earlier. Think about having either an attached garage, or a garage that's got a completely enclosed walkway to it from the house. I like the idea of being able to go to a barn or garage without being exposed, both to the elements and to view. It's an escape route if no one can see you go there. It's a way to get to another tactical position, too. A tunnel would be great, but it's not practical or cost effective for most people. It makes no sense to plan for the unlikely and unfortunate and completely ignore the absolutely certain- living in this home is what you'll be doing the most. It needs to be comfortable to live and/or work in. Make halls and doorways easy enough to navigate with a wheelchair or stretcher. It doesn't mean you have to go ADA compliant with the whole place, but be mindful of the more likely events- that you might need EMS to take you out of there because you're sick or hurt. Or you might need to be able to get around if you're in a wheelchair for a short or long bit. Who knows, maybe you'll live there for a LONG time, and end up in a wheelchair. Or you might end up housing elderly parents. Just a little bit of planning makes the adjustments to lifestyle changes a bit easier. Budgets affect a lot of how houses are built. I suggest checking out a book called The Not So Big House. It's about designing a home for how we really live. You can take some of the ideas, whether you're building a fortified bunker or a beach home, and make your home more livable. Essentially, the book describes the typical modern American home, with huge, open floorplans, vaulted ceilings, etc., and shows how we don't even use most of the space in our homes. But if you altered things a little bit, made your home smaller and more comfortable, and use the money savings from building a smaller home to make the home more details-oriented. After all, this thread is all about the details. In line with that is make sure your home is efficient. Building with certain materials and methods helps, but choose a floorplan that doesn't allow all your heat to go up to the second level and collect in a vaulted ceiling where you can't possibly use it. My home is that way. I have so much wasted space where there is a vaulted ceiling that's open to almost half of the first floor. My house could have another 750 square feet of living space or more if there were a floor there instead of air. Last but not least, don't compare anything to a castle if you want to live in it. TRUE early castles were fortresses. They were not palaces. They weren't even homes. They were not made for comfortable living or permanent living. They were meant to be occupied by a military force, and were often moved in and out of as necessary to show a presence or strength in the area. They were made for one thing only- defense. The more comfortable a building is for living, the less defensible it is. Once rulers started living in them, they because luxury residences, got bigger, got harder to defend. Preps. Incorporate appropriate storage and housing for your family's preps. If you're prepping for a long-term survival, think about not only storage of enough supplies, but a workshop to work on things that break over the long term, be it vehicles or appliances, or whatever. Think about what you need to be self-sufficient, even if we're not in SHTF mode. If you leave room for it, it'll be easier to be more self sufficient when you're ready for that next step. For instance, if you try to stock up on wheat, but you have nowhere to mount a grinder or store wheat or flour, you're kind of stuck. If you have nowhere to put shelves in a climate controlled area for stocking cans, you might be out of luck in winter or summer months. Think about things like root cellars, reloading benches, workshops, canning, etc. |
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If you were to build a house what would you do to make it easy to defend and easy to live in for SHTF? How would you bullet proof walls and windows? What features would it include to make day to day life easier? How would you lay out the floor plan? Anything at all that you would do, post it here? The only problem is, in the situation when you will really have to defend your stuff, static positions are undefendable unless you have artillery or air support. One guy who knows where you are and can drive a bulldozer can have out of the house in short order. Really? While you do what, wait inside hiding under an end table? If you're actively defending, a single guy, bulldozer or no, isn't going to be much of a threat. In fact, unless he's driving one of those stealth bulldozers, I'd doubt he'd make it anywhere near the house, and would probably be better off trying to sneak up on foot rather than announcing his evil intent a long rifle shot away. Artillery and air support are what made castles go away, not what kept them alive. Against small arms it amounts to a siege, and being warm, comfortable, and fed means that you've got the advantage over a roving band that's out to take what's yours. Unless you're standing off an organized force with supply lines, you've got no reason to be kiting off into the woods to fight a guerrilla war against the "invaders", and hiding underground gives them, if they find you, a much greater advantage than if they have to approach a hardened structure with fire points. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: If you were to build a house what would you do to make it easy to defend and easy to live in for SHTF? How would you bullet proof walls and windows? What features would it include to make day to day life easier? How would you lay out the floor plan? Anything at all that you would do, post it here? The only problem is, in the situation when you will really have to defend your stuff, static positions are undefendable unless you have artillery or air support. One guy who knows where you are and can drive a bulldozer can have out of the house in short order. Really? While you do what, wait inside hiding under an end table? If you're actively defending, a single guy, bulldozer or no, isn't going to be much of a threat. In fact, unless he's driving one of those stealth bulldozers, I'd doubt he'd make it anywhere near the house, and would probably be better off trying to sneak up on foot rather than announcing his evil intent a long rifle shot away. Artillery and air support are what made castles go away, not what kept them alive. Against small arms it amounts to a siege, and being warm, comfortable, and fed means that you've got the advantage over a roving band that's out to take what's yours. Unless you're standing off an organized force with supply lines, you've got no reason to be kiting off into the woods to fight a guerrilla war against the "invaders", and hiding underground gives them, if they find you, a much greater advantage than if they have to approach a hardened structure with fire points. Yes, but it's the gummint that's coming for the castle-dwellers, remember? |
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Remember....ANY house you build can be broken into. If you build your house so impervious that no one can get in, it will look like a prison and you won't be able to afford the 24/7 guards that your place WILL need.
Remember this rule. You don't/can't make your house impervious to all. You just have to make your house LESS attractive than your neighbors house. Thugs are lazy and will always take the path of least resistance. Good ideas in this thread to make your house less attractive. Just don't think that you can make your house impervious. And, if you really think that the government will be coming to take your stored rice....guess what. In the end, they WILL win and you WILL lose. So, make your house less tempting than your neighbors and don't attract attention of the government types by bragging on the net about how you have 100 stolen government hand grenades and you won't have to worry about the government either. |
| As for window shutters, I've been toying with the idea of using 1/8" steel to make louvred shutters when I build my house. Of course, it would require that the studs next to my windows be beefed up a bit, and I'd have to get clever with the hardware and hinges, but I figure if I built the louvres with a sheet behind them, that would effectively deter a molotov cocktail. Add in a slab of 1 1/2" HDPE before you shut them, and it's pretty much bulletproof. |
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Castles were built with all those things in mind. Get a 600 year old castle and modernize the inside. Castles were only good for catapults. Once gunpowder came on the scene, people could lay siege and take down the walls from far too great of a distance, rendering the walls pretty useless. But I guess that not terribly many people pack arty.... |