The plan:

40' sea container

reinforce with 3/4 inch rebar on sides horizontally and vertically

reinforce the top with 3" square tubing

spray with gunite - like a pool

bury 18" underground and pour concrete around and under it.  it would sit on piers

lay railroad ties on top of concrete for added reinforcement

What say you?

I would say that the reinforcement is key.  I have heard they can cave in iff buried because they are made to be stacked.  I think a member who is in Iraq mentioned burying them sideways?

up side down.  I bought 2 and I would not want to go deep underground with one. I would rather pour a re-enforced concrete sides if its underground. The sides will cave in under pressure. Better to get a 8-12ft culvert. They are designed for underground. I would sandbag the sides of the container and fill in with a dirt berm. You just have to use tie rods to run into the berm to keep the sandbag wall from pressing on the container. Those big ass containers they fill with sand in Iraq would be just the ticket to have next to the box. They won't move and with a berm it would be bullet and storm proof. The boxes I got were insulated and the walls finished with stainless steel. The floor was alumium track so wires and water pipes could be run to the position needed. I put down 1/4 ply and carpet. Had to sell them off  though. I miss them and the farm. WJ

Spray it with gunite and have rebar reinforcement and it should be bomb proof.  That is seriously strong stuff.  Consider an average pool weighs 60 to 80 tons when full.  You probably would not need the railroad ties.

Go ahead and do it.  Post pics.

Dibs on guns & ammo.....

Seems to me if one has the ability and resources to do all the digging,reinforceing and concrete work that you might do better to just build a concrete vault.

Why restrict your self to the demensions of a shipping container?

The other problem in any area where there is any moisture or ground water is that the steel container will tend to rust out if burried

most of the material I can get for free.  the expenses are gunite, container and digging

So once again, why not just do it right the first time? To me, it seems like the gunite & container are just wasted money if you're going to be putting all the other expenses in it anyways. But maybe I just don't understand what you're trying to do.

www.monolithic.com  <––––this would be ten times easier than what you are considering, and they have been buried no problem.

Don't mess with a shipping container buried underground, unless you just want to 'Bubba it', with no help from a structural engineer. I would call this a death wish.

I haven't been online here in a long time. I had unread messages in my box from March of 2008. I am sorry for taking so long to answer them, but I did just now.

I wonder how many bunker posts I have missed as I really like these. Anyway, I have some time so I thought I would jump in here and give my opinion for what it's worth.


I see you are from Texas, so I'm taking that into consideration. Every place I have been in Texas, it is dry, hot, and windy. It's so dry the ground will crack and crack BIG. Now what happens is the wind blows and blows more dry dirt into these cracks. A couple months later it rains and the ground expands back to its normal state. The problem is you have more dirt that went into those cracks and it too wants to expand to its normal state. This isn't a problem unless you have a basement or an underground shelter. The hydraulic expansion will push any wall in over time no matter how thick you make it. That's why there are so few basements in Texas, at least the places I have seen.

To get around this you would build something like a Monolithic dome which I have posted many pictures on how to build them on here. The dome is round and curves up. This acts as a ramp so to speak and makes a path for the earth to go up and around and not through a flat wall. Basically it is what Canada does with there bridges up north to break up ice. The ice pushes up a tapered concrete ramp on the support and breaks up the ice and it flows harmlessly around the bridge supports.

Don't try to stop the earth, but give it a easier path to take.

Also, rebar like you are planning on doing along with the square stock on top won't work very well. It may not sound like much, but 18'' of dirt over head on a conex it a lot of weight. Figure your conex roof has 320 square feet, and 18'' of dirt for a total of 480 cubic feet of earth. Figure each WET cubic foot of earth is at least 125 pounds, so you now have 60,000 pounds of earth over head, and this does not include any safety factor at all. You would have to build something to support that as the conex won't even come close. Even a concrete roof will need a lot of rebar and concrete walls to support the concrete roof. At this point, you have to ask yourself what the conex is really doing that a cheaper form of construction could do and do better as far as laying out a more usable floor plan.

You can do it I guess, if you want to throw a lot of money at it. I mean anything is possible these days, it just comes down to money. You could pour concrete in a ramp form all the way around the conex, but that is going to cost you, but you will avoid the hydraulic expassion of the earth pushing in your walls. Go out maybe 4 or 5 feet at the bottom and pour a ramp going up to the top of your conex. Then as the earth expands or shifts, it has a place to go other than your shelter.

For storage the refrigerated containers are the best as they are insulated.  I would not bury one however without a ton of research, the cost of reinforcing it would be more than building g a proper underground site IMO.

I think it could be done, but I am not sure your idea is the answer.

No reason you could not set a concrete pad on top of it with the weight sitting on the pads where they are designed to take the weight of containers stacked on top of them.

I would be most worried about the sides caving in, but it is no worse than a standard basement wall.

You probably would want to coat it somehow so it does not rust out.

I think this is another case where you might want to pay someone competent to help you come up with the plans.

About 1-2 per week.
 Bunker threads make me dream of having a large acreage where I could build a bunker far from prying eyes.



 

I need to stop by more often.

Then you would love this place. A home that is a bunker at the sametime. The extra cost building a dome underground is just the cost of the hole, back filling, and a tunnel system. Everything else is the same. This one looks like it has about three feet of earth over head, plus four inches of concrete, three inches of polyurathane foam, and the airform. I don't care of the paint job inside, but hey, it's their dime, not mine.

Construction pictures.
http://www.monolithic.com/stories/underground-homes-good-or-bad/photos

Inside pictures of the home.
http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-invisible-dome-home/photos