New safe room for a family member

[quake]

I started to post this in the "what have you done this week" thread, but figured it might lead to a hijack to one degree or another.

We got the walls poured on a family member's safe room this past Thursday. Combination storm cellar and extra sleeping & play room for the kids & grandkids; a 22x23 space with 8" poured walls. Will have 8" poured ceiling & normal 4" poured floor when done. Does have inherent weak spot of walk-out door, but they're not as bunker-minded as me, so what can I do... :supergrin: (I at least was able to talk them into using a heavy industrial steel door with the door frame embeded in the poured wall.)

The two parallel walls 3' apart at the bottom of the pic are where a stairwell will go down from the main living space above - that way the room will be able to be directly accessed from outside or from the living area without having to go outside. The second door, at the bottom-left of the first pic, goes to a small half-bath underneath the stairs. The hole in the wall between the two doors is for a small window-unit air conditioner - another security weakness, but again, it's not my house so not my call. All I can do is help & make suggestions. Even so, it'll give them a lot better protection from storms (& whatever else) than they have now.

Footings & walls up, floor next (hopefully tomorrow), and then the ceiling pour after the floor has cured. The above-shot pics were taken from a window near where the new addition will join the house.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f360/quake316/preps/Photo0861.jpg

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f360/quake316/preps/Photo0862.jpg

Standing at the walk-out door, looking in:
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f360/quake316/preps/Photo0864.jpg

[agamemnon]

I have always wanted to do something like this.
What I wonder though is, are you doing it privately or did you just find a commercial contractor in the yellow pages?
how about cost?

[quake]

Family member (call him Ray for brevity; not his real name) is doing it privately, as in acting as his own general contractor/coordinator. We have a good number of contractors & tradesmen in the family (one residential builder, both framing & trim carpenters, couple plumbers, I'm a low-voltage contractor (security, TV, phone, etc), and there's one hvac contractor; so there's a lot of Ray just confirming with the appropriate person the best way to do something, then he does as much as he can (like digging out the space himself with his backhoe, instead of hiring it out, etc), and then hiring a contractor (often a relative or family member) to do what's left. Sometimes it's just family members pitching in to help when we/they can.

Don't know total project cost or even to-date cost. I do know that just the footing concrete (not including the walls, and not counting the digging or forming for the footings either) was around $1800 or so. Concrete's running right at $100 a yard nowadays; don't know how that compares to other parts of the country.

There are estimating books available at building supply places, and even at Lowe's & such; that will let you come up with a rough estimate of project cost based on different variables like framing type, footage, etc. Definitely be worth picking one of those up; you can learn a lot of things from them and also pick up some of the builder-specific terms that will help you understand what they mean when they babble in insider-speak. (We do that on purpose, you know... :cool: )

[sebecman]

It looks like a proffesional job, good work.

Couple questions;

You mention living space above, is he building a house on top? If so, In my area we would call that a basement, we all have them in Maine. I am unclear on how the safe room concept applies ......unless the house is only covering part of what is shown in the pics? Even then it's still a walk oput or "daylight basement" so impossible to hide 100%

Do the majority of houses in Arkansas not have basements?

I have always wanted a safe room added to my basement, meaning digging down beside the house and pouring a concrete vault attached to the side of the foundation, covered with dirt, door on the inside hiden with a refridgerator or some such.

[kirgi08]

:cool:

[quake]

It looks like a proffesional job, good work.

Couple questions;

You mention living space above, is he building a house on top? If so, In my area we would call that a basement, we all have them in Maine. I am unclear on how the safe room concept applies ......unless the house is only covering part of what is shown in the pics? Even then it's still a walk oput or "daylight basement" so impossible to hide 100%

Do the majority of houses in Arkansas not have basements?

I have always wanted a safe room added to my basement, meaning digging down beside the house and pouring a concrete vault attached to the side of the foundation, covered with dirt, door on the inside hiden with a refridgerator or some such.

It's a 'safe room' really only to the degree that I could urge 'Ray" in that direction. In his mind, it's only - at least primarily - a storm cellar; not a panic room for securing the family from intruders. I tried, but only partially succeeded, to talk him into making it more of a security thing as well as storm shelter. Going with a poured ceiling, using the heavier, industrial steel door, raising the air-conditioning cutout higher than he originally wanted, etc; things like that were about as much as I could accomplish in the direction of security.

We'll be building a room above it that will attach to the existing house. The first two pics above were taken from a back window of the current house - the room will adjoin the house along pretty much that entire wall, with that window and a couple others being closed off in the process. This new family room will be extremely energy-efficient, with a separate hvac system from the house, since the existing house is extremely poorly insulated and energy-inefficient. So the new room on top of the safe room will likely be their main day-living space in the wintertime.

Very, very few arkansas houses have true basements, at least in this part of the state; but a walk-out basement like this is substantially more common. Fact is, I've never seen a non-walk-out basement here as far as I recall. (We did have one where I grew up, but that was up north.) The in-house safe rooms I encounter (and I'm in a lot of houses) are where a section of the walkout basement has been sectioned off with block or concrete. The ground in this part of the state is both very hilly and very rocky; and on this particular section of land, there's literally only about enough dirt to serve as mortar between the rock slabs. We pulled out rock so big that his backhoe (background in one of the pics) couldn't pick them up - we had to break them with the bucket and then move them in pieces with the backhoe.

This pic is from behind my shop, probably 20 miles from 'Ray', and shows what I'm talking about as far as ground make-up - those rock slabs run 5" to 16" in thickness. It's largely just huge rock slabs with enough dirt thrown in to hold them in place:
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f360/quake316/1001/Photo0873.jpg

Couldn't make it into a true panic room since it wasn't mine to make the decisions; just tried to lean him as heavily that way as I could. Having convinced him it was worthwhile to go with a poured concrete ceiling rather than normal joist construction was a major "win" in my mind, and helps lean it more toward 'shelter' than just normal basement. It also gives them a space that post-catastrophe (tornado, fire, fallen tree on house, whatever) could serve as a temporary living space if necessary; which was a big part of my argument for the poured concrete ceiling.

Not my project and not really "my problem" to worry about, I confess. But the more secure they are, the less dependent they're likely to become if things ever turn ugly; and these particular people are true "family", as opposed to just relatives, and we'd absolutely take them in if necessary.

I'd just prefer to make that necessity as unlikely as I can. :)

[sebecman]

Thanks for that - second post paints a more complete picture. :wavey:

Agreed that the concrete ceiling makes the difference and way better than a traditional basement.

Personally, and I know you know this - I would have omitted the in wall A/C. The basement will inherently be much cooler and he could have sent duct work in from house if it is that much of a concern. Oh well, still a cool addition.

[quake]

...Personally, and I know you know this - I would have omitted the in wall A/C...
Agreed; if it were my call, that would have been the case. I figure before it's all said & done I'll rig up a securable cover/shutter for that opening that he can put up & provide security for it if he ever decides he wants to. In the half-bath, there's a small storage space where it could be left out of the way but still at-hand.

I haven't mentioned that to him - I figure if I do, he'll tell me not to bother. If I don't ask, he can't tell me not to.

[SFCSMITH(RET)]

Looks good.

I do in fact wish we had thought of this when we built.. I have contemplated doing it now to about half my basement. Would be ugly to do, but could be done.

At least you are able to nudge your family member along.. I have a couple that after the '09 ice storm were all impressed with how easily the wife and I got through it, they acknowledge that it was prepping for whatever that did it for us, but not a one of them is interested in actually doing a single thing to get ready for anything themselves.. Luckily they are a long way away and can't show up here.

[Big Bird]

Looks good but I would have gone with insulated concrete forms instead of a traditional pour. Provides the same amount of strength with a very high insulating R-factor on both sides.