"Safe room" "Vault room" blue prints/designs, where can i find them?

Looking at building a house next year, so i want to start working on the design (i'm designing it myself) and yes i am capable of designing it, i've working in/around construction my whole life.

I'm just starting to come up with some concepts to mull over and I am trying to figure out how to work the safe room into my foundation plans.

I'm toying with the idea of putting it under the master bedroom and having a small, maybe hidden door in the walk-in closet with stairs leading into a small room outside the vault door, then you go through the door into the vault.
Probably have a way into the room through the basement as well. It will be a daylight basement

Just need to see some plans to work on the functionality of it.

Well, there are no plans that I have seen that actually fit 'my' needs. I do have a few thoughts that you may want to consider from my own experience.
1- make it about 300% bigger than you think you need. You may become surprised and the amount of 'other crap' that you will want to keep locked up in there.
2- Accessing from the MBR is nice, but I suggest main access from a utility room or garage that can be secured from the inside. I KNOW that my wife did not want me dragging all my 'stuff' through our bedroom, and this is prolly the sole reason that I am 'allowed' to build.
3- the access from the MBR to the main room should be far enough that the walkway can double as a underground pistol range (I mean "underground storage")
4- if the hall is out of the question, position the room to the house in such a way that a 3-4 foot diameter culvert can be extended out to the yard for shooting. You will need a potato cellar type thing at the other end for targets, backstops, lights... Put shed on top.

The bottom line is: make it big. Once the home is up, it is difficult to change it.

There will be a way into it through the basement, i shouldn't have said probably. I just don't know how I'll do it yet, probably just a door within a utility room

http://www.amazon.com/Implement-High-Security-Shelter-Home/dp/1568610548/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1328159641&sr=8-2

I have mine drawn in under the master bed and the office. Support beam running through the center of the room. the engineer recommended this with the amount of concrete that will be going in the ceiling. It will be just over 500 square feet. Im less concerned with the layout since it will be an open area. All the real estate that I have down there will be utilized, and the last thing I want are dividing walls taking up floor space. Just make it as big as you can and youll be fine.

I'm not uber paranoid or anything like that, but if I had the resources I'd have a fallout-style full on vault-tec setup under my house just for coolness

If its a new construction house. It would amaze you at how cheap it actually is to do something like that.

We did one in our new home last year. We put it under the front porch slab. The slab and the foundation walls were a natural place to do it and didn't require any special excavation or concrete work. I ordered my door from Smith Safe company in Ohio, and he sent me the rough opening to pour into the wall that would eventually have the door. In the end I ended up with a room that had 8' thick concrete / rebar walls, and a top that is the slab for the front porch, that has at least that much concrete and some additional steel framework to support.


Like one other poster said, go larger than you think you need. I went with a 6x6 room out of convenience based on the basement plan we adopted for the rest of the house. Once I put my guns and other valuable in there I have enough room to stand / sit. Not much of a safe room other than a way to protect guns and other valuables, and have a place to go temporarily in a tornado.

Also, plan for ventilation in the room. If you can cheat a small supply and return from your A/C ductwork you can use that to control humidity and temperature. Insulate the walls of course, as you will get condensation if you don't. Also make sure to give yourself electrical wiring. Drilling through 8" of concrete is possible, but something you want to do sparingly once the walls are poured as it is a PITA.

My friend has a 16'x16' room with 10" poured walls and ceiling. He told me he has over 2 ton or rebar in it as well.
He has a 30 or 32" vault door. We have yet to finish the inside yet,but it will be nice when it's done.

I was thinking about setting a 1 1/2" piece of pvc in the concrete to allow electrical to be run in and out. Probably spray foam insulate the walls, and then cover with a type of paneling or sheets of metal that i can run the wires behind. I fully intend on keeping reloading supplies in there so finding a way to put a/c to control temperature, and a dehumidifier are a must.

Very good idea. You might put 2 more pipes in for the HVAC. One up high, and one down low to give some circulation of air in the room.

Spray foam works very well, although if you are doing it over concrete you might be able to use foam forms and save yourself the added expense of the spray foam. There are some concrete guys that use them and then leave the foam in place on the inside to act as insulation.

rigid foam insulation is your friend. its pink and you can get a r20 in a 2in sheet

Jusr a tip about putting a vault room under a concrete slab of an outside porch. If you live in a cold climate the outside cold concrete slab next to the interior house warmth is going to cause extreme condensation. I've seen this done and the ceiling had constant dripping and pools of water inside the vault room. You HAVE to insulate the cold concrete from the warm interior and I'm not sure how or what to use. The example I saw would make me not want to build a room under the porch concrete slab in my part of the country.

Very good point. My cousin's vault room is under their porch and they've struggled with condensation.

We insulated ours in a number of ways. Under the concrete porch slab is gravel. That gravel is on top of a thick rubber membrain for water proofing (same membrane as used for flat roofs). Under the rubber membrane is a 3/4" piece of plywood supported by angle that spans the foundation walls iron to provide additional support for the porch slab. Under the plywood is 4" of the hard foam insulation, and then finally under that is another piece of plywood that serves as the cieling for the vault, allowing a light fixture and other electrical items to be mounted.

Band boards that meet up with the walls and slab have been sprayed with 1 1/2" of spray foam.

We did our best to insulate from the temp difference so as to prevent the condensation, and also put in a moisture barrier as well. So far we've not had any issues with it.

That book is not worth the price you have to pay for it. It is very basic with little detail. There is very little of value in that book that you can't get for free elsewhere on the internet.

The plans for a tornado shelter/safe room on the FEMA website are basically the same thing that is in that book. Your HVAC vents needs fire shutters. You frame the walls with steel studs, insulate with standard fiberglass insulation and cover with sheetrock.

I went to the FEMA site and the plans there seemed different then the book and a lot more difficult for a layman (me) to understand. Perhaps you can point me (us) in the right direction regarding the "info you can get for free elsewhere on the internet?" Links would be really helpful. Thanks!

I have a couple of suggestion for what they are worth. You could use one of those large container boxes like they ship goods with then reinforce it with concrete. One other thing you might think about is a grease pit in the garage if you change you own oil that would be handy. Dont forget to have drain for the dehumidifyer.

Add a drain to the floor in the garage...that way you can spray it out too. Just need to do that after the building inspector comes out to do one of the initial home inspections, as most locations won't allow you to have it drain to the ground, and you can't put the chemicals in the spetic either.

I'm planning on having a center drain in the room that runs on it's own line and doesn't tie into the rest of the houses main line until the very end. This way if something happens and the house line backs up, the water won't back up into the room. It will be water tight from the outside as well since it's in the basement, i've seen to many basements flood around here to not be concerned about it. I've got some initial designs done, but i have to work out the rest of the house before i can really go any further

Whatever you do , make sure you or someone you trust is on sight at all times when the concreate work is done. I worked for a couple of defernect concrete contractors many years ago and the attitude was allways the same. They never used as much rebar and or the correct size as was specified. They always mused that the client was nuts and would never need that much reinforcement.

Just my .02

Specify inspection hold points in the contract.

I'll probably be doing most of this work myself

I don't mean to sound rude but if you don't understand the plans on the FEMA site then you aren't going to be able to build a vault on your own with the limited information in the book at that link.

The free information I'm referring to isn't something I can link to. I have spent hours looking at information on concrete work, basement design, ventilation, etc and I will use that knowledge to build my vault in the future. You aren't going to find much of anything online that tells you step by step how to build a vault. You have to take it a step at a time and search for information that way. An example would be to do a search on pouring a concrete slab. There are videos on Youtube and a gazillion places online to learn how to pour a slab. Everything from determining the amount of concrete you will need to building the form can be found online for free. From there you need to know how to lay concrete blocks, then the ceiling, and on through finishing the interior. It's all free online. In the past month, I learned to roll sushi and build soda can alcohol stoves by watching Youtube videos!

The best use of your money would be to buy books from somewhere like Lowe's that detail everything you need to know. Get one on pouring concrete, another on laying concrete block walls, and so on. There is more detail in those books than just about anywhere else for the do-it-yourselfer. My dad built the house I grew up in using books like that.

Who said I plan on building a vault on my own? And I'm definitely not planning on laying any concrete!

For me, a layman, the way the information was laid out in the book was much easier to understand. If I ever go ahead with this type of construction I have a pretty good idea who I would hire to do it. And from what I understand they really know what they're doing. I would just like to educate myself so that I can make the right choices if ever in that position.

That makes sense then. The book is very basic and a contractor would be able to take it and build you a vault. They probably wouldn't even need the book. My advice to you would be to design what you wanted as far as the interior of the room and imagine that surrounded by concrete.

My design originated from spending time inside of an enclosed trailer converted to an emergency mobile communications site for our state's emergency prepardness division. I sat there for hours bored as hell reconfiguring it in my mind! It is a 10X12 trailer with rubber floor, sheetrock walls covered with grey carpet up to the countertops and plastic wall panels from there to the ceiling. The ceiling was covered in carpet and had flourescent lighting. The carpet is that thin stuff used in car trunks and for speaker boxes. I imagine that basic setup surrounded by concrete.

I know nothing on this topic besides I can read and take notes for my future plans however i will add this; my father just added onto his company and had to add a cement insulated fire rated wall and doors spliting the whole building in two; what he had added to the wall for ease of running data cable and conduet through was EZ pathways made by STI its can be added to the wall after pouring or blocking up walls and in the event of a fire the materials inside it expand much like spray insulating foam and seals the path way off from smoke and fire passing through. Just thought Id share this for some of you might want to look into it.

I built a safe when I added an addition on to my house. 12x12. Poured concrete walls with rebar and a corrugated steel ceiling and more rebar and concrete. One thing I would recommend is install a couple of vents. I added a small 6 inch PVC section that I could run a drain line from by dehumidifer but not any venting. It's kind of musty smelling but I'm in it a few times a week if not more. I had a custom door build from these guys. They were great to work with and make a great product and a very reasonable price. You can pick what options you want. Once the walls were poured I took measurements and re-measured and gave them my door opening dimensions and they build me a door to fit.

Insulate the walls on the outside with rigid foam sheeting (like blue board) before you backfill. It works much better than insulating on the inside.

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