• You are using the old High Contrast theme. We have installed a new dark theme for you, called UI.X. This will work better with the new upgrade of our software. You can select it at the bottom of any page.

Hidden Room

Status
Not open for further replies.
Cabling Access

My brother (the younger one) installs high-end in-home theater and entertainment systems.

One of the things they have to cope with is an amazing amount of wiring that has to be concealed. Cabling, control panels, switch boxes, patch boards, and so on. All that stuff has to go somewhere.

They're not trying to hide all this stuff, just get it out of sight. You open the access panel (sometimes a full-sized door) and it's an electrician's dream. Or nightmare.

These wiring closets attract almost no interest, as their purpose is pretty obvious and boring.

I strikes me that a deferred access panel within such an enclosure would be easily missed. Clutter can be used to hide much.
 
Yeah, but at the same time, the gear closet would get a LOT of attention from thieves...

If you really wanna drive the bad guys nuts, tell your bro to use at least one security hex screw per piece of rack gear...
 
The best place to put a hidden room is to have the access to it through the bathroom if its big enough. The last place a thief is going to look for valuables is in the bathroom, then again if someone discovers it, they might think your a pervert.:neener:
 
just a question.. are you doing this for a practical use like hiding your large collection, or more for a james bond coolness factor? I would go with some kind of a keypad entry system. somthing that where the pad is in one room and the doorway is in another location that can not be seen from the keypad. like a false back of a bathroom closet or somthing. and have the keypad in the room next door. I only dream of having a hidden james bond room lol, also just another thought, if your building a house you could have them incorporate a pit (like used in auto repair shops) into the floor of your garage and have a small side shaft for an entry from inside your house. and a small one that exits out incase of a need to run. just some thoughts.
 
I saw one on the internet once, it was a dresser with functioning drawers that when you hit the catch the whole drawer assembly and its backing swung out.
 
I helped build a house for neighbor 10 yrs ago. He hired a semi-retired carpenter/and his son to supervise and few locals to do work under their direction. They dug HUGE pit for basement/foundation. I suggested he (lite-form) the ENTIRE area. (He cemented basement of house area with wall to garage then backfilled garage area to cement on top with a metal stairway in front of garage into basement) Which is code one stairs must be non flamable.
Anyway there is a company who makes area under garage into extra rooms during construction. (I would assume metal beams/posts) I suggested he contact them and then make metal stairs to lock into wall say under bottom/2nd to bottom stair raiser. (Say a sliding bolt into wall) A couple hydrolic rams to lift assist stairs and a hinge at top. Then a hidden door UNDER stairs to hidden room.
He didn't :( IF I was building I would look into it.
 
metal detectors

See if you can make your hidden room so that a bad guy with a metal detector won't find it by detecting the guns or the gun safe.
 
safer room

I find this thread interesting as this summer am starting construction of a small home in a very rural area. Police response time of 15 minutes at best. I have been thinking about how to secure an area of the home. Not a hidden room but a “safer” room.

I have decided that the master bedroom is most practical. It will already have a stone exterior on three sides with two side well above grade with windows not reachable without a ladder. The side on grade will have no windows. Studding will be 2x6’s with ¾ oak walls. Am thinking of making the one remaining interior wall 2x6 also. Am looking for ideas as to what to what I can put between the studding to make the walls more impenetrable from force or gunfire. My one thought was to use layers of scrape ¾ oak on the interior wall even if it meant using six layers plus the two finish layers for a total of eight layers or six inches of oak.

As far as the door a solid core door with heavy duty hinges, extra supported frame and cross bars on the interior.

Am interested in any thoughts or ideas to improve on mine. Have the dogs, lights, alarm covered.
 
None of that would really be bulletproof.

Basically, you just wanna have it so that it -really- slows whoever is trying to get in. Which means LONG bolts for a steel door frame, into solid (doubled or tripled) wall members. Add a layer of durock under the outside gypsum board, and sandwich some chickenwire and liquid nails between that and the gypsum board. Darn near like a piece of 1" reinforced concrete. Yeah, someone could get in, but it's gonna take some tools and a LOT of time.
 
safer room

Thanks for the durock idea, I hadn’t thought of it. The interior wall space needing covered is 14’8”

The durock in available in sizes ½ inch by 3’x 4’, 5’,6’ and 4’x 8’ sheets. Also it comes in optional 5/8 thickness. I haven’t priced it yet but for 4 sheets of 5/8 4’x 8’ it shouldn’t be that much. As for the chicken wire have you ever seen the thicker diamond shaped plaster’s wire? I think that’s the ticket.

Was already with ya on the triple wall door frame studs and long screws. Still want to think of something to strengthen the solid core wood door. Maybe a sheet of 1/8 inch stainless laminated between or on the door.

If I knew the cost of the durock I could consider doing the whole room 14’8’’ x 15’8’’ 16 sheets total.

Like you said, the idea is to really slow down who ever is trying to get in. Short of some super ninjas I might be able to just that.
 
" Am looking for ideas as to what to what I can put between the studding to make the walls more impenetrable from force or gunfire."



Pea gravel.
 
I built a hidden room in my house.

I mean I did a really, really good job of it.

Problem is, I haven't been able to find the damn thing ever since.

I keep looking though. I know it's around here somewhere.

It is, I know it is.

If I could just remember where I put it...... :scrutiny:
 
For bullet-proof walls, look here:

http://www.armorcore.com/

For metal mesh that keeps people from just bashing through walls, look here:

http://amico-securityproducts.com/mesh.htm

For bullet-proof windows, look here:

http://www.shattergard.com/home.html and here, too:
http://www.secureglass.com/Residential.html

for bullet-proof doors, look here:

http://www.cecodoor.com/bullrest.htm

Some of the above might be off topic from the original thread, but having walls in your secret room that are as impenetrable as possible would be a good thing.

Also, a trick for "bullet-proof" walls is to use 2x6 studs and sheeth them on both sides with 1/2" plywood and then fill the walls with cement.
 
Last edited:
a few things I've noticed

When I was a kid, I used to love this sort of thing, and visited several houses that had been used, before I was born, to hide fugitive slaves. Some thing's I've taken from that, and my own imagination (I do not have any of these at any of my houses or places of business):

Wood paneling, especially the old tongue and groove kind made of real boards, can be great for obscuring seams, because it's full of seams anyway.

A trapdoor into a basement can be flat, and covered with an area rug that's taped down. no one will ever know.

A door inside of a closet, either in the ceiling of the closet or a wall that does not face the closet's own door, is hard to find when the closet is full. Especially if it's a half-sized door.

I have seen an addition that was built onto a basement, that was not under the footprint of the house proper. Part of the basement wall had been removed, then this extra space dug out off to the side. Of course, if you were building this house from scratch, that could be part of the original plan.
 
I had a couple additional thoughts about hidden rooms that may have been touched on briefly:

I would avoid going high-tech with any electronic keypads, or such.

The more high tech you go, the more likely you will need technically trained persons to install it. Add them to the list of potential suspects.

The more high tech you go, the more likely that one day you will need someone to work on it for you. Add that person to the list of suspects later.

The more high tech you go, the more likely you will be to show your little secret to a few "trusted" friends. Again, add them to the list of suspects.

Nothing is inpenatrable. My father-in-law told me recently about a friend who had his gunsafe sitting prominately in his living room. Thieves had cased his home and knew he had the safe. So, when the man went to work, the thieves broke in-- along with an acetalyn toarch. Since the man was at work, they knew they were in no rush cracking that safe. And they did.

Don't forget to add a good alarm system to your home while you are doing it.

However, an alarm system simply is not sufficent alone in a lot of rural areas. Thieves know in many areas that they will have approximately 20- 30 minutes to loot your home before it is even possible for LEO's to get to the location.

IMO, the best function of a gunsafe or a safe room is to slow the thieves down while the alarm does the work. Being secure and hidden does that well.


John
 
When you design the room if it is obvious that there is a dead space i.e. the walls etc don't match and a BG figures out that you have a secret room he really doesn't need to find the hidden door and figure out how to open it. If he has a little time and a decent chop saw he will just cut right through the walls till he finds access unless you line it with concrete, steel etc. The key is to design it so all the square footage appears to be accounted for. If you have a 3000 sq foot house on the outside but only 2600 sq ft on the inside a savvy person might be able to deduce where this room is.

One suggestion is the good old fashion storm cellar. Built underground near the house it can be easily hidden if necessary. You can even make it accessible via the crawl space if your paranoia level is high enough. They make good places to store long term food and supplies and if built right out of steel rebar and concrete are so much harder to get into than a hidden room inside a house. You are only limited by imagination and money. Just don't tell anyone about it. Not even the building department. Once it's on file as part of the plans it becomes public record for anyone nosy enough to look into it.
 
There's a spot like this in the house my parents built (with their own hands!) that is accessible through the back of a closet. It's big enough to hold 3 people and some other stuff. And it's totally imperceptible from the outside. I used it once as a kid when playing hide-and-go-seek, and was in there making noises to mess with people for more than 45 mins before they gave up. They could tell i was somewhere inside the house but even looking all around the room couldn't see the hidden removable panel. Need to hinge it from the inside and add a hidden latch so it's easier to get into...it's difficult to place the wall back from the inside as it is. I see many benefits to having a room or space like that in a house. Doesn't have to be a full on hidden room, if it's big enough for a couple people and some supplies it could still be extremely useful.
 
JWarren said:
I've even considered having an underground room such as a basement-type room-- since practically NO ONE down here has basements. Its not something that people would look for.

I know what I am doing, but I'll keep it to myself

All the best!

John
Click to expand...

I'm considering the same option for next year when we are moving. Builda Basement that has a different floor plan then the house itself (bigger). Your Saferoom can be any size that way and nobody will ever notice it beeing there (under and next to your house).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

M
  • Locked
Hidden doors and unseen spaces...
2
Replies
42
Views
3K
nezumi
N
Z
  • Locked
Hidden, or not.
2
Replies
29
Views
2K
mbt2001
M
S
  • Locked
Does your house mark you as a gun owner?
2 3
Replies
74
Views
4K
Drizzt
D
Z
  • Locked
Fortifying the gun room
Replies
13
Views
1K
civilian
C
S
  • Locked
Contemplating home security setups
2
Replies
28
Views
2K
Ohio Gun Guy
Ohio Gun Guy
Back
Top