Making a gun vault room, have some questions

[Fremmer]

I think x rap is just trying to make a point about hitting the point of diminishing return on this project. Make it a good gun room, no problem with that; but if you make a super secure, super fire proof and a super expensive room, you might very well lose a lot of money on that investment when you sell the house, because very few buyers will pay what you've invested.

Make sure you show us pics of the competed room when you've finished it!

 

[Outlaw Man]

A minor point, but what you want is a structural engineer. A civil engineer can help you keep water out of your room, but their license doesn't certify they know anything about structures.

 

[we are not amused]

That makes no sense, why would you drop by a thread about making a gun vault, then roll your eyes about someone discussing theft? Isn't the reasons we have gun safes to prevent fire damage and theft? Whether I live in a low crime area or not, I think it warrants discussion, on a thread that is for discussing a gun vault. That's not paranoia it's just common sense.

Most thieves are not going to chop through floors, batter their way through concrete walls, or anything else that require specialized tools and time to use them. They want in, grab what they can, and get out, quick!

Thus my suggestion of getting a good home security system, If they take the time to start chopping through walls or floors, the cops will be waiting for them.

If they have the time to work, and the experience and tools to do so, no home built, jury rigged "vault" will stand up to a determined attack. Heck, given time and tools, no expensive, properly engineered, concrete and steel vault will stand up to a determined assault. The trick is to make it difficult and time consuming to break in, not impossible.

I am a big fan of Liberty safes, but they can be broken into with common power tools. Specifically, hand held metal cut off tools. It is just going to take a lot of time!

I am not disparaging your efforts at making your guns safe, just trying to interject some reality to you efforts.

You stated in your original post, that you weren't worried about break ins, yet you seem to be willing to expend an awful amount of effort to defeat an unlikely event.

So why go to that much trouble? Put a good strong steel security door on the room, maybe do something about fireproofing the ceiling, get a good alarm and security system, and call it good.

Now if you want to go all out, and spend the money, have reinforced concrete walls poured and get a vault door like Liberty safes sells, and set up a room like this...

 

[BSA1]

Lots of good comments. I think the major problem you are facing is how to make the ceiling truly fireproof for which there is no easy cheap solution.

After thinking your request I would forego using the basement altogether. I would build a separate self-contained underground shelter bunker. A couple ideas to consider are;

The first would be a underground garage shelter. I have seen these and they are a really neat design. The contractor cuts a large hole in the floor of your garage, buries the shelter and pours a new floor over the hole. I have seen custom designed interiors (which should not be a problem if you have it done while they are building it at the factory) with features such as shelving for TV, emergency radios (SW, CB), computers, etc. It would be very easy to have gun racks built inside it.

http://groundzeroshelters.com/flattop.html

If you are a real d-i-y type steel shipping containers are popular with Prepppers. They come in 20' and 40' lengths and you are only limited by your imagination on the interior design. There is a vast amount of information on this topic on the Internet. I will confess that even though I have concrete walk-in vault in my basement I have been toying around with the idea of burying a 20' container on my ranch. There are some issues with the weight of dirt pushing in and down on shipping containers but they can be overcome with additional bracing.

http://www.yourshippingcontainerhom...g-container-to-create-an-underground-shelter/

 

[rondog]

Any chance you could just have a new room built beside the house/basement, as an "addition" to the basement? Kind of a big concrete box built new in the ground, with a vault door in a basement wall? The top of the room could serve as a concrete patio. This would avoid any modifications to the house and basement, except for putting the vault door in the basement wall. This is how it would have to be done at my house.

And in my experience, cinder block basement walls are porous and let moisture through. My parents' basement had block walls, and it was awful down there. I'm sure those blocks were chock-full of mold too. And that was in a fairly dry part of Oklahoma.

 

[Trent]

Well, I'm still kicking around a gun vault (have for two years now). Mine would be set up differently, above ground extension to the house.

I will comment on something I keep facing in my current reloading / gun room (which is 12x20).

It's in the basement, and the room I have my equipment / ammo / safe / etc in is also the primary ingress point for utilities. Electrical, water, geothermal HVAC ground loops, etc. It also has the laundry and kitchen utilities above it, one floor up.

FOUR TIMES now I have faced "water" incidents in that room. Three times from the kitchen sink area (cracked feed line, cracked drain, and a badly installed s trap by yours truly). The other time was from a washing machine "oops" (again, caused by me.)

But four times I've had to lay ammo out to dry, replace damaged gear on the reloading bench, etc.

Don't know if you do, but if you have any water lines above where your stuff is, figure out a plan on routing water via gutters so it egresses the room cleanly and without raining all over your gear.

I'm fixing to go do so, today, on all of the water lines/ HVAC loops / drains that transit my gun room. If any leak/break I want that water flowing in to another place, instead of hitting my stuff.

 

[BSA1]

Any chance you could just have a new room built beside the house/basement, as an "addition" to the basement? Kind of a big concrete box built new in the ground, with a vault door in a basement wall? The top of the room could serve as a concrete patio. This would avoid any modifications to the house and basement.

Ditto…

A flat top underground shelter could be buried next to the house although I won’t try to connect it to the basement. It could be made as part of a patio or walkway such as a breezeway to the garage. It is also very affordable.

http://www.oklahomashelters.com/Standard_Shelters.html

 

[rondog]

Um, I was thinking of a much larger concrete room, something that would make a great man cave. I shudder at the thought of schlepping guns, ammo cans, and other things up and down those stairs. Those shelters make good 'fraidy-holes for tornadoes, but I'd do something much different for a gun room. My grandpa had one of those prefab shelters, and it usually had at least a foot of rancid water in it.

 

[zorro45]

I did something similar, these would be my thoughts.
First of all do your best to address any water issues outside the house. Make sure your downspouts/gutters and in good order and water is diverted away from the house. If needed, dig out around the foundation 2.5-3 ft. and install "French Drains" basically run perforated black 6" tubing set in gravel to divert away water.
On the inside, paint all your walls with at least 2 coats of DryLock, which is a very thick waterproofing paint made for basements. To allow easy placement of electrical/computer wiring it is pretty easy to mount drywall on steel studs. Make sure the base is mounted on a pressure treated 2x4 or 2x3. Nail them down with a .22 blank- powered concrete nailer. This will give you some good stuff to nail your base trim into. Construction adhesive is your friend. And use the moist location grade drywall, it costs a little more but it handles moisture better.
As far as the ceiling, I think you are (respectfully) going overboard unless you have a multimillion dollar collection. If you have a good alarm system I wouldn't worry about someone cutting through the floor and going in "Mission Impossible" style. There is nothing you can put there that someone with a carbide wheel cutter cannot saw through if they want to.
Home depot sells a very nice solution for acoustic tile ceilings which is PVC, and screws directly to the bottom of the floor joists so you do not lose any headroom which is key in a basement remodel job. You will have to move all your plumbing and wiring into the bays between the joists first. This is not so hard.
Have fun and good luck.

 

[leadcounsel]

1) Significant advantage of a below ground shelter against theft (out of sight) and natural disasters like tornadoes and fires. Disadvantage is cost and flooding/cave in (earthquake style).

2) Above ground - advantage is access, no flooding, cheaper to build, no flooding issues...

Since I had a minor but very expensive flooding issue in my basement, I've since always chosen to live on 'high ground.' Water damage is aweful. Lived in Tennessee on a hill during the storm a few years ago, lots of flooding. Thankfully my house was on a big hill. Lesson paid off.

I've been kicking around the idea of a poured wall shelter/man cave/vault... not sure about whether above or below ground. But it's in my 2-5 year plans.

 

[Trent]

I spec'd out a 12x20 above ground extension, 8" rebar walls and ceiling, 3' deep footers (we have heavy winters in IL, sometimes, keep the thaw/freeze/heave from cracking the walls).

Wasn't cheap, about 13k in cost just for the pour. Of course 12x20 is pretty big. But I wanted room to set up some of my tripod guns for display.

Still haven't bit the bullet on it, this year I bought a big graffunder safe, plenty costly enough for one year, but it'll get me by.

I'm more concerned about the room being big enough for my family. The front grade of the house only has 5' of the basement protected. Zero grade on back. So a tornado would scour this house off the face of the earth if it was a direct hit.

Don't forget the chemical toilet, secondary comms, airflow, and water supply if it's to double as a tornado shelter.

-T

 

[Walkalong]

Lots of good comments. I think the major problem you are facing is how to make the ceiling truly fireproof for which there is no easy cheap solution

Sprinkling the room may be easy, depending on where the water lines are.

 

[X-Rap]

I think the room itself can be made fairly fire proof, the big problem is making the floor joists and decking above be fire proof. I don't see it as doable without ripping out the floor and using metal and concrete and that will require redoing the footings. Not a cost effective way to go.
If it must be fireproof and resistant to collapse the best bet is to go outside the present footprint of the house and cut in a door from the basement. Fill the cores of the existing CMU wall and use a beam and pilasters to support the roof along that side.

 

[Trent]

Yeah I'd agree with that assessment - going fireproof means you need to go out of the current border of the house. Depending on mix, 8" of concrete wall will give you ~6-7 hours of 100% fire protection. The concrete will come out stronger on the other side of the fire, too.

Just make sure to have your air ducts set up with wax held, spring loaded shutters to clamp down and isolate the air inside, once hot air starts moving through your feed holes.