Ward Cleaver builds a fortified house...

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Chindo18Z

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Constructing a Fortified House?

The point of this mindless exercise is to cabbage good construction ideas for a “dream home†which would provide short-term protection against common natural disasters and the initial efforts of the forces of darkness (intent upon invading Ward Cleaver’s house). What specific construction materials, methods, design techniques, contractors, etc. would you use? What nice-to-have features would you build into the design? Think of it as CCW for the house (as opposed to open carry). I’m not looking to re-create the Maginot Line. Repeat: Short-term protection (with civilization still extant). No thermonuclear conflict, asteroid strikes, mutant zombie bears, etc.). If I find thousands of Chinese paratroopers in my yard, I’ll just dial 911…

Assume: Money is no object, a suitable site (not situated on flood plain, avalanche field, or major earthquake fault line), and end result looking (to the untrained observer) like a typical 1 or 2 story, 3000-4000 square ft, 4-5 bedroom, upscale suburban home…

What are your ideas for “from the ground-up†construction of a unique single family home that would offer:

1. Burglar resistance (against any burglar not equipped as in #2 below)

2. Resistance to the initial efforts of a generic Dynamic Entry Team [using hand held mechanical breaching tools, assault ladders, light explosive breaching charges, or ballistic breaching (entry shotgun)]. I am speaking about delaying the initial entry of determined individuals (with light equipment) for a period of minutes to hours.

3. Fire resistance: Would allow occupants (and hopefully the heart of the structure) to survive a conflagration (severe grass fire, major forest fire, deliberate arson of occupied structure).

4. Earthquake resistance: Foundation and structure would survive mild to moderate earthquake (short of fissure opening directly under house) without collapse of walls, roof, upper level flooring (if any).

5. Tornado resistance: Would provide survivability (whole structure or FEMA-type Safe Room) against F-4 tornado (realizing that all exterior cosmetic siding, roof, facings, windows, etc. would join Dorothy and Toto…).

6. Ballistic protection: Would stop penetration by all small arms fire up to .50 BMG and provide limited protection against blast/fragments from car bombs, distraction devices, fragmentation grenades, 40mm grenade launcher, 60/81/82mm mortar fire, hand held light anti-armor rockets (RPG-7, 66mm LAW, etc.).

7. Layered protection: Outer perimeter (grounds of property), inner perimeter (house structure), interior bastion (safe room/s, tornado shelter, bunker, whatever…).

8. Below ground flood resistance: Any part of structure below ground level would be proof against super saturated ground caused by extreme rainfall and would provide good protection against damp and humidity.

9. Innovative use of construction landscaping (earthen berms, moats, walls, etc.), key terrain (hi-ground, low-ground, dead space), vegetation, lighting, concealed emergency escape, and provision for good fields of observation/fire.

10. Natural disaster protection for family vehicles, stored heating fuel supply (propane or heating oil), auxiliary generator, or emergency water storage.

11. Temporary defense by 1-4 adults (this is not a survivalist retreat).

12. Continued marital bliss (i.e., spouse likes the fact that she could show the finished product on Home & Garden Channel and without having to explain to invited company why she married Mack Bolan).

Would like some serious suggestions but have set out chips and beer for Mall Ninjas...;)
 
Wow, your lot can fit 1000s of Chinese paratroopers! That's fantastic!

12. Let her design it or have two houses, one for you, one for her. Seaparate counties or states may be ideal.:D

11. Uncle Jeff has written on this in "To Ride", I like the ideas there. Doggies have a field manual as well. IIRC, FM-15, on fortifications.

10. IME, I would suggest out buildings or tanks for these provisions.

9. Use of natural terrain. My house is built into the side of a knoll. Basement is nice and cool and tornado-proof.

8. Drainage. Spend the dough to get the water away from the house. As well, new space-age polymers are available to prevent water from coming through the basement.

7. No answer here as to layering. I live in the 'burbs. I do have steel doors (painted them) and Medeco locks on the exterior and lockable solid wooden doors inside on the bedroom "wing" of the FBP.

6. Maybe a fieldstone exterior? Concrete block walls filled with stone?

5. Good basement, maybe a steel frame house?

4. No clue here, maybe contractor who has experience in that area would know more.

3. Ask Tom Petty.:D (Tom survived a bad fire--had "fire-proof" home built). Stone, steel-frame, concrete. Is anything really "fire-proof"? Doesn't concrete burn if hot enough?

2. Don't think any fortifications could hold a determined group off other than active defense and that involves alarm system.

1. Good lights, dog, place looks occupied, vary schedules, good locks (use them--if you do burglaries, you would be amazed how many people don't use their locks), keep your other property (ATVs, scooters, hobby cars, electronics, etc.) uptight and out of sight. Good burglars do lots of recon.

I have no background in construction, just giving ideas that I've done. THR has plenty of experience here, I'll leave the rest to the professionals.
 
You may still be able to buy a deactivated missile silo out west. I'm pretty sure that'd hold up for a few minutes against a smash-n-grab or local-boy entry team.

You might have problems with the air force if they decide to use a bunker-buster, but then again, maybe not.
 
Think there was an episode of "This Old Bunker" on the History Channel

Lesson 1: Safe rooms aren't when the bad guys have more money to spend than you.

Lesson 2: The bad guys often have more money to spend than you.

Still, the idea of building a safe room/massive gunstorage area powder magazine into the house.... hmmmmm.
 
Dig into a hill, or build the house and then create the hill over it.

That'll stop bullets and fire. Keep your A/C bill low, too :)
 
If smart, one would build it so only one direction is accessable by vechile (build it nested in a forked hill)

Yes, it means the baddies could hide up on the crest. However, if you pick one that is steep enough (not uncommon here in TN) you've got a natural barrier that they won't be able to rush down, but yet isn't vertical enough for repelling.

Perhaps build a toolshed that has access to underground storage that runs across the accessable face of the home? Make it 10' wide, covered by a foot or so of soil. Internal structure should *not* be strong enough to take a vechile crossing ontop.. Lots of storage for anything you'd normally put into a attic, but acts as a tank ditch if anyone tries a drive-up.
 
California building codes are supposed to be fire resistant. Tornado resistant walls- steel reinforced concrete with brick on both sides, almost a foot wide, took repeat hits with that cool 2x4 cannon. All above info was from the Discovery Channel.
 
1. Burglar resistance

2. Resistance to the initial efforts of a generic Dynamic Entry Team

For both i'd say a 40 Ton Steel drop gate like you'd see in a medieval castle.

Now, heres the expense part. The house would be on hydraulics, being able to raise itself 50 ft into the air.

Now add the ability to pour boiling oil from the roof.

3. Fire resistance

4. Earthquake resistance

5. Tornado resistance

6. Ballistic protection

Answer to all: Steel reinforced concrete. all support colums would be wrapped in carbon fiber to prevent shattering should the hit be severe.

7. Layered protection

Moat...with crocodiles. To keep it looking suburban we'd call it a "water feature". 24/7 survalence. Henchmen with snipers and machine guns.

8. Below ground flood resistance

Build it well and keep it maintained. The basement is just for storage and the hydraulics. The sub-basement however would house other things.

9. Innovative use of construction landscaping

To make it look residential, just put some siding on. The interior can be panneled any way you want.

10. Natural disaster protection for family vehicles, stored heating fuel supply, auxiliary generator, or emergency water storage.

Since money is no option, everything would be electric and powered by the nuclear plant in the sub-basement.

11. Temporary defense by 1-4 adults.

Ok, so say my henchmen are on vacation. Stay in the sub-basement and use the remote sentry guns. Electronically control the boiling oil on the roof.

12. Continued marital bliss

Find the right woman. Also, the house is modular on the inside. Walls can be panneled any way she wants. The remote sentry guns dissapear into the ceiling when not in use.
 
Out here in New Mexico, we use a lot of adobe. The old houses have walls up to two feet thick. If a little rebar or steel mesh is added these walls would stop anything short of artillery. Such construction would also be very fire resistant.
My personal idea is a two storey house with a large central court yard entered via a a heavily reenforced gateway. This gateway would be a tunnel of sorts with gates at each end and "murder holes" in the top so that various nastyness could be poured on the heads of anyone who breached the outer gate. There would be no windows on the outer walls of the ground floor and only narrow embrasures on the second floor. There would be a good parapit around the roof as well. From the outside, it would look like an quaint Spanish Colonial hacienda. Under its skin it would be a fortress. If money is no object, there would also be an underground element that would rival the Jap caves on Iwo Jima and would include tunnels to hidden exits and a large cistern for water storage. The tunnels would also lead to camoflaged firing points that would cover the gate and allow flanking fire on anyone attacking it. Heck if I have all the money I need, these could even be remote controlled. With unlimited funds, you could build a house that would have to be peeled like an onion to get you out. And then when the bad guys finally got to the core, you could have already gone didi mau(Learned that from my brother who was in Nam) and be in the next state and all of their pain would be for nought. If you really wanted to go nuts, you could add claymores and fire traps and dead falls and all kinds of remote controlled surprises.
 
damn, i forgot to mention trap doors. Something that opens up under the feet of the person at the door and next thing he knows he's strapped to a giant table saw inching ever closer to his family jewels. MUAHAHAHAHAHAH!
 
Underground complex, cheyenne mountain style, but on a (slightly, but not much) smaller scale, with a normal 'house' out front. (spanish or italian style, very thick walls.)

With the critical addition of multiple exit points beyond published 'property lines' that the baddies will surely secure if they're serious.

Ideally you will have a land, sea, and air escape route. BUG OUT and bug out fast if you want to survive.
 
Yes, but what about ninjas!?

Since other posters actually contributed to the thread, I have no guilt in adding that. Sorry. :D
 
There is a product called "Blue Max" or "Logic Blocs" that is a a styrofoam form with polymer cross pieces to lock in rebar in.

Once put into place and the rebar is inserted, dump in the cement, use a cement vibrator and you will have an 8 inch Thick, rebar reinforced wall and if you use the concrete floor slab system (as seen in comercial buildings) for the second floor, then you would have a basic hardened structure. You can go up to as many floors as you need with the forms ( I have seen some houses that are 3 floors) if you install a cement ceiling on the top of the last floor, then add your truss structure and roofing (recommend sheet metal over plywood and asphalt shingles), they cannot access you from the roof.

Get commercial fire rated steel solid core doors with dead bolts and drop bars and it would take some serious equipment to break in. The windows would need to be either institution grade or buy triple paned windows and there is a company that offers and adhesible laminate film, that makes the glass impact resistant, and armors it up to about Class II, making it capable of stopping most handgun rounds and just about any hand operated tool.

Basically, you would need to use a vehicle powered ram or explosive entry, to breach the door, if you put steel shutters or droppable steel plates on the interior of the windows, nothing is going to get in. Build it in a remote hard to access area, with part of the structure under ground or built into the side of a hill and after you do the siding and landscaping and finish the interior, no one would even realize that you constructed a hardened structure, since if anyone were to question it, you are buiding a tornado/earthquake etc hardened structure.
 
I'd favor building on the side of a hill, here in the Texas hill country, and then digging a tunnel complex out the back. The tunnel complex's secrecy would be just as important as its design - maybe more so - and these days, burying the hired help at the conclusion of the job is frowned on, so you're facing a DIY proposition. Hmmm . . . working alone, how long will it take one man, even using a jackhammer, to hollow out a couple of hundred cubic yards of limestone, with an escape tunnel out the back?

And where to dump the rubble?

Hmmm . . . a castle with a moat and drawbridge would be interesting, but it wouldn't be exactly low profile . . . and then we get to point #6: Ballistic protection.

Mortars and RPG's? You're getting someone REALLY peeved at you, right?

The high walls of castles were quite vulnerable to large caliber gunfire, so they stopped making castles. It would seem to me that making something proof against mortar rounds and shaped charges would require a LOT of reinforced, high-strength concrete, with some sort of anti-spall barriers inside like they were installing in the Pentagon just before 9/11.

How thick would a polycarbonate window have to be to defeat an RPG?

Strong doors, walls, and windows were already discussed, but I'd add some large planters all around the house, spaced closely enough that a bulldozer couldn't easily get between them. Build them REALLY strong - or maybe terrace the approach - and you'll be impregnable for at least a short time. Maybe long enough to boogie out your escape tunnel.

Plant lots of cactus or stuff with really big thorns all around the house, too.
 
It's all good folks (so far)...

Have already seen some real good ideas for a suburban concealed fortress. TEOTWAWKI ideas are cool too (especially if you have the kind of ego, funding, and ruthlessness of a Saddam Hussein...No, wait...that didn't do him much good either...hmmmnn?)

I guess a better definition of terms is in order...

"XXXX Resistance": Will stop or protect (at least for a while)

"Typical 3000-4000 sq ft... upscale suburban home": It may be a geodesic dome, it may be an adobe hacienda, it might be a log kit home, it might be a red-brick colonial...in any event...it still looks like it fits into the neighborhood (No Schloss HohenZollern, no 5" gun emplacements, no Fort Apache Log Palisade). If you visualize this in Florida or Louisiana, I'm down with the moat and gators...it might work.

"Limited Protection": Will mitigate blast, overpressure, fragmentation munitions, and shaped-charge jet (i.e., if a light HEAT rocket penetrates, it's not going to devastate the complete interior and if a light/medium delay mortar round lands on the roof, it's not drilling thru to the next floor before detonation). In other words, if an RPG burns thru where you are standing, you're toast, but if you are at the other side of the room, you survive.

"Forces of Darkness": You are tapping away at the keyboard (probably on this forum)...or you're snoozing to the soothing sounds of PBS's Joy of Painting (Bob Ross)...or you are just practicing dry fire in the direction of the Tele-Tubbies on your wide-screen...suddenly:

A. 1-3 Crackheads decide to do a home invasion...
B. A No-Knock Warrant by the local gendarmerie is mistakenly served on your domicile (oops, wrong address)...
C. Several locals you last saw in the movie "Deliverance" decide that now would be a good time to give you a quick lesson in cultural immersion...

I want something that allows enough protection to defeat amateur attempts at breaching the house and delays professional assault at least long enough to dial 911, secure loved ones, get something in hand more significant than the TV remote, and (if need be) beat a retreat to a hardened saferoom OR make clandestine and hasty escape from property.

There have been some really good suggestions...I am really liking the ideas for buried or semi-buried home in a hill as well as walled compound with inner courtyard. The plan for the basement workshop/vault/range is great! The plan for turning it into a vehicle barrier is just plain devious! I haven't seen a window that would stop an RPG but have seen ones that will stop 7.62 AP. Good ole Mother Earth will stop an awful lot (including weather and high velocity metal). How much ballistic protection will log or adobe homes provide?

Dogs, lights, rebar, hardened slab roofs, watchtowers, concertina, adobe, Medco locks, large planters, cactus, the info from previous threads and other links...It's All Good!
 
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I would also start with a solid concrete pour system like Shaughn Leayme suggested. Either that, or the recycled tire and rammed earth construction sheathed in a mesh and concrete skin would be good too.

If it was an earth home or below ground. All ventilation would have alternate grenade diverters that would go into explosive sumps for gas or flash-bangs etc.

Window lamination is also a good idea. Use glass block where light is important but the view is not. Metal glass block grids are availible so kicking it down isn't as easy. Rolling shutters like you see on store fronts are also possible for residential instalation, and without looking ugly. Check out this company:

http://www.alutech.com/products/rollingshutter.htm?source=googleRollingShutters

If you're really paranoid, I could see using double sets of these, one outside and one inside. The air gap between would probably work well against those funky shaped charge plates that SWAT teams are deploying against doors and windows.

Per Waco, I'd landscape ridges, ditches, decorative rocks, and berms into "tank traps". Driveway would be single car width, and have several blind turns. I'd conceal telophone poles between trees, loose-wrapped in razor wire on hinges held upright with selonoid pins that would allow them to drop as barriers. Perhaps a retractable cow grate that was just long and deep enough to stop a tracked vehicle would be in the driveway as well.

Landscaping would also include every nasty, poisonous, and thorny plant that grows well in the area. If that vegitation looked out of place, I'd conceal it behind a ring of "normal" decorative plants 1-2 layers deep.

Helicopters are more difficult, assuming the raiding force is "only" criminals, or paramilitary/LEO run amok, AA defenses should be passive. You do not want burning wreckage on top of your stronghold. ( I also suspect the first "criminal" to destroy a .gv tracked vehicle or aircraft will recieve a full military response and be leveled.) A system of self-inflating barage baloons and cables would be good, as well as a non lethal blinding laser system, something like a 10-20 watt HeAr blue-green "rock concert" laser, with a video-linked aiming mirror. The actual exit mirror could be very small and easily concealed with the actual laser buried well inside the house. You could easily deny usefull overflight by any low flying craft via visual deterrent only by painting the cockpit.

An escape tunnel would be awsome, if only for the fun of watching the umpteenth day of the "standoff" on the news from your secondary safe house . :D

Very powerfull HAM/Shortwave transmitter, possibly satellite or wireless DSL Internet under an assumed name. Store all secure data on CD-ROMS kept in a microwave with UPS power supply and deadman switch. Hard disks have small thermite packs wired to separate battery system. Solar power system. Deep cycle batteries w/inverters for commo gear, and parallel 12v system for basic lighting etc. Generator backup. Preferably diesel, or LPG. Have brilliant quartz-halogen lights pointed outward from the house, make NVD's useless, and counter spotlights thrown on you by the agressor.

I loved the buried fougasse tubes in "Patriots"/TEOTAWAKI, perhaps a less lethal response would some concealed non-lethal flash-bangs, smoke, and flares wired and planted behind any presumed perimiter established by siege forces, also planted behind likely/tempting cover that would be used for advanced deployment, snipers, or LP/OP's...

This IS fun... :D
 
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