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Hobbit Hole + World Class Fallout Shelter
ChaosMt writes "Slashdot has covered buying missile silos before, along with buying old microwave bunkers to provide the ultimate level of data protection. Making your own Hobbit hole has been covered too. Now you can have it all in the best shelter I've ever seen (even beating the Subterranean Fortress) in an undisclosed location outside of Durango, Colorado. It may not be your cup of tea, but it is very impressive to see and compare to your own disaster planning."
...when you can just duck and cover?
Only a few hours after a mushroom cloud was seen at the border of China and N. Korea, the people of Slashdot are looking for fallout shelters.
Considering the batshit-crazy Kim Jong Il still runs N. Korea, maybe that's not such a bad idea after all.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
I wonder how well the Ultimate Secure Home handles an internal fire caused by a burning webserver.
Apparantly even http packets cannot penetrate this fortress.
The Ultimate Secure Home
Home front
The artificial rock front blends in perfectly with the natural environment
Some years ago, the owners of this property had a log hunting cabin in another part of Colorado. Beautiful, yes, but the wood construction posed numerous problems. Several "near-miss" incidents made the family realize how vulnerable the cabin was to any number of disasters and threats. A winter storm, which blew the front door open, might have caused the water pipes to freeze and break, flooding both the upper and lower levels, resulting in many thousands of dollars damage, had it not been discovered in time. A forest fire, which started when a tree fell on the above-ground power line leading to the cabin, came frighteningly close to the wood structure and to within just a few feet of the above-ground propane tanks. A hailstorm necessitated a new roof, a new paint job, and major repairs to the siding. The large front glass windows were spared from damage, but nevertheless were extremely vulnerable. And finally, when the cabin was broken into and many valuable antiques were stolen, the owners decided to look for a safer kind of structure for their retreat, and a better, more remote location.
After spending 2 ½ years studying every kind of alternative home construction, everything from earthships made out of spare tires, to rammed-earth construction, to monolithic domes, they ultimately realized there was only one kind of construction that would afford them the kind of security they wanted: an earth home (made with Formwork's patented thin-shell concrete construction technique). The house they finally built is not just any earth home. It is what has come to be known in the industry as a "secure home." It is an unparalleled model of the ultimate secure home. Its many features will amaze you.
While the term "secure home" is still relatively new to the general public, this unique segment of the home construction industry has, for the past decade, been growing steadily, albeit slowly. Presently, with the increased threat of major terrorist attacks, many more people than ever before are building secure homes. Also, more contractors and consultants have recently dedicated themselves to the concept of disaster-resistant and self-sufficient residences. It is only with a realistic understanding of the potential for terrorist attacks, and the magnitude of the problems they could cause, that one can truly recognize the value of a secure home.
This patented steel-reinforced concrete earth sheltered structure, properly called a thin-shell dome, is built to withstand almost any natural or man-made disaster you can name. And that's not just an idle promise. These buildings have withstood tornadoes, hurricanes, and earthquakes - some measuring over 7.0 on the Richter scale - and in every case they have come away with no structural damage at all. Unlike monolithic domes, and all other types of home construction, only Formwork's concrete domes can be completely buried deep underground.
The house has 2472 square feet, with an additional 800 square feet in the attached 24' x 36' underground garage. The main floor of the house consists of a large living room, two bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen, pantry, and laundry closet. Upstairs is a loft and two multi-purpose storage/sleeping rooms. The house currently has ten beds in seven different rooms. There is lots of additional space for other cots or bedrolls. A 22' long x 6' wide hallway leads to the garage. This hall is lined on one side with 18" deep shelf units, providing a considerable amount of quick-access storage. The other wall of this hall is a convenient place to store larger items, such as skis, bicycles, or a vacuum cleaner, that wouldn't fit on the shelves. Additionally, a large storage attic is found above the garage.
The living room's high-domed ceiling gives the room an open, spacious feeling. A custom steel stairway leads from the loft to a cupola perched on top of the house. Light from the cupola gives the sa
Coral Cache of Ultimate Secure Home
Not because I think it's especially necessary, but because it's just really neat. I mean, if people insist on consuming resources for silly things you gotta admit an underground radiation proof hidden house is a lot more interesting than these thirty million dollar celebrity mansions.
This a) doesn't label you as a target for people looking for easy money and b) let's you live out those childhood fantasies of having a fort to retreat to (and to be honest, don't we all wish we could disappear into our own basement fort and vanish from the world once in a while?) Plus, there's always that 0.0000001 chance it might actually come in handy due to an event like it was designed for. Not a war probably, but suppose some terrorist sets off a nuclear bomb nearby? Not only would such a place be useful in ducking away from fallout, but unlike a full scale nuclear war a terrorist attack is worth surviving because there's still a world left over to come out to.
What people have to remember is this:
Denver, CO is set up to be the next Washington, D.C., in case the latter ever gets wiped out. Norad is based in Colorado Springs. Both of these potential targets are quite far to the northeast of Durango. The closest strategic targets I can think of are really Denver, Colorado Springs, Kirkland AFB in Albuquerque, and Los Alamos, White Sands, etc. in NM, and maybe some proving grounds and bases in Utah and Nevada. Durango is NOT a target, but it's kind of in the middle of these other, good targets. You'd expect to get a bit of fallout there from a large-scale attack. Having a fallout shelter is GOOD, I suppose, if you're worried about that.
In addition, Durango is one of these "new Aspens", where college students hang out, there are a lot of older locals (ranchers, Navajo, people who showed up before the '70's, mainly), and so forth, but there are a LOT of VERY rich people around (WalMart heir rich; 4th richest in the US rich), who can afford these kind of eccentric houses (and seem to get off on living in this gorgeous place, and ruin the whole atmosphere at the same time because then no one else can afford to live there ).
Finally, a lot of people hunt in Durango (and all over the mountain West). It's the kind of thing where you get a few days off in the fall to bag an elk or bear. So the guy's comment about elk hindquarters, although strange to a lot of people, are very common to people from the Rockies.
Typical cheap safe rooms consist of simple 2x4 frame with a layer of 1/2 plywood, then a layer of 16 guage steel.
A 2x4 at hurricane velocity might breach both the steel and plywood, but it would generally splinter and lose any and all useful energy by the time it gets through - and that's assuming it had enough energy to even make it to the room since it has to go throgh some regular walls/windows/siding/furniture/etc to get to the safe room.
So yes, such a room can be built cheaply and still have more than adequate protection.
See what FEMA has to say about safe room construction. In particular safe rooms cost between $3,000 and $5,000 depending on the type you build and where it is situated. It's much cheaper to build it when the house is built than later, so I can easily see a cost of $3,000 for an average safe room.
-Adam