digging in a cellar /storm shelter in your exsitings home

[grinder71]

Built my house back in 2006 had an idea of where i wanted to put a cellar but not the money to put it their. How many guys have done this and added to the structure they now live in. I guess to hide it and still use it as a seller or as a storm shelter that doesnt look like a bomb shelter.

wife wants a storm shelter I just dont want to chopup basement walls suggestions

Mark

 

[CalG]

Just pretend you are going to put on a 10X12 addition to your kitchen

Bring in the back hoe, pour whatever sub-ground foundation you want, then cap the new "addition" with PT timbers and a water proof membrane, then and cover it with soil

Rent a gas powered concrete saw and cut your opening into the new space, hang a door , add a light, put up a few shelves and call it good

8-10 thousand dollars later....Viola! ;-)

 

[Happy Gilmore]

Tying in a new foundation to an existing one isn't all that bad. When cutting out your entryway from old to new if it is cut by someone who is competent it will have nice smooth edges. You won't really even notice it. On the other hand if the operator of the concrete saw kinda hacks it, well that's another story.....

 

[grinder71]

my basement walls are pourd concrete on one side ,the side under the garage, which the garage floor is 8ft up tied to the wall. Has any body tired to support a ceiling for a cellar and still support the garage floor under it ?

 

[Depmandog]

.…wife wants a storm shelter I just dont want to chopup basement walls suggestions Mark

It sounds like you already have a basement??? If so, you already have a refuge from storms.

If you are wanting something more secure, you might consider blocking in a basement corner and adding a safe door. Dual purpose gun safe / storm shelter?? More info is needed.

 

[Redneck in training]

I copied commercially sold steel storm shelter that I will weld from 2X2 square tubing, cover it with 1/4" steel plate and anchor it with Hilti anchors in the corner of the garage. It will serve dual purpose. I will make a sauna out of it. I have all the material bought and good excuse to buy plasma cutter. All material sans the Hilti anchors cost about $1200. Attached picture shows intended dimensions.



Since the steel door have to open outside because of sauna door will open inside. I will install another opening (window) covered by steel plate that could be removed from inside.

 

[oldballs]

I hand dug under the crawl space (about 12 x 20). Went down about 18 inches. Carried the dirt out in 5 gallon buckets. Then laid down about 3 inches of crushed rock. Put some lights in. Boxed-in one outside corner with 5/8 plywood with the floor lifted for potato storage and other stuff. It's a great place to store garden supplies from freezing as well as assorted other stuff on shelves and skids. I have to bend over to get in and out.....but I'm short anyway. The whole area is insulated from the house above. Normally it is pretty dry under there, but between A/C and the furnace moisture is usually controlled.

As to a storm cellar, I go outside and watch.....while the wife/kids used to hide in one corner of the regular basement. We never had a direct hit of a tornado in the 45 years here, so I don't know how that might have worked out.:confused3:

 

[nikdfish]

Had some friends in WV that put in a partial basement many years after the house was built. As I heard it they used a bobcat to excavate a ramp in from the side between foundation piers, then redid supports as the dig progressed. They used it to accomodate addition of central heat & plumbing (it was an old house). This predated the imposition of county building codes in the 80's...

Nick

 

[newbury]

This predated the imposition of county building codes in the 80's...

Nick

Therein are many potential problems.
Check to see if you need inspections.

My area in Fulton, Ms has no inspectors and everyone treats is as no code.
The area in Alexandria, Va is inspected and follows the latest code. I probably couldn't put in a bird cage in Virginia.

SWMBO wants a "storm shelter" in Mississippi. The house is on the "crest" of a little hill and has a full walkout basement facing east. My tentative plans are to build a shelter addition to the basement similar to what CalG described.

 

[grinder71]

Newbury, that is what I am dealing with also, being a full walkout basement on a hill with basicaly 1 and a quarter walls in the ground and the rest is exposed stick framed walls to the north and west. I do have a spot under the stairwell that I could block around for a storm shelter but would not be a a good spot for a cellar for storing canned goods ( I have heated floors ). That is probably what I will do for safety, I am just trying to get some ideas what others have done for the dual purpose storm shelter/root cellars in their homes after it was built.

BTW I do live in the country and the only inspections needed were for sewer and electric, so if I decide to dig a big hole in the ground and build something and cover it up and the tax asessor guy doesn,t fly over in his plane and take pictures and try to get me on additioal living space I should be ok.

Mark

 

[SPIKER]

As a youngster, teens we did my cousins place and my oldest brother's place.

Cousins place was 5' hi basement with old rubble/large rock foundation. We dug by hand and hauled out in 5 gallon bucket till we could get to stand up. This was entire basement dug deeper. then we removed one 1/3 section of foundation at a time, framed and poured by hand concrete footers and new walls in sections.

My brother's place was done as a tri-story addition, we dug mostly by hand down along foundation one full side. We dug down about 4 feet deeper than the OLD foundation, drilled that and pounded in rebar and poured new foundation & footers/floor. It was framed up about 4 to 6 feet for the footer/foundation pour. Then a short stairs was cut into old basement which was maybe 6' high. there was a 2 story addition framed up above the NEW section of lower basement. His place was on a STEEP hill so lots of fall..
there are small bobcats and small motorized bucket loaders which can crawl up/down stairs for dragging soil out or you can use a conveyor too. otherwise it is LOTS of manual labor and time...

Mark

 

[Gary Fowler]

You would want a storm shelter on the east side of your house with any door that opens to the outside facing east (all tornadoes move from west to east). Keep that in mind when building whatever you build. I added one of the factory built ones in my garage simply because I could get it installed with painted surface cheaper than I could buy the material to build it after getting the state rebate of $1000. It does take up some room but I built the garage extra large to start with but it is still too small to park all the vehicles in anyway so we just park wife's car, golf cart and RTV900 in it. The other two cars stay in my shop so the storm shelter isn't really in the way and it is closer and easier to access than an outside storm shelter would be.

 

[TnAndy]

Just pretend you are going to put on a 10X12 addition to your kitchen

Bring in the back hoe, pour whatever sub-ground foundation you want, then cap the new "addition" with PT timbers and a water proof membrane, then and cover it with soil

Rent a gas powered concrete saw and cut your opening into the new space, hang a door , add a light, put up a few shelves and call it good

8-10 thousand dollars later....Viola! ;-)

Pretty much what I did, only it was closer to maybe 1500 bucks for an 8x10....and I poured a 6" cap on top, not pressure treated timbers.

Had an excavator dig out the hole while here doing other things, then I cut a doorway into it. Hand poured a small footer, then laid 8" block on it. These were later filled with rebar and concrete.

Built a temporary deck to support the concrete:

Had concrete pumped while here doing some other concrete work:

Finished inside with white block sealer, shelves, lights, and a door I built out of red cedar with foam board core.

 

[grinder71]

Tnandy that is a nice cellar/shelter thanks for sharing the pic,s. Gary Fowler I guess I learned something I didn,t know that tornados only traveled from west to east, I could,ve swore we had a tornado a couple years ago that came straight out of the east. Thanks for all the replys.

Mark

 

[Depmandog]

You would want a storm shelter on the east side of your house with any door that opens to the outside facing east (all tornadoes move from west to east).

This isn't an entirely true statement. Tornadoes track with the thunderstorms that spawn them.

Most thunderstorms move from the southwest and, consequently, so do most tornadoes. Tornado researcher Dr. Tetsuya Fujita (1920-1998) cataloged 17,081 tornadoes whose movement was known and found that tornadoes move from all directions: from the southwest, 59 percent; from the west, 19 percent; from the northwest, 11 percent; south, 6 percent; southeast, 2 percent; and 1 percent each from the north, northeast and east.