Storm shelter box has been checked!

medicchief

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After moving to the country, we decided that one of our first big investments would be a storm shelter. Arkansas has it's share of tornados and we've always had a neighbor's house, with a basement, that we'd go to. Now that we live on a hill and twelve acres, running to a neighbor's place isn't an option. That being said, we just had this 7x10 installed on a slope to our shop in the back yard. I'm glad we ordered it a month ago, since there's currently a 4-6 week installation wait time and storms have already started!
 

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Could be useful for other things too, you never know unfortunately. Better to have and not need than to need and not have! Congrats! I've always wondered, how secure are the locks on the inside of those? I would assume strong enough to withstand EF-5 type wind, but could it be broken into from the outside if you were to get stuck inside for some reason? Is it 7' wide by 10' high? I apologize for my ignorance on the subject :lol:
 
Could be useful for other things too, you never know unfortunately. Better to have and not need than to need and not have! Congrats! I've always wondered, how secure are the locks on the inside of those? I would assume strong enough to withstand EF-5 type wind, but could it be broken into from the outside if you were to get stuck inside for some reason? Is it 7' wide by 10' high? I apologize for my ignorance on the subject :lol:

Certainly an alternate safe room, but I would want a periscope! The shelter (including door) is rated for EF-5 or greater. The door has safe-type 3/8" pins opposite the hinge. Should the door get damaged it could be removed from the outside, but it would take a bit. The folks nearest to us and family know to check on us if we have a direct hit. The 7x10 is the floor dimension, inside height is about 6'6". One heck of an echo chamber, lol. It's cool to create a loud hum inside it and raise the pitch until it reaches a reverberating frequency, which really annoys my wife....:laughing:
 
Certainly an alternate safe room,
but I would want a periscope! The shelter (including door) is rated for EF-5 or greater. The door has safe-type 3/8" pins opposite the hinge. Should the door get damaged it could be removed from the outside, but it would take a bit. The folks nearest to us and family know to check on us if we have a direct hit. The 7x10 is the floor dimension, inside height is about 6'6". One heck of an echo chamber, lol. It's cool to create a loud hum inside it and raise the pitch until it reaches a reverberating frequency,
which really annoys my wife....:laughing:

Neat, good to think ahead !!!!

.......you definitely don't want to "annoy the wife" if you ever need to be locked in there with her for a few hours :lol:

Hey, not a "periscope" but maybe a protected camera with a wired feed into the shelter that you could plug into a laptop to see what's going on outside.

Maybe power the laptop with something like this:

Portable Power Station

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LVQ3DB5/ref=nav_timeline_asin
 
That's really cool. Is that an air vent/turbine thing on there? Does it have electric hookup? How's cell phone reception in there?
 
Neat, good to think ahead !!!!

.......you definitely don't want to "annoy the wife" if you ever need to be locked in there with her for a few hours :lol:

Hey, not a "periscope" but maybe a protected camera with a wired feed into the shelter that you could plug into a laptop to see what's going on outside.

Maybe power the laptop with something like this:

Portable Power Station

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LVQ3DB5/ref=nav_timeline_asin

Great suggestion!
 
That is good! Great Peace of Mind for you and your family.

Here in the Castle we had one installed in our Castle Dungeon a few years back. We have a battery operated electric magnetic camping fan stuck on the ceiling and several magnetic lights we got for free from Harbor Freight. The Royal Chamber measures 6X6X6.5'. We have a bench, camping potty, along with several 5 gallon buckets...one for each of us with clothes, 1 full of bottled water, I filled with snacks. Being that it is in the Castle, it also acts as a nice walk-in gun safe. On ours, the 400 lb. door opens to the inside. There are slits for ventilation in the door, 2 dead bolts and 3 slipover bolts on the door. Finally, there is a wide angle peep hole installed in the door for exterior viewing. The steel on it is impervious to a .357 mag bullet, so it is a great safe room in a Castle invasion too! We also store quite a bit of first aid kit in there also.:yes:
 
That's really cool. Is that an air vent/turbine thing on there? Does it have electric hookup? How's cell phone reception in there?

Yes, it's a turbine vent, with an inlet vent as well. Cell reception is 1 bar to none inside. I have a cell booster, with an external antenna on our house, which works very well (Surecall). I'll probably get another one for the shelter and put the amplifier/transmitter inside it. It isn't wired for power at this time, but I'm getting ready to run some to it. I'll just use an outlet in the shop as a source, so I can unplug it and run it off a generator should there be an outage.
 
That is good! Great Peace of Mind for you and your family.

Here in the Castle we had one installed in our Castle Dungeon a few years back. We have a battery operated electric magnetic camping fan stuck on the ceiling and several magnetic lights we got for free from Harbor Freight. The Royal Chamber measures 6X6X6.5'. We have a bench, camping potty, along with several 5 gallon buckets...one for each of us with clothes, 1 full of bottled water, I filled with snacks. Being that it is in the Castle, it also acts as a nice walk-in gun safe. On ours, the 400 lb. door opens to the inside. There are slits for ventilation in the door, 2 dead bolts and 3 slipover bolts on the door. Finally, there is a wide angle peep hole installed in the door for exterior viewing. The steel on it is impervious to a .357 mag bullet, so it is a great safe room in a Castle invasion too! We also store quite a bit of first aid kit in there also.:yes:

Very nice!
 
good thinking... I have been on my wife about it since moving here to SC... she saw no need until last Feb 6th... a strong f2 hit through our neighborhood and the damage was extensive...now that we are currently looking at houses again, she said it would be a great Idea to build something.
 
good thinking... I have been on my wife about it since moving here to SC... she saw no need until last Feb 6th... a strong f2 hit through our neighborhood and the damage was extensive...now that we are currently looking at houses again, she said it would be a great Idea to build something.

It's like insurance, hate to pay for it, but it sure is nice if/when you need it! At least it does add a little value to the home too.
 
Amc Basements are not something you find a lot of in the south. Water table is usually too high. I was construction supervisor and would frequently get asked that question from people who had moved south. One customer did not believe me so i dug a hole two feet deep and had 4 inches of water in the hole.
 
Amc Basements are not something you find a lot of in the south. Water table is usually too high. I was construction supervisor and would frequently get asked that question from people who had moved south. One customer did not believe me so i dug a hole two feet deep and had 4 inches of water in the hole.

"Why don't you have a basement, poor guy?"

"Because when you have a basement here in Houston, it turns into an underground swimming pool."
 
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