Buy a plastic water tank that’s meant to be buried. Of course, you’ll have to establish who gets to squeeze thru the tightly confined manhole first, when the tornado is coming up the road.

 

I've looked into those, since they would naturally be water tight. That's on my radar.

 

8' dia. culvert (steel or concrete). You have to close the ends but this gives you the advantage of having two ways in and out. That is good planning.

 

I'm very interested in the culvert idea, but with a slight twist. Rather than laying it horizontally, as most people do, I would love to find a piece that's 10-foot diameter by about nine or ten feet long, then pour a round concrete base and set it in vertically. I assume there are pre-made caps for these? If so, I could get a cap and cut an opening for the entrance and a smaller one for an air vent.

But so far I've had very little luck finding anything less than about 30 feet long for $10k or more.

 

I'd check with the TN dealers for >>>> Tornado Shelters | Southern Illinois Storm Shelters | United States

they manufacturer a variety of shelters in S Illinois and stockpile the popular stuff with their dealer/installers in the surrounding states - you'd be sharing transportation $$$$

 

I'd check with the TN dealers for >>>> Tornado Shelters | Southern Illinois Storm Shelters | United States

they manufacturer a variety of shelters in S Illinois and stockpile the popular stuff with their dealer/installers in the surrounding states - you'd be sharing transportation $$$$

Thanks, but I forgot to mention that I really don't want fiberglass. Even the little 4-person Storm-Tek is usually $5k and up. They also require some anchoring to prevent them from floating up.

Good thinking, though.

 

Just a thought... If I was doing this on a budget and wanted sufficient space for a family + bathroom, I'd get a used steel container and bury it, doors side up. Venting, septic, etc. would be per your requirements. Note: in-ground units without bilge or drainage are susceptible to flooding. YMMV

10ft. Shipping Containers For Sale | Connex Box Containers (azteccontainer.com) or Shipping and Storage Container Sales in Memphis, Tennessee - ConGlobal (cgicontainersales.com)

 

Rent a backhoe from Hone depot (300 for a weekend)….. Spend a weekend digging a hole, Pour a floor, build the wall forms out of plywood….. Pour again, make sure to notch out 4 spots to put 2 wood beams across the top, pour a ceiling/roof with an access hole…… Finish how you like, bury.
I bet you could do a 10x10 with rebar for 6-7 grand ( that’s here in PA, I bet cheaper in TN) You could do it in sections therefore financing it a month at a time. For 200 by us you could epoxy coat the whole inside to further waterproof it.

 

You can buy a fibreglass septic tank and bury it.

 

You have to be careful as many bins and containers cant support dirt load on top.

 

I did not check prices, but something like this? Maybe find used or never used/old inventory from a city nearby? Although you may die from claustrophobia.

Catch Basins — Columbia Precast Concrete

www.columbiaprecastproducts.com

https://concreteindustries.com/pipe/

Precast Concrete Structures

Reinforced concrete pipe is the preferred choice for sanitary and storm water systems across the country.

www.countymaterials.com

Concrete Pipe - Pipe & Tubing - Ferguson

Shop for Concrete Pipe at Ferguson. Ferguson is the #1 US plumbing supply company and a top distributor of HVAC parts, waterworks supplies, and MRO products.

www.ferguson.com

Contact the cartels in mexico and see how they build underground tunnels?

 

I did not check prices, but something like this? Maybe find used or never used/old inventory from a city nearby? Although you may die from claustrophobia.

Catch Basins — Columbia Precast Concrete

www.columbiaprecastproducts.com

https://concreteindustries.com/pipe/

Precast Concrete Structures

Reinforced concrete pipe is the preferred choice for sanitary and storm water systems across the country.

www.countymaterials.com

Concrete Pipe - Pipe & Tubing - Ferguson

Shop for Concrete Pipe at Ferguson. Ferguson is the #1 US plumbing supply company and a top distributor of HVAC parts, waterworks supplies, and MRO products.

www.ferguson.com

Contact the cartels in mexico and see how they build underground tunnels?

I've thought about just driving around and looking for dirt construction sites.

"Hey, I'll give you $500.00 for this and another $500.00 if you'll haul it to my backyard."

 

We put in sewage lift stations at the company I worked. They collect the sewage and then pump it up to flow to the next station.

They are vertical cylinders about 12 ft across with a manhole and ladder. Concrete or fiberglass. You would need to rent a trackhoe to install it.

 

I posted a series of photos from the construction of my ICF basement. Perhaps you could build a smaller version, connected to your existing home.

Log Home Part 1, ICF Basement in Oklahoma

Two hard days of dirt excavation and I'm now the proud owner of a big hole in the ground. My wife wanted a basement, so I searched for a well drained building site, and start our home project by digging down.. After digging the hole bug enough for the house, I noticed a very nice place on the...

www.survivalistboards.com

 

I posted a series of photos from the construction of my ICF basement. Perhaps you could build a smaller version, connected to your existing home.

I've taken an interest in ICF lately, especially for something that'll be in a somewhat moist environment.

 

Do you have a basement or is the water level an issue?

 

No basement. I wish I did, because that's exacttly where I would build it. As for the water level, I've tried looking it up online, but no luck. I think I need to make a few calls.

 

Since you only need it for very short times, why not just dig a storm cellar like they used to (and add a few modern safety things)? Shovel-dug hole in the dirt under the house with an angled door and a latch inside. Keep wipes, TP, plastic bags, case of water, first aid kit, fire extinguisher, flashlight, weather radio with power output capability, batteries, axe, air horn, whistle, and a couple bottle jacks inside. Maybe an old cell phone (911 only capability). All fits in a milk crate.

Garden-type back-hoe with long-reach, you could do it in an afternoon (unless bedrock too close to the surface).

For those that don't know what 'm talking about, first part of Wizard of Oz.

 

My crawl space runs from about four feet at the entrance to about 1.5 feet at the other end. I've thought about this idea, but I would want it accessible from inside the house.

 

OP pix post while I was working on previous post.

Do you have a partial basement or partially enclosed crawl space with the block?

Which direction is the house facing (which side is the exposed part of the crawl space)?

 

Which direction is the house facing (which side is the exposed part of the crawl space)?

The worst possible direction: Southwest. The crawl space opening is on the Southeast end.

 

We have little problem with water table so my next house will be ICF ranch with a ramp to the lower level instead of stairs. Rebar from the base of the foundation to steel truss roof structure with a steel roof.

A full kitchen in the basement. Some hurricand glass and I'm not blowing to Kansas.

The highest winds we've had here are only 110 mph. Gusts tomorrow will be 50+. The stick frame house we bought seems to do okay below 110 or so. The trees around us not so much.

I did hurricane clip our rafters.

 

Just spitballing, but what about a old van buried into a hillside? Maybe seal the seams with silicone or roll the whole thing with tar? 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

This very thing was done by some people I knew growing up, using an old ambulance van (via Google Maps).

But I don't have a bank on my property, so that's not exactly an option.

Still, It's something I've considered. Bury a van body and install a ladder.

 

???

 

My property actually has a 1950's era nuclear fallout shelter on the property. It's simple 8' x 10" underground room accessible from a 12' deep shaft. Would I want to "ride the storm out" in this thing? No way! It's a death trap. There's only one narrow way in and out. One tree branch or debris would seal you in. Far better to ride things out in the basement of our house. It's almost as deep as the bunker, has a lot more room and more escape opportunities.

The cheapest route would be to simply dig a deep hole on your property with simple shovels. I'm thinking maybe 8' deep and a gently sloping 10' in diameter. If a tornado comes, simply jump into the hole. You're gonna get wet but will be adequately protected from the storm.

Just my 2 cents. I'm no survival genius, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

 

A storm shelter isn't a bunker, it's the crudest sort of shelter, so it can be pretty crappy.
Used or surplus culvert might better suit your needs. It's frequently available at half cost or less, and 48" culvert works pretty well and is easy to ship.
Tinhorn, out of Tulsa is pretty good: "TINHORN CULVERT CORRUGATED METAL PIPE PLASTIC STEEL" bridge Culvert
They've got 13' sections of 48″ Polypro pipe for $2,145 .
If you order by the foot, he's got 48″ Plastic Culvert, (20 days to delivery) for $170 / linear ft and they regularly get in oddball stuff for cheap.
If you put in a request and ask them to email you, you may be surprised what turns up in a few weeks.

As for the ends, you may want to locate a 48" hollow plastic endwall and fill that with sand or cement, and you have a nice solid wall to attach a steel door and frame to. If you just want to enclose the other end, put a 4" vent through it and seal it with a concrete plug.

 

A storm shelter isn't a bunker, it's the crudest sort of shelter, so it can be pretty crappy.
Used or surplus culvert might better suit your needs. It's frequently available at half cost or less, and 48" culvert works pretty well and is easy to ship.
Tinhorn, out of Tulsa is pretty good: "TINHORN CULVERT CORRUGATED METAL PIPE PLASTIC STEEL" bridge Culvert
They've got 13' sections of 48″ Polypro pipe for $2,145 .
If you order by the foot, he's got 48″ Plastic Culvert, (20 days to delivery) for $170 / linear ft and they regularly get in oddball stuff for cheap.
If you put in a request and ask them to email you, you may be surprised what turns up in a few weeks.

As for the ends, you may want to locate a 48" hollow plastic endwall and fill that with sand or cement, and you have a nice solid wall to attach a steel door and frame to. If you just want to enclose the other end, put a 4" vent through it and seal it with a concrete plug.

Thanks. I might drop them a line about what I'm looking for. I have feeling that shipping from Oklahoma to Tennessee won't be cheap, though.

 

Is this a storm shelter that you will be spending hours in every time you have a storm or a tornado is on the way get in. I find that those are very different. It sounds like it’s something you want to spend some time in. If this was for emergency only a stack of buried tractor tires 8’ down will work. Even has built in shelves and ladder! crushed rock floor with a way to shovel out but there won’t a top so it will be easy to get out the top. A shelter you will spend a while in is definitely different and the cost goes way up.

 

Basically, I want something of decent quality and permanence, but cheap and relatively easy. I know. "Santa, I want it all." I don't really want to do the tire or earth bag thing, but I also don't need a "bunker" for long-term living. If I lived further South, I would go a little more elaborate, something for spending nights in as needed. When we have a real warning here, it's rare, but it's also a sick feeling to have nowhere to go at all.

All things considered, I would prefer steel over concrete and I really don't care for fiberglass. Under the house or inside it doesn't really appeal at all.

I'm probably looking harder at the dumpster/shipping container concept than anything else, although I know that both will require some serious work. The steel culvert idea also appeals to me, with work expected.

 

One thing to keep in mind with an outdoor tornado shelter. When do you decide the storm is bad enough to go to it? If you decide to go out there early you may be spending hours and hours in there, with kids if you have them. How many times will you do that (without the storm causing major damage) before you decide to not go until the storm is actually one you.

If you wait until the storm is there. Now you and possibly your kids are running to the storm shelter in the dark, with debris blowing all around, and cold rain and lightning. How many times will you do that without the storm causing major damage before you decide to just ride it out in the house?

In my opinion it is best for safety(but not always possible) to have the storm shelter in or attached to the house and set up as just another room. That way if bad storms are coming you can already have have a TV and couch and beds in there. You can have a family movie night to distract the kids, it can be set up to comfortably sleep in there so if a storm comes in the middle of the night you are already in the safer room.

With that said our current home has the storm shelter in the basement set up with a couch and the kids video games so it is easy to get them down there any time the weather is bad.

But the house we are building isn't going to have a basement so I have a cattle pass culvert I intend to bury as a storm shelter that is accessable on one end from inside our north porch and daylights out the side of the hill on the other end. The side that comes out the hill will have a block wall and a heavy door.

 

Yeah. I can relate to this dilemma. Where I grew up, if the weather was threatening we went on out to the shelter. More than once I spent most of a night in one.

Speaking of which, I learned back in 2011 that they've changed the criteria for a watch vs. a warning. When I was growing up, a watch meant that conditions were favorable, while a warning meant that a funnel had actually been spotted. Well, there were warnings issued here at the time (2011), and I thought that a funnel had been spotted. No, a warning is now based on a high probability, not necessarily an actual funnel spotted. I assume that this is an effort to get earlier warnings out.

So I guess it comes down to a judgment call. Growing up, we sometimes went to the shelter when there was only a watch issued if things started looking rough. Other times, we didn't go during an actual warning if things were calm where we were (a county is a pretty big area).

 

I have seen pictures of a bus partially buried that worked as a storm shelter.

 

Here's one that's buried completely. This went somewhat viral after the tornado outbreak in Alabama back in 2011.

Underground school bus storm shelter

Call it 'riding out the storm', literally. "It's the whole bus underground," Autauga County resident James Hunter explained. He and his wife buried an old school bus to make a creative storm shelter.

www.wsfa.com

 

If you get real ambitious .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_Two_Shelter

 

If a person wants to keep costs down: the narrower the space is makes it easier and most likely cheaper to build. It is much harder to support a 8 foot wide span that is covered with dirt than it is to support a 4 foot wide span.

If a person really wanted to do it cheap you could build it log cabin style out of stacked log, then cover the entire thing(roof and walls) with rubber roofing to keep it dry then fill what is left of the hole with sand or washed gravel to allow for drainage. Then cover the top with a small mound of black dirt to plant grass in. If the dirt is slightly mounded it will help shed water.

If built with pine and kept dry you may get couple decades out of it. If you build it with white oak, ceder, locust or some other rot resistant wood it could last a life time.

 

Glad I saw this thread since I have a cheap and very Unique underground shelter and after using it as a storm / storage shelter for at least 20 years now It has been great. I have slept inside of it several times over the past 20 years although mostly in tents and a camper.

So to answer the title of this thread:
Cheap/Unique storm shelter ideas? Very few if anyone else has or can answer your question.

Here are the small pole shelter plans I used when I built my 20 x10 x 9 foot deep shelter. It was tested in the 1960's nuke tests in Nevada so it is very strong. I used about 100 small pine log poles when I built mine but any lumber such as used 2 x 4's are good. Here is the link many should at Least look at and diagrams at the bottom of the page > App. A.3: Small-Pole Shelter - Nuclear War Survival Skills

One of the first pic threads I made years ago and beginning in pic #8 shows exactly how I built mine. >

The Everything about a Bunker thread - Pic heavy

There are many threads about root cellars, fallout shelters, underground shelters etc. even Bunkers. This thread can discuss them all if people wish to contribute any of their ideas and links. A defensible bunker and an NBC shelter are different. A shelter must be a buttoned-up, closed-in...

www.survivalistboards.com

Before I added 250 eighty pound bags of concrete and I built it out of rocks and log poles from my land it cost me around $100 mainly for nails, spikes etc. After I added the concrete cost me about $2000

I have no idea if anyone has ever built anything similar to this but all I know is that it has worked real well for my wants and needs. A bear tried to get inside more than once over the years but only left muddy paw prints on the black steel door.

Ask me anything and I will answer although after June first to Nov. or so I will be unavailable and very off grid like I have been for 27 summers so far possibly year round soon.

A few photos of mine in case any will not look at the links I gave. Back trap door although I have improved this also over the years.

My front black steel door I salvaged from a factory made from two sheets of heavy metal although any door would be ok especially a steel door.

Here is one more although I have dozens of pics. This is the well camoflaged roof with a black stove pipe sticking up from a wood stove 9 feet below. It is in an L shape underground.

 

Glad I saw this thread since I have a cheap and very Unique underground shelter and after using it as a storm / storage shelter for at least 20 years now It has been great. I have slept inside of it several times over the past 20 years although mostly in tents and a camper.

So to answer the title of this thread:
Cheap/Unique storm shelter ideas? Very few if anyone else has or can answer your question.

Here are the small pole shelter plans I used when I built my 20 x10 x 9 foot deep shelter. It was tested in the 1960's nuke tests in Nevada so it is very strong. I used about 100 small pine log poles when I built mine but any lumber such as used 2 x 4's are good. Here is the link many should at Least look at and diagrams at the bottom of the page > App. A.3: Small-Pole Shelter - Nuclear War Survival Skills

One of the first pic threads I made years ago and beginning in pic #8 shows exactly how I built mine. >

The Everything about a Bunker thread - Pic heavy

There are many threads about root cellars, fallout shelters, underground shelters etc. even Bunkers. This thread can discuss them all if people wish to contribute any of their ideas and links. A defensible bunker and an NBC shelter are different. A shelter must be a buttoned-up, closed-in...

www.survivalistboards.com

Before I added 250 eighty pound bags of concrete and I built it out of rocks and log poles from my land it cost me around $100 mainly for nails, spikes etc. After I added the concrete cost me about $2000

I have no idea if anyone has ever built anything similar to this but all I know is that it has worked real well for my wants and needs. A bear tried to get inside more than once over the years but only left muddy paw prints on the black steel door.

Ask me anything and I will answer although after June first to Nov. or so I will be unavailable and very off grid like I have been for 27 summers so far possibly year round soon.

A few photos of mine in case any will not look at the links I gave. Back trap door although I have improved this also over the years.

View attachment 507798


My front black steel door I salvaged from a factory made from two sheets of heavy metal although any door would be ok especially a steel door.

View attachment 507799

Here is one more although I have dozens of pics. This is the well camoflaged roof with a black stove pipe sticking up from a wood stove 9 feet below. It is in an L shape underground.

View attachment 507800

Have you had issues with the poles rotting?

 

Is there a Lowes close by? We got a standard model they offered, they installed, put some down and got credit card from them for balance, monthly payments, paid it off 2 1/2 to 3 yrs time. Still holding up good.

 

But that's an indoor safe room, right? The only place I could install one of those is in the garage, since that's my only concrete slab. My garage isn't small, but it's cluttered a bit.

I'm pretty sold on being underground. If I had a basement, I would love one of the indoor types to put in it.