Here is something to consider;

Most private garages in West Germany have a grease pit in the floor, where a person would stand to service the vehicle from underneath, even in areas where zoning prohibits owners from washing and servicing vehicles at their residence.

My landlord in those days did his best to explain gamma radiation and slit trench protection, but back in the cold war days, we GIs thought we were cannon fodder anyway, so I didn't pay a lot of attention.

A grease pit would be handy to service a vehicle from, provide protective cover, make a room within a room, secure storage, serve as a changing room, latrine, operating room, or morgue.

Shucks, I talked myself into it. I'll go rent a concrete saw tomorrow, fire up the backhoe, and start building forms for steps and walls.

I was under the impression that metal can absorb radiation and hold it. I also understood that the density of your protection from radiation was important. Back in the '50s, they advised having a lot of books or stacked newspapers overhead.

Where is your fresh air coming from? Is it filtered?

I have a medium-sized PortaPotty for camping, and found out that during a flood (water filled the septic tank), it would fill up in 24 hrs with 3 people. One of the problems was the flushing, which helped to fill it. One solution to this can probably be found in the online book (but it's in print as well) The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins. You can read the whole thing online (drawings and photos included) at http://www.weblife.org/humanure/default.html and it will answer all the questions that you can come up with. This guy has been using the method for at least 20 years. The main point is that I have tried it myself, and there is NO odor. Absolutely none.

It sounds like you've put a lot of good thinking into this plan. But I hope you never need it.

Sue

you are correct Susan but there are clarifiers. The different kinds of radiaton are:
Alpha: 1-3" rng/stopped by paper
Beta: 10-30' rng/stopped by tight woven clothing
Gamma: several 100 yds rng/14 half-life shield thicknesses (by my calculations)
Neutron: 30 miles?/28 half-life thicknesses (by my calculations)
Most of the "bad" radioactive elements will be dead (isotopes) by the time they fall back to earth. Radioactive levels decay "on a bell curve"
It is not the TEOTW as the no-nuke kooks make it out to be.