barrel shelter - concept

To all

I am a new member, and rather than spending 10 years sifting through all the previous posts, do any of you have any working concepts for a concrete barrel shelter, or know of any one who might?

Thanks again

Are you thinking of installing a pre-made concrete barrel, like a length of large sewer pipe, or building your own structure?

Take a look at the Flying Concrete site and their barrel vaults in particular.

And there is the CalEarth site also. Look at the photo at the top of their home page.

Sue

What I see here in the south where tornadoes are a regular event, concrete septic tanks are are modified at the point of manufacture, and sold as shelters.

These are poured with a vent opening in the roof and a doorway at one end. They fit the roof vent on and a steel door in the doorway. These cement companies sell them and deliver them to one's prepared location.

The new owner then piles dirt over the sides and tops of these shelters. The owner then equippes the interiors as they see fit.

The old rule concerning the "only bomb shelter in the neighborhood" applies everytime bad weather moves into an area. All the neighbors show up to get shelter from the storm. One friend of mine has set up benches along the walls to have room for everyone who shows up. This prevents doing much else to the inside since there is insufficient room to have shelves of supplies as well as accommodating all the visitors.

If they did try to store disaster supplies in the shelter, everyone of their neighbors would also have a complete inventory of those supplies stored in the shelter which would cause more problems.

i can see why you did this post now,i live in the "City's" and you folks got some really bad weather in the last few weeks.i don't know about a barrel shelter but you might want to ask around and see what the farmers up that way use.just off the top of my head i would say any cement culvert you can get into would work.storms pass over fast so laying down in one for a bit would be no big deal.
just noticed that was post 1000--i don't know if that's a sign of interest or boredom.

I've see plans and pictures of shelters where the bench seating was a series of plywood boxes. A box about 14" across the top and 18" tall makes a good seat. Fitted with hinge along the back you have a considerable amount of storage capacity. Figure at least an inch of overhang and raised on legs or dunnage to keep the box off the floor so it doesn't collect moisture and a tight 16" of linear seating per person you end up with an allocation of a space roughly 2688 cubic inches(12"x 14"x 16"), or a bit more than 1.5 cubic feet of storage per person. Collectively such bench seating type lockers give you a significant amount of storage.

I've seen at least one plan that used the void in a tapered backrest to hold a simple rack for one or two long arms with space above for a pistol hung on a peg and narrow shelves for boxes of ammunition and accessories.

You may want to keep one bench seat unoccupied by lockers or supplies so the family dog has a place to lie down without being under foot.

Also the typically unused areas above doors and above the shoulders or heads of seated people can be exploited for cabinets, lockers and shelves.

Planks can be placed between seats or up on seat backs to create a place to sleep and/or hammocks can be rigged off rings in the walls or ceiling.

Pegs or hooks placed along walls, possibly above the seat backs, allows people to remove and store bulky coats, rain gear, and hats.

For a tornado the accommodations needn't be much more than sardine-tight standing-room. Uncomfortable as it may be your only going to be in there perhaps thirty minutes at the outside. Hurricane shelters need more sumptuous accommodations because people may need to be inside for 24 hours or more. Consider the probable duration of the risk when planning per-person space requirements.

I have seen a simple 4' interior diameter concrete sewer pipe dug in and upright with a ground level reinforced slab poured over and flush-fitting 2" square hatch fitted. Inside was a bench seat circling the outside wall that gave comfortable seating for at least three. I can't imagine how they planned to sleep, perhaps curled up with a lot of spooning, but for short term use it would be fine.

Phoenix is in tornado country so i was thinking a shelter would be something to leap into as the funnel was seen crossing the beet fields.the hurricane problem never crossed my mind,which is why we should think about where we will be using our survival gear when we pick it out.

I read "No such thing as doomsday" and for the life of me I cant remember the manufacturer and I can find the damm book

"DOH - The barrel shelter that the author built

> The old rule concerning the "only bomb shelter in the neighborhood"
> applies everytime bad weather moves into an area. All the neighbors
> show up to get shelter from the storm.

I think that's great, by the way, especially for a tornado where it's over in minutes. You don't need to survive for a week underground, and when the tornado passes, the more people who've survived the better for search and rescue of the wounded.

They do need to do some planning for supplies above ground, though, and you wouldn't need a 'human survivable' container for them. The neighbors need to get together and coordinate food, shelter, and first aid items spread around the neighborhood, in case outsiders can't get in quickly and set up shelters and such.

Since his "guests" are taking up room, you'd think they could be prevailed upon to set aside some space for supplies.