Underground Bunkers for Survivalists

Can you imagine living beneath the surface of the Earth? Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people live beneathe the surface and there are many reasons why:

The first reason to move underground is for efficiency. A house underground is cooler in the summer time and warmer in the wintertime. You can save money on electricity and gas bills.

The second reason is to protect you from harsh weather. There are hurricanes and tornadoes and all kinds of nasty weather that make people homeless every year. They even kill people. If your house is below the surface of the ground, you'll be protected by the dirt above you.

Finally, you will be protected if the end of the world happens. Nuclear weapons, asteroid impact or whatever. You'll be able to hide underground till the bad stuff has passed. This is the least likely to happen, but it is nice to have that available.

This is an interesting video about three shipping containers that have been buried underground for emergency use. The guy who is working the project wanted to prove that it could be done. The word on the internet claimed that it was difficult to bury a shipping container. The wall supports were not strong enough to support the weight of the earth pushing in on it. This guy added extra support and buried three shipping containers.

I think it is very well done on a very low budget. He finds ways to seal the compartments and pump the water away from the building. He even digs an escape route in case his front door has been blocked for some reason.

How many of us have the chance to purchase an unusual building and have the foresight to make it into something great. This couple bought a bunker and turned into their home. Now it is a place to live, while drawing a bit of attention and hopefully a little extra income from people who want to tour the house.

I am not sure what I think about letting other people walk through my house, especially when they are people I don't know. I suppose if I could charge for the tour, I might just consider it. That would mean I would have to make sure my house always looked like a million dollars. I guess if I were to refurbish the inside of one of these things, I might actually have to spend nearly a million dollars.

The nice thing about a bunker like this one, it is underground. That means it will stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It won't be as extreme when it comes to the temperatures above the ground.

A book on building your own subterranean housing. I have always wanted to build my own room or two underground. I wondered if it would be possible to dig a hole under the house through the concrete of the slab. Then dig out the hole and put in some walls and a floor that will be a shelter under the house.

That was a fantasy as a kid. I know this will not work after the house has been built. For one, the house would settle over the hole I dig. That could be bad if the house decided to cave in on a weak spot that I created digging the hole. Second, the concrete that I pour or the cement between the bricks I build down there would have a hard time drying since there is no circulating air. Same would go with wooden framework. The wood would absorb the moisture in the ground and I would have all kinds of problems with mold and collapse.

If you have a few thousand dollars and a little elbow grease, you could bury a shipping container underground to be a shelter. You will need to watch this video to see what your challenges might be, like reinforcing the walls and the ceiling to keep the container from caving in.

You will want to make sure there are vent holes in the ceiling so if you have to stay in the shelter, you will not suffocate. There are several ways to do this, just look up underground vents online.

If anything, I would just take a look at the video. It is just fun to watch.

These spaces are extremely small and will not be something for people who are claustrophobic. There is also the fact that if a storm does show up and demolish your home, there might be debris on top of your shelter not allowing you to get out when the storm is over. That kind of scares me. This would be the reason most people don't get one of these.

If you can find a way to keep the rest of your house from collapsing on top of your shelter, then I think this would be a great option. That is one reason to have a shelter that has more than one Exit.

His garage was built to house a small fleet of Military Vehicles. Now he can use that space for just about anything his mind can conceive. This underground building has so much extra space, the owner doesn't really know what to do with it all. I wish I had unlimited resources to design a home in a place like this. There is so much we could do with it.

I wonder what other underground buildings I could buy to live in. There are basements of buildings that might be worth something. I would like to find demolished building with it's basement still intact. Most buildings like this one would be tornado victims.

Not everyone chooses to live underground. Some people are forced to do so. These tunnels in Las Vegas are crawling with homeless who are just trying to survive. These spaces are usually no longer used by the city. The city knows there are people living in them, but they decide it is better to let them live there than have this group of people finding more inappropriate places to sleep in the city.

The tunnels these people are living in were created to divert flash flood waters away from the city. If they were to have a few days of steady rain, all the people in these tunnels will have to leave, most of them losing everything they have collected to make their lives somewhat normal. The likelihood they would get this kind of rain is slim. They are in the dessert. If they are smart, they are listening in on the weather during rainy season. They will know when to evacuate and take their prize possessions with them.

This people in this city decided to dig into the ground and make their own living situation. Being underground gets you away from the heat. Most of the homes dug into the ground stay around about 70 degrees. It also will let you continue to build onto a house that you can't see from the surface.

about 2/3rds of this town has been built underground. Some people like to show off their dwellings. Most people just want to be left alone. It amazes me. If you were just driving by, you would not even know there were homes there in the desert. They look like a few holes in the ground or stairs leading to nowhere. I hope to make it out there one day to see them for myself.