Bomb Shelter Primer: How to Build a Bomb Shelter

Remember the 1950s when everybody had a bomb shelter in the backyard or basement? Families would practice evacuations to the shelter just in case, and Mom and Dad kept it well stocked with food, water, batteries, and blankets. If the cold war ever produced a Soviet invasion, America was ready. Or were they?

They didn’t know it back then, but hindsight tells us that those primitive bomb shelters would have been pretty much useless in any sustained attack. In terms of conventional weapons alone, surviving a sustained bombing raid would require at minimum an underground fortified bunker. German pill boxes were great protection because they were concrete structures buried in the ground. While some homeowners went to the expense of building these in the 50s, most homemade bomb shelters were little more than a shed in the backyard or a basement with a reinforced door. Pictures of a bombed-out Paris pretty much tell how the homemade bomb shelter would have survived.

If a bomb shelter is something you feel you need, you can build some pretty impressive ones that can withstand a lot. Of course if you’re planning on protecting valuable computer data which would be incinerated in an atomic blast, you can place all your files in a virtual data room, which can act like a bomb shelter for your data. Just be prepared to spend a chunk of change. A mid-level shelter can cost five, ten, twenty thousand dollars or more if you do it yourself. Contractor prices will be double the cost, plus the excavation.

Steps to Building a Bomb Shelter

1) Decide where to make the shelter

Do you want the shelter to be an extension of your basement or do you want it to be separate from your home? If you plan to extend your basement, you will need to excavate a hole. A good shelter will consist of a metal shell buried under at least three feet of dirt.

2) Get materials

For the floor, use cement. To build the walls of your bomb shelter, you will need to purchase concrete cinder blocks and mortar to set the blocks into place. For the ceiling, plywood or steel beams can be used to go vertically across. Steel beams can also be used as supports.

3) Start building

To get started, lay a foundation and floor out of cement, then build your walls from there. Once you’ve finished, you can begin to add your concrete blocks. Start laying your first row at a corner. Once you’ve finished that row, place your next row of blocks in the opposite position of the blocks on the footer row. Alternate the position of the blocks like this for every other row.

For the ceiling, place steel beams close together, spaced about 4 inches apart from each other and brace them together with lumber. All space around the ends of the beams on
the block wall can be filled with mortar thereafter. Once you’ve completed your ceiling, reinforce your roof rows to make a radiation shield of concrete blocks. Use vertical and horizontal steel beams to support your roof. Lay two layers of 1 inch plywood over the roof supports. Next, put a layer of solid concrete blocks on the plywood, covered with waterproof sheeting. Finally, put a layer of tin roofing material over the blocks and waterproofing, and cover with several feet of earth.

Blast doors will be necessary to cover the entrances. A commercially-built door installed in cement and metal framing should work well.

4) Ventilation system

Ventilation and air filtration will be needed if occupancy becomes necessary for any length of time. You can build a ventilation system using materials for a standard HVAC system, including the filters. Air filtration systems can be purchased from a variety of sources, ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars. If you’re going to spend the money, make sure the air filtration protects again chemical and biological threats, as well as nuclear threat.

5) Electricity

You’ll also need a source of electricity, whether a generator or a battery system. The battery system is the better option and can be built in conjunction with solar panels or wind-driven generators to keep the batteries charged.

6) Heat

A small wood burning stove in your shelter would be ideal to supply heat and for cooking. A vent pipe should be run out of the shelter before construction has been completed. Aluminum vents would be better for underground use because of rusting danger with other metals.

7) Water

As for your water supply, drive a pipe down through the floor of the shelter until water is reached. You will need several gallons of water to prime your pump.

8) Non-perishable food items

You will need a good supply of non-perishable food items at your disposal so be sure you have enough to sustain you and your family for several months.

9) Toilet!

Don’t forget the chemical toilet or you’ll be in for a long stay. . Install a composting toilet to manage human waste.