Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire New home construction ~ Built-in gun vault

My brother-in-law has a Browning vault door. If you're going to spend the extra money for a vault go ahead and plan for an alarm system too.

My vault door opened out, Not much to fall in the way. I had a lever inside that bypassed the locks. Worked as a panic room if you will.

In a storm, it could be the rest of the house that falls in the way. It wouldn't hurt for someone to know to look for you in the vault if the house is damaged in a storm either. Might store some water and Beanie Weenies too.

I was thinking Miller Lite & venison jerky

He was asking opinions from fire members that live in houses not trailer parks.

A few thoughts, in case I ever decided to do it....

Basement will have water issues from a leak or a fire...

I would go ground floor, but still that floor will have some water issues in a fire. The vault door won't stop the water from fire suppresion. Make sure you have at least a 6-12 inch "lip" poured before the door is set in place.

That makes it impossible to swing the door in which would be the best idea personally. But we have folks that will know of the location of the vault "If" we ever do it. And the fact that its large enough, would have water, food, neccessiites, flash lights and so on. Plus the cell phones work from inside.

Walls would be 8 inches with 6 inch top, Poured. I"m hoping thats enough to keep the heat of a fire out enough. The vault door is a fire rated door. I managed to put in some air vents with PVC that I am exchanging for steel pipe and sealed vents managed to open from inside if needed to help keep water out in the event of a flood, pipe breaking or fire.

We would put ours on the outside corner of the house, so it did not get teh heat of being interior. OR the heat of basement plus water in a fire. All the burning coals falling into the basement on collapse plus feet of water from suppression...

Just came off a 5 hour fire, 3500 foot house, we applied water from 7am appx, to appx 10am through mop up... thats a fair amount of water from up to 4 handlines.

Heres a link to my vault, built with styrofoam forms, poured concrete. i only have a humidity problem couple weeks a year. I have a dehumidifier and a drain pipe to a outside dry well. Browning vault door also.

http://www.pbase.com/loggah/the_vault

Close, I can drink my whiskey hot.....

Damn! That's a vault now!

Maybe add a floor drain with a one way valve and a sump pump?

Once was a old bank in Wharton, Tx that had been purchased by three brothers. One was a jeweler, the other a general merchant & the third built a gun store inside the voluminous safe. Walking into the gun store took you through the vault door.

Outstanding design and work! You must enjoy time spent there immensely.

Bob

Thanks- wow - that's impressive. It's a lot more vault than most would consider/conceive/construct - and actually much more than a vault - very well done.

After the pour of the floor and into the foam block, how long did the concrete seem to give off moisture - how long to quit? What is the source of himididty for those couple of weeks. Weather/airborne, or ?

Thanks again.

Not really sure about how long did the concrete give off moisture!! i am sure it was done by the time i got the rest of the building built ! the moisture problem was one of the reasons i went with the styrofoam forms,styrofoam inside and out!! they have plastic nailers in them and i nailed the pine v-groove directly to it. I have a small electric heater in the vault room which is 18 feet square, with the heat at 60 degrees the humidity stays right at 50%.

I built my entire house in Prescott from those Ecoblocks. I never could get rid of the moisture in the basement. I would absolutely build another house with them but NOT the basement. Problem with the blocks is that you can only waterproof the styrofoam, not the concrete. I would cast the walls with the floor poured over a vinyl membrane, I would then waterproof the walls tying into the membrane. I would have a french drain around the perimeter that either went out to gravity or to a sump. Sounds like Loggah has no real moisture issues where he built it- nice little cave!

Basements for this have SO much going against them IMHO.

I think location has a TON to do with it too

too much against it vs water leaks and fires... much less humidity. Humidity can be dealt with.

I have power/lights etc.. in ours, if we had one, so that you could run a dehumdifier... I had to run one in a room in the old house that was not air conditioned, to keep our match rifles from rusting overnight.....

Living in the SW desert or high country does eliminate most humidity issues for almost any indoor space. A blesssing. But, it can take a while for concrete to stop sending off moisture, especially if it is within foam block - as Dennis noted.

On another forum, I recall seeing a guy bury a small steel shipping container on which he had set a new vault style door..

The container was placed as the foundation of the property was being dug/laid and it ended up under the concrete pad of the main house..

I don't how he recall how he accessed it within the building, but it sounds like waterproofing it would be a good idea..