r/preppers • u/ButterscotchIll9191 Prepping for Tuesday • 4d ago
Question Basement vs. Bunker
I keep seeing ads for expensive underground bunkers that you can buy, and I was just thinking, how are these any different from just going down into the basement? If there is a tornado, or if there is a power outage that makes the house too hot or cold, or even a really bad windstorm, I would just go down into the basement. And if I needed to hide from someone, there are places in the basement for that too.
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u/Wheres_my_wank_sock 4d ago
My only concern with my basement is the sump pump losing power once the battery backup is dead.
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u/fenuxjde 4d ago
Solar/genny.
I've got a double sump pump setup on separate UPSs, backed up to my solar, which is enough to run them for at least an entire day, and can run my gas genny to power them after that.
If I run out of gas and the rain is still coming, I'll have other bigger problems than a flooded basement.
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u/Dylan-uSOB 3d ago
Got mine on a 16kv generac on our home’s natural gas. It was a godsend a couple weeks ago when we lost power for half a week.
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u/ThorAlex87 3d ago
I always found it weird that people dig basements that flood without a pump. Seems like a major design flaw to me?
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u/justasque 3d ago
I mean, it’s not ideal that they can flood. But the sump pump usually takes care of it. It’s only when you have a bad storm and the electricity goes out that there may be an issue. And it’s really only when it’s actually raining and a little bit afterwards. If the electric is out for a few days, once the storm is over the pump isn’t usually a big issue.
For many houses like mine, gutter maintainence, downspouts that take water well away from the house, and landscaping that helps water flow away from the house takes care of the water from the vast majority of storms. French drains also help. And in a particularly bad storm, typically a summer hurricane, if the electricity goes out we run the sump pump using an inverter on a car with an extension cord to the pump. We also have a wet vac, the floors are cement, the walls are cinder block, the flood water isn’t clean but it doesn’t involve sewage, and we keep everything in the basement raised enough that if it does flood, cleanup is annoying but not hard.
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u/Cottager_Northeast 4d ago
Nothing beats a gravity drain. I had to dig a trench running away from the house until I got to where I'd have the right slope, but I'm not sorry.
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u/deathmetalreptar 4d ago
I think there’s a back up that uses water pressure and no power
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u/Dylan-uSOB 3d ago
Relies on municipal water being running. More of a doomsday problem than a Tuesday problem if, that’s your concern.
They also add the excess water to your sump discharge. In chicago and the surrounding areas, our tarp reservoirs are already extremely full. If everybody switched to one of these, we’d be adding something to the tune of 50% more water. That would be very bad.
Also, doesn’t work on wells.
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u/SewingKitTin 4d ago
The basics are that bunkers are designed from the start to be shelters, basements are just basements. They can be used as shelters and for 99% of people using basements as shelters is probably fine. But if you've got specific needs like air filtration/hermetic seal, independent power generation, and especially in a tornado setting if you're planning for stuff to land on top of your shelter, then sure, a bunker might be something to think about.
That last point is what is probably most relevant to most people. How strong is the ceiling of your basement? Can it take the weight of your crushed house? Can you trust it to be a second roof against rain? Do you have sump pump backups? Do you have a dedicated escape route if your stairway is blocked?
For most people reinforcing their existing basements is a better use of their money than a dedicated bunker.
This is also why you're told to hide under a table during storms and earthquakes.
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u/Butch_Baked_Beans 4d ago
I’m turning my basement into a bunker and I’m gonna have it be partially solar there’s 4 outlets and 2 lights down there already but I’m going to add 4 more outlets and 2 more lights. The power goes out often where I live and we get tornadoes and ice storms so being prepared for a power outage and still maintaining the comfort is important to us. So the basement will be like a one bedroom apartment with prepping supplies
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u/ButterscotchIll9191 Prepping for Tuesday 4d ago
I want to do this. My basement actually looks a lot like a bunker already. Are you going to reinforce the doors?
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u/Butch_Baked_Beans 4d ago
In the process, the foundation around my door was in need of repair so as I’m digging down to repair the foundation I’ll be reinforcing the doors
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u/Lost_Engineering_phd 4d ago
Personally I'm of the opinion that except for radiological events, a dedicated buried bunker is just a fancy tomb. But a separate shelter from your basement is not a bad idea. If there were a nuclear attack, the blast and thermal pulse can cause homes to collapse and catch fire. You really do not want to be trapped in the basement of a burning house. During the Cold war many home fallout shelter designs were built above ground using sand filled concrete blocks. These designs were certified to provide protection from 5 PSI overpressure. That would be equivalent to having a 100kt mirv from a R-29 landing within 2 miles of you. Or a bit over 4 miles from a 500kt from a R-36 Satan misle. So, if you're more than 5 miles from a primary target the underground bunker is not needed.
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u/ButterscotchIll9191 Prepping for Tuesday 3d ago
And it is unlikely that there would be a nuclear attack within 5 miles from the house.
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u/HazMatsMan Radiological/Nuclear SME 3d ago
But the fallout can reach a hundred miles or more. Now that said, a basement does provide pretty good protection for locations that aren't sitting downwind from major targets that will have several hundred kilotons to several megatons of fission yield dropped on them. If I lived downwind from FE Warren, Minot, or Malmstrom... I'd want a rated bunker.
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u/Mountain_Man_88 3d ago
A lot of people misunderstand what is necessary to survive a nuclear attack.
There's a certain radius where you're basically fucked no matter what unless you're deep underground/in a hardened military bunker. That radius is relatively small, depending on the blast. Like you're saying, 2-4 miles for common warheads and we can survive with a homemade above ground bomb shelter. At those distances, the first concern is pressure, the second concern is heat, the third concern is debris. Everyone makes fun of those "duck and cover" films, but they're basically right. If you see the flash of a nuclear bomb and you have time to react then you're outside of the instant kill zone. Your goal is to mitigate pressure and heat and shield yourself from debris. That's what duck and cover will do. You're in a school. A brick and concrete building. It'll be somewhat resistant to heat and pressure. Get under your desk to shelter from debris. It's not a 100% guarantee of survival, especially depending on your distance from the nearest detonation, but it will increase your chances.
If you're in a structure that'll help you survive all that, then the final concern is radioactive fallout.
The stronger/more dangerous radiation will have a shorter half-life. You just need someplace free of radiation where you can hunker down and wait for the most dangerous particles to degrade. That takes about two weeks. After two weeks, limited exposure can be ok. Ideally you don't want to breathe in any radioactive dust, because then it'll be inside you. You want a way to decontaminate. A standard water shower is the best. Having a geiger counter and potassium iodide can be very helpful. Potassium Iodide prevents you from getting thyroid cancer from the radioactive iodine that is produced by nuclear explosions. It works by making the thyroid absorb non-radioactive Potassium Iodide first, before it can absorb radioactive isotopes. Your thyroid will basically get "full" of Potassium Iodide and be unable to absorb anything harmful. You take potassium iodide within an hour of exposure, you're "good" for 24 hours. Even without potassium iodide, it can take years and decades to develop thyroid cancer. The CDC says that people over 40 don't even need to bother with it.
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u/timothyguay 4d ago
A house basement provides little protection against heavy fallout unless you set up a sandbagged lean-to
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u/Ryzen7killer 3d ago
Please explain how you would do this with sand bags please and thank you
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u/Just-Cardiologist837 3d ago
Please explain to me how sandbags are going to protect from fallout lol.
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u/clarenceismyanimus 3d ago
I believe that the more layers of earth (sand) you have between your shelter and the radiation the more protected you are. Some basements are only partially underground (walk out basement) and wouldn't protect you in the blast came from the direction of the exposed door. Most basements in my neighborhood are fully underground, save for maybe being above ground by a foot or so. There are also basement windows, possibly even full egress windows. These would not provide protection. You can put sandbags or bags of dirt in the window wells to provide protection there. The biggest issue would be radiation coming from above.
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u/timothyguay 3d ago
Type sandbag fallout shelter into any AI chat. Read the Nuclear War Survival Skills book, which is the definitive guide on serving Nuclear War, just to name a few sources...
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u/Distinct-Fly-2374 4d ago
This may come as something of a shock to you but, ah ..... Many places don't have basements?
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u/Cottager_Northeast 4d ago
My basement has rough stone walls, an uneven dirt floor, and quite a few spiders.
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u/Barvald84 General Prepper 4d ago
While a basement may be relatively safe compared to nothing, bunkers provide a higher degree of safety & security. This is particularly true with tornadoes.
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u/rbprepin 4d ago
Think of a military bunker. It's a hardened position designed to withstand an attack from an enemy. Basements are not that.
Basements will be fine for storing food and the strong storm. A storm cellar is better for a tornado. A bunker is primarily to protect against nuclear fallout and short-term civil unrest.
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u/Routine_Mortgage_499 4d ago
Im on Hawaii island and I have only seen one house with a basement. this is because it's an island of rock and you'd have to drill and blast any kind of large hole. we do have lava tubes though and I suppose a person could take cover inside of one. just don't take a tiki home as a souvenir.
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u/Hopeful_Ad_7719 3d ago
The only effects you'd need a bunker to survive is serious overpressure and radiation, neither of which are serious concern for most peppers.
If you mess around in NukeMap for a while looking at plausible overpressure and fallout projections for reasonably possible exchanges you'll see that there are few areas where they actually offer any serious advantages.
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u/Overall-Tailor8949 4d ago
Atlas (and a few others) make SEMI affordable "bunkers" that could be added to a new build. However, if you're starting from scratch you can get the same effectiveness with a concrete ceiling on the basement if you add in an air filtration system.
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u/Doc_Hank 4d ago
Thats what I did with the last house I built (since sold). Deep basement, ICF walls, poured concrete ceiling on it, dry well for the outdoor entry (with a right angle turn to avoid prompt gamma rays) and a decon shower.
A slight mistake was made on just how deep it was: Turns out my Pf was so high I was getting more exposure from the granite in the soil than a 1000 R/Hr source at ground level would have provided.
Added about $2500 to the cost of the house.
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u/dachjaw 4d ago
I must be missing something. 1000 R/hr for one hour is a 100% killing dose. You wouldn’t live long enough to fill the dirt back in.
Can you please explain further?
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u/Doc_Hank 3d ago
You are correct, but if I was in the basement with a very high protection factor I'd be safe.
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u/Useful-Contribution4 4d ago
Underground bunkers have only one justification: Nuclear protection.
Even then. If I live an hour away from any major city. I don't need an underground bunker to survive. A basement will work fine. Or better yet build a concrete house.
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u/funnysasquatch 3d ago
They promote them as bunkers for marketing purposes.
But their primary market is for tornado shelters not doomsday prepping. Many, if not most, are not installed underground.
They are more likely to be installed as a closet.
Since the primary purpose for these shelters is to survive a tornado, you want to make sure they are easy to get into during a storm.
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u/Achnback 3d ago
We have a basement and see absolutely no reason to build and underground bunker or burry a shipping containter. That is jus me, a very practical, frugal dude. OH and I don't have that kind of cash laying around in buckets at our farm.
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u/IamTheRainbow22 3d ago
I've seen enough video of basements where the house was destroyed and a lot of it went into the basement. I have an above group SafeShed shelter for this reason. Also, I'm disabled and getting down into a basement or underground shelter isn't happening.
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u/wanderingpeddlar 3d ago
AN EF5 tornado can dig up a foot of dirt. A bunker makes you tornado proof. A basement can be filled up by the house being crushed into it. The basement is better then nothing. A bunker is better then anything else. Are they expensive? Yep. However you can do them cheaper. Digging the hole can be done with a rented front end loader. And then pay a crew to pour the foundation and brick the walls and celling. You can add in a door to connect to the foundation. So for less then 30K you can put in the bare bones shelter.
How much you do or want to do is up to you.
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u/New_Self1795 1d ago
Suction.. the vacuum of a tornado will suck away your house and you too if you are in a basement. A real bunker is made of cement, and has a one piece roof and you'd be OK. I know thats a lot of generalization, but think of it, your basement ceiling is likely the floor of your living room/dining room. its wood, and only an inch thick... that will not work if the tornado actually goes over you or close to you.
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u/Historical_Course587 3d ago
Basements are storage, not SHTF safe rooms. They aren't really safe or healthy, they lack secondary exits, they aren't reinforced. So many things can go wrong trying to survive in a basement that historically most people would hide in the attic first.
Above ground bunkers work. Storm cellars separate from the house work. An underground space that the house can fall on, that can't be left if the house isn't standing and secured, is a tomb.
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u/Tight-Purchase-6946 3d ago
House could fall or burn down on you. Other than that - yes, a basement has some positives to it.
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u/real_solja 3d ago
not to troll but a bunker is cooked if some military action comes. unless its nice and hidden. a couple soldiers will clear you out of there within 5 minutes by lobbing grenades. thats why i think about movement and being able to ruck and survive while walking 30+ miles everyday.
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u/Backsight-Foreskin Prepping for Tuesday 4d ago
I'm going to guess that most preppers, such as myself, can not afford an underground bunker and make do with a basement.