Vault doors and home-made gun vaults

timb

timb

New member
We are in the planning stages of our new home, and after thinking about spending the money on a fire-proof safe, I am thinking about something different.

The price differential between a good fire-proof safe and a vault door is not that much in the scheme of things. I am trying to convince the wife to give me a 12X12 section of the basement for a gun vault. I figured that 2 extra walls and whatever they used to make the concrete 'roof' wouldn't add that much extra to the cost of the basement.

Has anyone here attempted a project like this?

Just wondering if anyone has and what tips they could give me!

Thanks!
Tim
 
Got three buddies that have made such a room. Two put up vault doors and one made it a regular room with a steel door with gun safes and reloading bench inside. One tip is to put in a floor drain for a dehumidifier because you will need one. Be sure to wire for electrical boxes, lights, phone and alarm. I have such a room myself but it is only concrete on one side and framed on the other sides.
 
A lot of people add a room under their front porch, that way the concrete roof can double as the front entry concrete. Sell it to your wife as a bigger front porch with a room under it.

Plus one on the humidity control, the last thing you want to do is create a rust promoting environment.
 
Just repeating Ken. Definitely put in a floor drain that is at the lowest point in the room. If something leaks it needs a way out. Dehumidifier is a must have as well especially if the room is not on ground level. If a wall leaks after a rain or a pipe in the house breaks the drain will prevent flooding.
 
If you don't want to take up basement space you could just block in a room on a outside wall. If your garage is going to be attached it could go underneath. This would make the walk in safe very heat resistant as well.
 
Like said, we do a lot of homes with room under the concrete front porch. Most of the time the idea is sold to "the wives" by calling it a storm cellar. Most just put a fire rated commercial steel door on em. Maybe an extra deadbolt or 2. Try to make it so the door swings in so if you do have a tornado you can get the door open if debris falls in the way.
 
I posted this a while back, hope it helps
My Dad and I built a gun safe in the early '80s in the basement in their house. He wanted something out of sight and fireproof . We removed the stairs from the bottom to 5 feet. Drilled into both concrete walls for the rebar. Formed up where the top step would be. Poured the step making 5 sides of concrete 6 inches thick. Hung a 2 inch solid wood door with 3/8'' steel plate, sheetrocked on the inside. Drilled 18
3/4'' holes and bolted. Bondo on the threads on the inside to prevent bolt removal. Concreted around the hinges so the pins cannot be removed. Deadbolt lock set. We then rebuilt the bottom stair case, with wheels for easy removal and a lock pin threw the 2x12 into the wall to lock into place. The staircase has to be unpinned and slid out about 2' and rotated onto the wheels on the 2x12's by the bottom step ( handle is the tread the rised is hinged ). There have been a lot of people up and down those stairs without ever knowing that there is something behind them. The inside is 4 ' wide 5' deep and 5' high with a goldenrod and light. Total cost of was very minimal as Dad was a carpenter who "packrat" from the jobs. The only downfall of this is it is a part of the house. Hidden in plain sight works good!!
I realize that you must be a homeowner with a basement ( concrete ) and a corned wall staircase to make this work, but I think the old man had a very good plan for this one.
I cant ( and wont ) post pics of this out of respect for my parents not wanting this to be common knowledge about thier house.
JohnnyPop
 
Quote:
Try to make it so the door swings in so if you do have a tornado you can get the door open if debris falls in the way.




There's logic in that, but it seems to me it's a LOT harder to break into a door that swings out than one that swings in. You do need to make sure they can't pull the hinge pins to get a grab for a pry bar, though.
Swinging in eats up some interior space, too, if you're trying to keep it small.

Just something to consider. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
 
You are right the Evil. It does have some disadvantages. But IF it is gonna be used as a shelter in tornado alley than it had better swing in. If not, out is better.
 
When you buy the hinges, you need to get good quality
NRP,(Non Removable Pin)hinges. The pins on these are held in place by a small hardened Allen head set screw tht is only accessable when the door is open. It locks the pin in place and makes it almost impossible for someone to drive it out.
This is something you won't find at the Home Depot. You need to go to a company that builds doors for commercial use. A set of three will cost you somewhere aroung $35.00 to $40.00,
Also if you go the steel door route, make sure yopu pour concreat into your steel frame.
Good luck.
John
 
Quote:
But IF it is gonna be used as a shelter in tornado alley than it had better swing in.



Yeah, I see where he lives now. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smiliesmack.gif
We don't get tornados here and I'm not up on my "do's and don'ts".
I would have caught the flood drain thing, though. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
One more thing I just thought of. If you use block walls, you need to seal them and paint them with a water proof paint, inside and outside to guard against moisture. Also, keep checking the walls and look for white powder residue on the walls. That is a sign of water either in or outside the walls. If you see it, you are about to have a bad day.
John
 
I built a gun room in my basement. I should have done it when built the house as the did the house plans myself and built it my self. Since the house was all ready finished and I was doing this on a budget and already had a large gun safe, I sectioned off a 10 x 10' corner.

I framed it with 2x6's, drilled through the center of each stud at 6" intervals and into the poured concret walls; drove 10' 5/8" rebar through the studs from the floor to the ceiling at six inch intervals anchoring them into the drilled walls. Covered each side of the studs with 5/8" plywood then 5/8" fire rated drywall, and 5/8" drywall on the ceiling. Our house has infloor heat and ceramic title, so the floor above is covered with 2 3/8" of light wieght concret, morter and title. I built the door frames with 3 2x6's sandwiched together with the rebar going through them at the 6" interval.

The door is wood, I purchased at Menards two solid oak doors that had water damage. I routed them to insert rebar vertical and horizontal and laminated and bolted them together. From the out side the door looks normal, but it is about 3 1/2" thick and weighs close almost 100 pounds. It is mounted with hinden mortised SOSS security hinges suitable for 500 pounds doors, purchased off E-bay for $40.00. I special ordered two seven pin deadbolt security locks because of the thickness of the door. They keys stay in the lock when opened so two keys are required to open the door. The room will eventually have a motion detector alarm. I have a dehumidiier in the room tied into the house drainage system. This isn't burgler proof, but no smash and grab thief is going to get into it without serious tools, only to find a large gun safe to contend with.
 
Buddy of mine in Durango has a steel fab shop and does a bit of this type of work. Pretty sure he is a distributor for at least one vault door company. I know he'd be more than happy to give you some pointers/steer you in the right direction. PM me if interested.
 
You have a great idea there. We have built a few of them. The best thing to do is not to skimp at all. Buy good quality and it will last a lifetime. You will be glad you did.

There are a lot of good suggestions here so far. And a drain is imperative. However the drain needs to encompass more than just the floor. It must also encompass the roof of the safe.

IMO you are building your vault way too large. Unles it is meant to be a "secure room". However I am not that paranoid. We use ours for our firearms and valuables only, so it can be much smaller in size. By making it smaller you can afford better materials.

There are two things you need to protect your valuables from in a fire. That is heat damage and almot importantly-water damage. That is why we put a "drain lip" on the top of our vault-so the firemans water will flow away from the vault-and you want to elevate the vault because the fireman will put a bunch of water in your home during a fire. Whether you like it or not.

Also you need to make sure that you build your vault on an ouside wall. The fire does not burn as hot on the exterior walls-it burns considerably hotter in the center of the home. And for a longer time. Usually a lot of vaults can take the heat, but only for a limited time, so building on the outside wall will lower that "hot burn" time. Tom.
 
Another thought about construction: I did a "safe closet" in a building for the Forest Service a couple yrs ago. The walls were 8" CMU w/ a horizontal bond beam every 24", vertical reinforcement every cell and fully grouted. The ceiling was a pc of 3/8" or 1/2" steel plate attached w/ anchors embedded into the top of the cmu wall. This is a much easier and cheaper way of building a "bomb proof" room in lieu of cast in place concrete. If feel you need additional fire protection beyond that, you can always laminate a few layers of Type "X" sheetrock on the inside.
 
I'll stick with my Fort Knox Yeager Safe. Besides, it looks
real good with it's custom paint job sitting under my 350 net 7X7 Idaho bull elk in my living room. On the other hand,
if was able to build a custom home, I might consider a walk in vault designed with professional input cause your only going to get one shot to get it right when it involves building a home around it or vice versa /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif Grizz.
 
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