Building A Safe Room With Cinder Blocks

Our team can guide you in how to build a safe room in your existing home using our wide range of reinforcement materials and expertise.

Building a safe room with cinder blocks.

Wood or steel studs provide some resistance at those points but not much. Put vertical steel reinforcing bars in the holes in the cinder blocks starting with the first block. The drywall between studs is of course the easiest area filled with not much more than air and perhaps some wires. Aug 24 2012 the federal emergency management agency fema recommends construction of a safe room in every house in areas subject to extreme winds such as tornadoes and hurricanes.

A simple hammer or even a hard boot could easily puncture through. When build a safe room many people focus on the entrance and forget to reinforce their walls. Brick for example is excellent. Just because your home is already built does not preclude you from upgrading your residential security to include an impenetrable safe or panic room.

The blocks are a much lighter alternative to bricks. When you ve decided on an appropriate room replace the existing door jam with a steel one and the existing door with a heavy steel door. What you use depends on what you have on hand. Add a safe room to your home in 2020.

End grain is the toughest but understand that cutting short lengths of wood for building safe room walls is extremely tedious and time consuming. Wood is a worthy substitute but you ll need more thickness to achieve the same level of protection from small arms. To reinforce the walls fill the cavities between the 2x4s with concrete or screw metal sheeting to the 2x4s before covering them with drywall. Every part of a standard wall is penetrable.

A typical block is also about 6 times the size of a brick measuring to 60cm x 25cm x 15cm. Secure bars with mortar or concrete at the base. These blocks are laid together and bound by concrete then layered in the same fashion as bricks. Finally stock your safe room with food and water.

Leave a gap between wood framed walls and the cinder block so wind driven framing will not put pressure on cinder blocks. Concrete and cinder blocks are used in buildings or double story houses to reduce structural load. It s available from fema at no charge by calling toll free 800 480 2520. While my experience is limited to using concrete block and sheets of steel to construct a safe room other materials can be used.

Basic saferoom design with concrete blocks traditionally cast concrete and for 4 and 6 inch flat icf walls and 6 inch waffle grid icf walls may be found in the fema publication taking shelter from the storm. The easiest way to build a safe room is to retrofit an existing room in the interior of your house without windows such as a walk in closet. Building a safe room inside your house which includes construction plans materials and construction cost estimates.