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1 2 3 4 5 6   UER Forum > Archived UE Main > Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas (Viewed 4875 times) UrbanElf  Location: Medford, MA Gender: Male Man, Elf, Geek.  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 60 on 12/31/2006 6:00 PM >   Do it in a corner of your yard, where they don't need to mow the grass or anything. Dig a hole 5' x 5' x 5'2" deep, then once you have it dug get 4 pieces of pressure-treated plywood that are 4' wide and 5' tall, whatever width is convenient. Those are your walls, but before you lower them in, put down a 5' by 5' piece, which will be your floor. Lower the walls in, screw them down. Next you'll put down a 5' by 5' piece on top, but first you're going to need to cut out 3'10" by 3'10" out of the center of that, then re-attach it with hinges on one side. Screw that onto your walls (Your opening lid is smaller than the walls so that the 'outer' area that lid is hinging from is what gets screwed, rather than your lid which obviously needs to open). You now have a 4' by 5' box with a hinged lid, 5'6" deep in the ground. Try and get all of the box-putting together done in one day, because the next step will be getting some caulk and sealing up the inside edges of your walls, the wall-to-floor joints and the wall-to-ceiling joints. For the lid, open it up and smear the caulk around the edges of it, spreading it out just enough so that it fills up the gap left by cutting the wood out, the better for a tight fit. You'll still want to screw onto the top of the lid's edges any extra pieces of wood you have, so that there's an overhang on the top of the lid that not only protects against moisture, but keeps the lid from being pressed inside the box, which could cause the hinges to pop off. So now you have a sealed box. Go ahead and fill in dirt around the sides of the box, packing it in tightly. So the only problem left is that the top is still visible, and you don't have a handle for the lid. So, grab some styrofoam from some place, and carve it into the shape of a large rock, no more than a centimeter less round than the lid. Also make it tall enough to where about half of that rock is 4" tall. Paint the rock gray, and add in splotches of darker gray. Spend a while looking at other rocks in your yard and go for similar coloring. Once it's dried, rub dirt all over it, then brush it off. Caulk or superglue the entire bottom of the rock onto the lid. Fill in dirt around the rock and on top of your box. You should have about 2" of the rock still poking up out of the ground. On the side opposite the hinges, start at the very bottom edge, and carve out a 4" deep handhold just wide and tall enough to fit your hand into, going into and slightly diagonally downward into the rock. So now you have a concealed, sealed, hidey-hole box. Two important things you need to keep in mind: 1) You *need* air!!! When you're in your box, the lid needs to be either open or cracked open enough to let air in. Don't just assume that you can open it every now and then. If you forget, you'll pass out with no warning. You can drill in air pipes if you want, but you need to have a way to cap them when you're not in it so rain doesn't get in. And don't just bring in an oxygen tank. Long exposure to pure oxygen is poisonous. 2) Every time you open the lid, some dirt is going to fall in. You need to either brush the dirt out of the way every time before you open it(which ruins any chance of grass growing there), or get some thin strips of wood or plexiglass, and attach them on the edges of your cover around the lid so when you open the lid, the dirt doesn't pour in. The reason it's so important the dirt doesn't get in is because it contains moisture. If moisture gets in your box, mold is going to start to grow and it won't be safe. If anyone disputes the stuff I've said here, listen to them! Most of the people on this forum know way more than I do. Have fun! The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. - St. Augustine UrbanElf  Location: Medford, MA Gender: Male Man, Elf, Geek.  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 61 on 1/1/2007 6:11 AM >   Okay, important addition thanks to the keen insight of my girlfriend, who when I explained my instructions to her(of which I'm quite proud ), she asked the question "So how would you get back out?" I assumed she meant the lid at first and just said "You just have to push it back up," but she actually meant how would you be able to get *up* out of the hidey-hole. She pointed out to me that a) you might not be 5' tall, and b) even if you were tall enough for your arms to reach the top, you might not have the upper-body strength to pull yourself up out of it. So important note to you and all UEers: anytime you drop into a hole deeper than you are tall, make sure you have something you can stand on to get out. The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. - St. Augustine monster  Location: Sugarland, TX / Minneapolis MN Gender: Female I am the thing that goes bump in the night  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 62 on 1/1/2007 2:45 PM >   thanks for the instructions Eagle_Crow  Location: Anywhere I wanna be Gender: Female  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 63 on 1/3/2007 2:40 AM >   Posted by dewey379 Here is the simplist solution. Move north to some place that snows several feet at a time consistently, not Canada thats further than you want to go. It's not that bad here...! LOL We used to tunnel into the snowbanks beside the roads. Made some pretty good systems. Always getting told not to, they'd collapse too. Or a plough would come along. You'd like the Coyote dens behind my place. Eagle Crow dewey379  Location: North NJ & Baltimore, MD Gender: Male "Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici"  |  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 64 on 1/3/2007 6:37 AM >   Posted by Eagle_Crow It's not that bad here...! LOL We used to tunnel into the snowbanks beside the roads. Made some pretty good systems. Always getting told not to, they'd collapse too. Or a plough would come along. You'd like the Coyote dens behind my place. Eagle Crow Haha I know. Its just been so engrained in our culture to tease our neighbors to the north that sometimes I get full of myself. I wish I would see some snow this year already though! We must always fear the wicked. But there is another kind of evil that we must fear the most, and that is the indifference of good men. res_novae  Location: NoVA Gender: Male  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 65 on 1/3/2007 7:13 AM >   Good Luck! Go with the trenches idea, but on the plywood you can plastic bag/tarp over it and throw sod on it to make it look like the rest of the lawn. Timothy R. Pendergast  Location: Columbia, SC Gender: Male  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 66 on 2/12/2007 10:17 AM >   So are you dead yet? Please don't be stupid. It might piss me off so much that I have a seizure or something. I hate stupid people. PunkUE  Location: Attleboro Gender: Male  |  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 67 on 2/12/2007 10:40 AM >   Posted by wilkinshire So are you dead yet? haha i was wondering the same thing a few days ago "Shhhhh! The movie's gonna start and I dont want to miss the previews." Aye.Eye  Location: Wonderful Land of Oz Gender: Male  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 68 on 2/12/2007 11:47 AM >   I tried it a couple of years ago... I didnt tell my parents and i would go out at night and dig, put the dirt in an inconspicuous place then sleep. One day my dad decided to finally mow the remainder of our 10 Acre property... the rideon mower fell into my hole which was 4' deep at the time!! I pulled it out with dad and continued digging... I put starpickets to hold corrugated iron against the walls of my trench... it worked well! So one day it filled with water, so i covered it with a few pieces of corugated iron, covered that with dirt then i put a little fence around it. It had this mound on top... it really looked like a grave! 6' long by 2 1/2'... And with this little fence it really made it belivable!! So I put made a small cross and put it ontop! Now I've got that feeling once again, I can't explain, You would not understand, This is not how I am... I have become, Comfortably Numb... Roadwolf  The Wolf! Location: Buffalo, NY (formerly Toronto, Canada) Gender: Male Living on the Road and Rails.  |  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 69 on 2/14/2007 12:09 AM >   I once responded to a scene where a man was digging a moat around his house so he could do foundation repairs. The ground was slightly wet but we was working anyhow... he was down in the hole working away, and all of the sudden the wall of dirt fell in on him. he was trapped in blow zero tempatures while fire fighters tried to rescue him for 8 hours. he died. 2 fire fighters also became stuck and were injured in the failed rescue attempt. morale of the story? don't go digging around in dirt or clay without the proper equipment. as mentioned earlier 2x4's will never even help. Around here contruction companies use large steel plates with thick supports for trench digging. the weight of clay or dirt will snap a 2x4 like a brick er, i mean twig!. lol [last edit 2/14/2007 5:25 AM by Roadwolf - edited 1 times] Add me on Skype or Steam: Roadwolf611 sphinx  Location: Bellevue, WA Gender: Male  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 70 on 2/14/2007 3:48 AM >   as mentioned earlier 2x4's will never even help. Around here contruction companies use large steel plates with thick supports for trench digging. the weight of clay or dirt will snap a 2x4 like a brick. I didn't realize bricks snapped so easily. Roadwolf  The Wolf! Location: Buffalo, NY (formerly Toronto, Canada) Gender: Male Living on the Road and Rails.  |  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 71 on 2/14/2007 5:23 AM >   Oh! lol yea i don't know what i was thinking ... but none the less you get my point. [last edit 2/14/2007 5:23 AM by Roadwolf - edited 1 times] Add me on Skype or Steam: Roadwolf611 holed-up  Location: Waycross, Ga Gender: Male  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 72 on 2/14/2007 4:28 PM >   Yeah- you can do the idea with the hole and plywood- my friends and I built one of them in the backyard when I was a teenager. If your doing it solo- it will be tougher. Look on this "underground hut" as a short term thing. Plywood in direct contact with the soil will rot in a few years- and you're gonna have all manners of creepy crawly guests in there with you unless you concrete it or something. It will get some water in it also. We dug about a 6' x 8' rectangular hole about 5 feet deep- lay 10' long 4x4 beams across the top and then plywooded over them- then a layer of heavy duty plastic sheeting and about 4" of dirt on top. We had a hatch door at one corner with a ladder. You will need to ventilate it- we used a piece of 4" stove pipe, an old train set transformer, and a engine compartment blower fan from an old boat. We had an extension cord from the house buried under the dirt for electricity. Had lights, radio, space heaters, cooler- whatever else we could pilfer from the house. We dug small fireplaces back into the walls and would build fires in them to keep warm also. It was alot of fun- and alot of work. Took four hard working teenage boys about 8 days of straight nonstop digging just to make the basic hole. We cut the walls straight down- our dirt didn't have any major trouble with wanting to cave in- not to say yours wouldn't though. We did this in a secluded back corner of the yard so my parents didn't really mind- I mean they weren't thrilled, but they let it happen. After maybe three years the plywood was sagging and we had outgrown it anyway. It finally caved in one day when it rained hard. We used it as a big fire pit for burning trash for years. Now twenty years later there is still a depression in the yard- and no telling how many 'artifacts' and my dad's tools buried down there. Lots of good memories.... IDChris  Location: Southern Idaho Wasteland Gender: Male  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 73 on 2/14/2007 5:50 PM >   I had a fort when I was 12 and since it had a wood floor, we decided to dig a hidden basement in it. That went well. It was 4'deep and 4'x4' square, since the fort was 8' x 8', the soil was solid enough to support the sides. We accessed it with a hidden trapdoor in the floor. A year later, we thought it would be cool to dig a tunnel from the fort basement for 25 feet over to another spot and pop up behind some hedges so we could sneak out without being seen (don't ask). We dug a trench 25 or so feet long, 2' wide and 3.5' deep. The soil wasn't that bad but we covered it with old plywood and leaves during the construction. A friend and I spent 2 weeks of after school time digging it out, then talked a neighbor with a backhoe to dig the remaining 15 feet. We dumped the dirt down a ravine near the house. We used old redwood 4x4's for the posts and had some 4x6's for the horizontal beam pieces and lined the walls and ceiling with old redwood 2x6's (my neighbors were tearing out a deck and said we could have the lumber). The posts and beams were spaced every 2'. Once we nailed the 2x lumber to the post's & beams, we used some extra roll roofing and tar paper to cover all the wood walls and top of the roof to keep out dirt and in an attempt to stop rot. Once this was built, we piled a foot and a half of dirt on top. The trap door to the outside was an old planter box. We lined the bottom with carpet scraps over the dirt. 3 months later (it was now summer vacation) we decided to make an underground room off the middle of the tunnel. It was 5' x 5' x 4' deep and built the same way as the tunnel, except we made a hidden door in the tunnel wall to get to the room. Our neighbor dug this one out for us and we still had tons of lumber left. The roof this time was some 4x12 lumber laid flat with tar paper over it. Later, we wired the fort for power and put lights in the tunnel and underground room with switches at each end. I did enough reading of electrical books to do this successfully. The tunnel was somewhat musty, but it never flooded from rain. We later cut an air vent in the roof of the room off to the side because it was stagnant inside. We just used an old roof vent extended above the soil. Needless to say, this was no secret from the parents and neighbors, but it was fun to build and use. It was very stout construction and we never worried about a collapse. The fort was torn down 10 years later, long after I moved out, but my parents were selling. We filled in the fort basement and the trap door 25' away with concrete chunks and soil. The room off the tunnel was also filled in, but we left the tunnel and I'm sure it's still there today. Sorry for the novel, but this may inspire you. MindHacker  Location: Suburbs of DC Gender: Male If you spot a terrorist arrow, pin it to the wall with your shoulder.  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 74 on 2/16/2007 4:10 AM >   You inspired me, and I wasn't even looking to be inspired! That is, I have to say, pretty cool. Our holes only ever got 3' deep. And we also had to fill them in at the end of the day. That would be the downside to using your parents garden. Note: With enough leaves, you can temporarily hide, well, most anything of the sort. You'll still fall in it though. "That's just my opinion. I would, however, advocate for explosive breaching, since speed and looking cool are both concerns in my job."-Wilkinshire IDChris  Location: Southern Idaho Wasteland Gender: Male  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 75 on 2/16/2007 4:50 PM >   Yes, it was cool to have this. The reason we filled in the big room was because it was 5 feet deep and if it did ever collapse, a kid could easily get trapped, even worse if it filled with water. The tunnel was only 2 feet, so it was not as dangerous. Come to think of it, we never disclosed it upon the sale (disclosure laws were still very green back then), so it could still be a secret. The last time I drove by the property several years ago, the natural vegetation grew back in that spot. Now I wish I left an old ammo box down there with a time capsule with pictures and such in the tunnel. I would think that the redwood would start rotting by now, but it was heavy old growth stuff, so who knows. El_Gordo_Uno  Location: Wenatchee, Washington Gender: Male This post brought to you by Allan Smithee  |  |  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 76 on 2/18/2007 3:36 AM >   I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet or not, but every summer like clockwork someone posts a thread almost exactly like this about building a tunnel or a bunker or a shelter underground. Usually teenagers. What drives us to build these things? I often ask myself that question. Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges Freak  Location: Usually Alaska, now MSP. Gender: Male Hypocrite  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 77 on 2/18/2007 6:35 PM >   It's the mammilian burrowing instinct, or perhaps the teenage obsession with secrecy and privacy. Think of how many detective and spy novels are aimed at that age groups, I remember "The Three Investigators" had a pimped out van buried in a scrap yard as their secret headquarters. I think at some point everyone has wanted their own secret tunnel system, some of us still do! If you have the energy and dedication to actually do it safely then go for it! Turn off the internet and go play outside. http://spamusement...hp/comics/view/137 systemx29  This member has been banned. See the banlist for more information. Location: Long Island/Buffalo Gender: Male If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 78 on 2/18/2007 11:41 PM >   i know i do. "Patient delusional-Is inventing space ships for a scientist." White Rabbit  Women's Advocate Location: Missouri Gender: Male  |  |  Re: Digging bunker in backyard need Ideas <Reply # 79 on 2/19/2007 12:27 AM >   Pfft. If I wasn't renting at the moment, I'd be digging tunnels in my own yard, too. 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