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Basics of Beginning of the Top Secret Bunker Project and Removing Soils
by Senseless on March 30, 2008 Table of Contents intro: Basics of Beginning of the Top Secret Bunker Project and Removing Soils . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 1: Walk Like an Egyption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 2: Start Strong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 3: Repeat Over and Over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 4: I Just Had To . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . step 5: Finally Finally a Point to all This . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2 4 5 6 8
step 6: In Action! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Customized Instructable T-shirts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
http://www.instructables.com/id/One-Method-of-Removing-Soils-from-the-Top-Secret-B/
intro: Basics of Beginning of the Top Secret Bunker Project and Removing Soils
I've been pondering a second house under the one I just finished building bunker style for tornados and just because it would be fun. A big part of the labor involves moving the sand and clay from under the house to the backyard and if you've ever watched Escape from Stollagg 17 and really thought about the dirt in the socks trick, a Yard of Sand is a Lotta Socks... I started with a crawl space under about half the main floor of the house, and about 4 foot of head room, and a 3 by 4 foot doorway halfway up the steps or four feet above the bottom garage floor. Pyramids have always fascinated me, the shear tonnage of them and I always wonder what they are resting on, the backgrounds always seem to be sand that can flow over time and they have stood for so long a simple shape transferring energy over a large base and when I was thinking of the bunker Idea realizing in Florida at some point I was going to dig into a water table and a heavy pier might over time sink like the Kansai Airport, KIX not being built by kids and needing hydraulics and such to keep it sitting level I thought that an inverted pyramid would be less likely to sink since to go down you'd need to also push some vector off in a horizontal type way and then I thought some more and having been hit in the head but not necessarily made foolish I guestimated 2 feet as about the maximum cliff you could dig into a seam of sand and have it expect to stay put as long as the sand was kept damp and if it collapsed it would probably go to a 45 or so meaning if I stayed more than two foot plus a fudge factor away from anything that might be adversely effected by having it's legs pulled out from under it, in the most broad sense of the term it should be fairly safe... I added 2 and 2 and a few more and decided the simplest thing to do would be to dig down two feet, form a temporary wall about 4 inches thick, drive some rebar a few feet into the ground and tie them to some running horizontally inside the pour, carry in a few hundred 80 pound sacks of concrete mix, pour the wall, telescope in and repeat the process a few time digging down to pull the rebar from the first pour at and angle and tying it into the rebar for the next one and then when it was 4 or 6 or however many feet high depending on the load next to it I'd form one more wall and end up with vertical smooth walls that are thicker on top than they are at the bottom just like an upside down pyramid. The deeper I go the less floor space I have but it seemed doable and since I watched the well be put in and dug the very large hole seven years ago into the hill so I could have a level mostly below ground for hurricanes and such, this being Florida after all and things happen, I had an idea of what type of soil was down there, and new there was a seam of clay that was fairly thick and guess that since the lake is about ten feet below the height of the bottom garage I probably could come close to being able to dig down at least one story without it turning into a sinkhole but I also new it would be unwise to just start building something without first taking a look at what was really down there so I decided on a test shaft to test construction methods and get soil samples at certain depths and most importantly how deep you can dig without hitting water since dampness and closed up places don't go well together and an ideal emergency shelter is ready at a moments notice even if it has not been maintained for a decade. At least I think so since I have seen many 1950's era bunkers built for the cold war that are now long flooded because it costs money to run a sump pump. Fort Walton Beach is full of them if you look hard...
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I stared at the odd pieces of 3 inch pipe I had from the previous attempts at sucking sand out from the crawlspace and got a 4 inch T with a threaded opening and some glue and a stainless steel bolt from Ace, made a few cuts and used a piece of chain I had laying around and managed to make a fairly decent check valve that lets a large amount of sand flow around it and with a bit of tweaking like slipping a piece of pipe around the chain to force more water up the pipe so it primes faster the thing actually seems to work. I adjusted the height the weight rises by using the bolt though a link at the foot of the pipe so that it stays pretty centered in the T which has a little more room than just a section of 4 inch sch 40 and it rattles a bit but in a test run it moved a few wheel barrows worth of sand in a couple minutes with just 3 feet of water at the bottom of the pit. I'm going to use a piece of pipe as a sleeve in the weight to force more water up the pipe than slips past so it primes faster but I don't want it absolutely water tight in case it gets clogged with sand I can just unscrew the access port at the bottom of the pipe and flush it out with water. You need to inject a strong stream of water right in front of the intake to keep the sand mixed up so I have the pipe resting in a five gallon bucket that I'll trim down to about 5 inches so the sand doesn't wear away the concrete but I believe if I could pump about 100 gallons a minute up from the lake into the pit as I sucked a slurry out with the trash pump I could move it out fast enough to keep up with me dumping BobCat sized buckets of sand into it and could use sand fence to collect the sand and use it in my back yard. I'll mess with it a bit then when I get back to work on the bunker if ever the next step is a few big arches to tie in the columns to the far side of the crawl space and support a future ceiling and I'll install it permanently since it will also be useful if the thing ever flooded like an under ground swimming pool... Some Assembly Required.
http://www.instructables.com/id/One-Method-of-Removing-Soils-from-the-Top-Secret-B/
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step 6: In Action!
Video
PS, The sun lines up with my house and shines in the back window and out the front door just as it sets on my birthday... Pyramids facinate me.
http://www.instructables.com/id/One-Method-of-Removing-Soils-from-the-Top-Secret-B/
Related Instructables
How to Build a Super Top Secret Bunker under Your House. The Prelude... by Senseless
A Simple Ledge for a White Board from a Scrap of 2x4... The PreRamble by Senseless
http://www.instructables.com/id/One-Method-of-Removing-Soils-from-the-Top-Secret-B/
Comments
20 comments Add Comment
Solderguy says:
About how much would a project like this set you back?
irritant#9 says:
Interesting instructable. Could you add comments to your pictures? Also a few periods would be cool.
Senseless says:
Periods are over rated as well as comma's...
LOL actually I caved in the left side of my head a while back and I think that's where I used to keep the proper grammer and puncuation stuff.
darkmuskrat says:
Jun 2, 2008. 4:16 PM REPLY The easiest(not quite legal) way to do this is just to insert a 1 1/2 inch(or more...more would be better) plywood box with reinforcements the size of said bunker under the ground where you want it when your building your house, dig a hole(you should have all the machines there. then dig it up later through your basement XP
Rishnai says:
May 3, 2008. 2:37 AM REPLY Brother mole! I can totally see myself doing a dig like this the instant I get a house with an unfinished basement. My neighbors would just see a growing pile of dirt, and the fellow across the street crawling under his house all weekend, every weekend.
Senseless says:
I have a plan for the dirt LOL. I'm extending my seawall and gonna use it for fill so no big dump trucks to give me away... http://www.flickr.com/photos/senseless_/2455170505/
Rishnai says:
Mwahahahaha! They shall never know about the bunker! Sneaky, and useful.
toastyboy says:
Apr 22, 2008. 12:26 PM REPLY This is very very VERY cool! I can't begin to tell you the times, I've talked through the idea of building a bunker with my friends and wife, and then have never done it. I would just LOVE a bunker like yours, I always wanted an 8' cube bunker in the garden, ideally with access through the garage floor. Thanks for the detailed explanation, I've really enjoyed reading it. all the best -Dan
Apr 21, 2008. 3:42 PM REPLY Great Job Senseless Very cool. Please feel free to add any and all of your home improvement projects to my group. I know you have added one, but it would be great if you added your other as well. Here is my group Home Repair, Refurbishment, and Projects and great job!
http://www.instructables.com/id/One-Method-of-Removing-Soils-from-the-Top-Secret-B/
gmjhowe says:
wow, nice job mate!
Senseless says:
Hey Thanks!
I'm just practicing before I try and do a serious project and I really need to know exactly how high the water comes up those pipes in the ground since I will want to have a natural drain. I shot them down to different depths during the drought we had been going through and started with the bottom floor five feet above the level the water came up them but we've finally gotten enough rain to fill the lake up and it comes up them about a foot higher than the concrete bottom. That means I only have head room for a single story since I want at least four feet of drop from the main floor to the drain since this will basically be a concrete swimming pool underground. If I ever had a pipe break while I don't want to rely on power to run sump pumps and gravity is free. The seam of clay on top of the water table is about 20 feet thick then turns into a thin mix of water and clay so generally it is very dry under there so I won't need to worry about concrete floor wicking water up from below but the pipes pierce through the clay to the top of the water table and I sucked out the top layer of clay and water and put about a yard of gravel around the base of ten inch pipe and then put a four inch pipe inside that and filled around it with gravel and capped it with concrete then poured the floor around it so it should drain a pretty good volume of water in an emergency but I won't be able to do two stories which is OK. Dang that's a run on...
gmjhowe says:
Apr 1, 2008. 2:58 AM REPLY Your a pro - keep up the good work! Extremley high quality - but then it could just be that it all looks so complicated to me!
Senseless says:
Apr 2, 2008. 3:06 PM REPLY I'm going to make a bunch of short videos and keep adding them here. I have trouble with words cause I was in a wreck and caved in the left side of my head so I imagine I make things more confusing than need be but a stream of pictures can say about 30,000 words a minute if that myth is true...
gmjhowe says:
Apr 3, 2008. 4:45 AM REPLY yes, my friend, that myth is truth. Its not that u made them more complicated, its just im a graphic designer - different proffession - therfore different knowledge!
Senseless says:
Dang I could use a graphic designer LOL.
I ran a small ISP with about 1500 customers but I'm better at fixing broken computers than making webpages...
gmjhowe says:
Looking at the site, i must say its not that bad, nice and simple, well laid out. i have seen far far worse.
jehan says:
Apr 1, 2008. 9:04 PM REPLY i am in the process of building a bunker in my back yard but its much harder since it all clay and i am hand digging it. i cant find a easy way of removing it without a lot of work.
Senseless says:
Apr 2, 2008. 12:48 PM REPLY You could make a pit in the clay and try and see if it holds water in which case you could pump it out the same way if you had a good supply of water but if you're on a city water system and paying by the gallon it's and expensive method and clay makes a mess when it settles out, you almost need a secnd pit to collect it and burry it under some sand. I've rented back hoes with extand a booms and dug some pretty deep holes quickly if you have room to get one back there. If I could fit one under the house I would lol but that's down the road aways at this point....
http://www.instructables.com/id/One-Method-of-Removing-Soils-from-the-Top-Secret-B/
Senseless says:
Try a Terramite!
They are pretty small it's like driving around an over grown Tonka Truck but I bet the site has specs and I imagine they'd fit through a four foot opening if you had that much space and if you idle down tracks are pretty easy to operate if clearances are tight. I'm guessing you need to leave the soil on the property so are you going to end up with a mound system? If you need to cut the grass on the thing keep that in mind when your doing your last grade. You could spend a day or weekend if you need some practice and have a good sized pit in no time.
jehan says:
Apr 2, 2008. 7:49 PM REPLY yea i live in the city so i cant use the water. i have been piling the clay around the sides of the hole so it is deeper. i really wish i could get a backhoe but i cant get one to were i am digging it. i didn't pick a very good place since it is behind my shed so i cant get any big equipment behind it.
http://www.instructables.com/id/One-Method-of-Removing-Soils-from-the-Top-Secret-B/