intial test of wall construction options

[Steamforger]

Stand by. IME, you're looking at an easy $8-$10 per sf increase on your walls. You're basically building a 6" reinforced sidewalk into every wall of your home. You can ballpark an extra thousand for every 8x12 wall. Then, there is labor... What's you plan for power? Sleeves? Or bolting RMC to the walls? RMC is the obvious way to go. In all honesty, this seems like a lot of effort for an unlikely scenario. Then again, its your home. If you aren't planning on building yourself, I'd look into tilt up construction.

[Denis]

Here's a nice bit on "urban" construction...

http://sippicancottage.blogspot.be/2014 ... stile.html

[Weetabix]

+several on fibermesh.

#3 rebar or WWF are typically used for crack control, which I think is what you're going for here. Fibermesh doesn't cost much, but when you're removing a fibermesh slab, you usually have to cut it out because you can't break it out. I've talked to demolition contractors who just loathe fibermesh concrete because they can't get it out.

Make sure you keep the mix dry - w/c ratio 0.5 or so. Wet cure the wall or spray on some curing solution.

You could probably use just one layer of the #3 if you had the right fibermesh amount in your mix.

Also, can't remember who said it, but tilt up is a good way to go. You don't have all the forming expenses and labor that way. You can embed weld plates and weld the panels together into the final structure.

[D5CAV]

Sandbags, dirt, shovel. Some assembly required.

1 sandbag thick will stop pretty much all small arms fire. 2 sandbags thick will take care of .50BMG. Direct hit by a 155mm HE round? It just was your day. Don't worry about it.

If you don't want your house to look like a bunker, stack the sandbags inside the house, between the couch and the outside wall. Gives you a good firing position. Make sure you take care of rear cover, and make sure your No 2 can operate a weapon with enough skill to adequately cover your 6, besides being able to cook a good meal.

Two rules of combat:
1. Fixed fortifications are a testament to man's stupidity
2. Make it too hard for the enemy to get in, and you can't get out

Rule 2 is what gives me the willies whenever one of my 1% friends proudly show me their "panic rooms".

[Steamforger]

Yeah, if you don't want to go tilt up, my suggestion becomes grout-filled CMU.

[Aesop]

When comparing the cost of thicker and thicker slabs of concrete to the point of recreating a bunker on Normandy Beach in May of 1944, look into Armorcore and the like fiberglass panels. IIRC, their level 9 is rated against multiple hits from 7.62/.30-06., not to mention stopping debris from tornados/hurricanes, etc. I'm sure they're pricey, but so is more and more concrete and rebar when you factor in materials, labor, forms, blah blah blah, and the panels go up with relative ease compared to pouring bunker-thick concrete walls.

For protection against anything heavier, you're back to sandbags.

FWIW, building from scratch, the entire house I'd build would have 4' tall x 4' wide "planters" on the outside, with the bottom 3+' filled with pea gravel, and the top potting soil and rosebushes. Looks nice, environmentally green, deters people climbing through the thorns to get in the windows, stops bullets, drunk-driven cars, and pretty much anything less than a tank can't climb over it. (Although if you go to 5' tall, it'll deter even that.) YMMV.

If you want to be supergreen, set them several feet out from the house, and make them out of stacked recycled tires. Fill with mostly gravel, cover the whole thing with dirt, plant grass, and they're just a landscaped wall. That'll stop anything short of artillery.

Just because one lives in a Hesco house, doesn't mean it has to look like a Hesco house.

[Precision]

Yeah, if you don't want to go tilt up, my suggestion becomes grout-filled CMU.

CMU's shatter quite quickly. a single shot of 9mm fmj will usually toast that. Now, inserting a piece of rebar down the middle and pouring concrete into the void makes for a fairly solid wall.

Poured walls are quite a bit cheaper than CMU plus concrete pour, at least around here.

tilt up is fine. House design is for a mostly submerged basement, a full first floor and a partial second floor house built in a South Carolina lowlands design.

SC house.jpg

@ Aesop - the planter design is already incorporated into the wrap around porch

the sloped roof will help versus shrapnel from the 155mm

[Termite]

How about this: Buy hilly property with south facing slope. Build a semi or fully underground house. Then the only wall you have to "bulletproof" is the south facing one.

Bonus: dramatically lower heating & cooling bills.

Remind me where you live?

[Yogimus]

Put Hay into the concrete.

[Precision]

How about this: Buy hilly property with south facing slope. Build a semi or fully underground house. Then the only wall you have to "bulletproof" is the south facing one.

Bonus: dramatically lower heating & cooling bills.

Remind me where you live?

This house will NOT be built where we live.

The plan is for 100 plus acres and will likely be in Texas or Tenn. The wife will NOT live subterranean so I built strong above the ground level. I plan on having about 5-8 acres for the home site then having that surrounded by a 15-25 yard wide / 12-15 ft deep organic shaped water feature. At one of the narrows, will be a cantilever draw bridge that lifts up and locks in place on the island side. The excavation debris from the basement and the water feature will be used to build up the home sight slightly and to built up the exterior side of the water feature as well. Making a semi sharp speed bump directly prior to the water feature.

That should create an attractive location to plant thorny plants that flower up pretty (bougainvillea, raspberries etc) as well as create a vehicle trap and a source of SHTF water and fresh water fish.