Gun Vault Ideas

[JRD]

Fellow Cast Boolit members,
I'm looking for advice and tips on building a walk-in gun vault.

My wife and I will be putting an addition on our house in the near future. We'll be pouring a new foundation below the new family room and master bedroom. The new basement is mine to plan out how I want it.

The basement will become my library/ trophy/ reloading/ gun room. I'd like to include a walk-in gun vault as part of the plans. I suspect there are plenty of avid shooters who've incorporated vaults into their homes, but they are not something most folks brag about on the internet.

To be clear on my objectives, I don't need a tornado room or doomsday bunker. I can rule out secret escape tunnels, living in a bunker after doomsday, etc. I'm just looking to have a secure room of modest size that I can walk into and have my guns displayed on the walls so I can admire them instead of having them crammed in the safe where I can't see them.

The propsective vault walls will be poured at the same time as the foundation.
My builder has said he can put a concrete ceiling on the vault. We have plans to run electric lines for lights and to put a drain in the floor for a dehumidifier.

I've priced vault doors at a local safe dealer. Browning vault doors in the most basic form will cost about $3600+ dollars. Yikes! That's a lot more than I've paid for any guns. A less expensive option would be a steel fire rated commercial door, with multiple deadbolts all keyed the same.

I'm looking for ideas on how to: prevent water or humidity problems in the basement, finish the insides of the vault, efficient ways to store guns on the walls, etc. If any of you guys have experience building vaults and have suggestions, I'd like your advice.

Thanks,
Jason

[waksupi]

A dozen layers of dry wall are harder to break through than concrete.

[mikeyjones]

I'm also planning on doing this in the near future so I will be following this thread closely.

[Petrol & Powder]

I guess the first question is how do you wish to layout the room? Will you utilize a corner of the basement and pour two adjacent walls, one of which will have an opening for the vault door OR one long additional wall ,with a vault door opening, between two parallel walls to create a long secure room on one end of the basement? Or is the entire new basement going to be a secure room with the vault door between the new section and the existing basement? Each has advantages and disadvantages.
What type of exterior walls are you planning to use? Poured concrete, pre-cast concrete (AKA Superior Walls) concrete block, etc. How much will be below grade?

[dbosman]

What Petrol & Powder said plus, Is there a reason not to spend a couple of hundred extra for steel supports and re-bar to make it a tornado room too?

For simple concealment, pegboard with tools hanging on it, using concealed hinges, would disguise a steel door nicely. Painted wood ingots, under a couple of real ingots would disguise a small table in front of the door.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

stem ...

[JRD]

I live in New England and the likelihood of tornados is low. Heavy rain from a hurricane is much more likely. The basement will be almost entirely below grade and the foundation will be poured concrete. The existing foundation is older (1940's) poured concrete. My builder has assured me that they can seal the foundation and install a perimeter drain outside, but I'm still leery of a high water table after heavy rains.

I was initially thinking of doing two extra walls in the corner, but lately was thinking of one long wall across one end of the basement with a vault door opening. The addition we are planning is approx. 20 x 24'. I ruled out making the entire room a vault due to the difficulty in putting a concrete ceiling on the whole thing.

Reason I was thinking of using one long wall is that it may give the appearance that the room just ends there, if I conceal the door. This would leave me with a 24' by some narrow dimension room. Maybe 6-8 feet inside. I need to think of how much space wall finishing and gun racks will eat up.

I plan to keep all the utilities in the existing basement so there wouldn't be any need for workmen to go in my gunroom after it's completed and I move stuff in there.
I've been to visit two folks who each had extensive gun collections and dedicated vaults. Both of their vaults were concealed to where you wouldn't even have known it was there in the first place. That probably plays a significant part in security. Those guys were way above where my collection will ever be but I plan on being in this house for a long time and want room to grow.

[Petrol & Powder]

If we're not talking about a huge area I would probably want to avoid a real floor drain in that room. I've seen more water come in some drains than go out. A small PVC pipe that penetrated one of the interior walls would allow a drain for a dehumidifier and wouldn't compromise the integrity of an exterior wall. I might want to consider pouring the floor in that space a little higher than the rest of the basement by a few inches. I'll second the additional re-bar. It's too cheap to skip and the benefits far outweigh the cost.
Whatever your exterior walls are made of, use the best waterproofing and exterior engineering you can. Drain tile (AKA slotted plastic pipe), gravel and good gutters are a must. If at all possible, I would avoid all penetrations of the exterior walls in the vault area. (power, water lines, etc.)
The ceiling can be a basic reinforced concrete slab if the spans between the walls are not too great. For a larger area you'll need to design some type of support for the pan (lower part of the form and often left in place after the pour)
For interior walls: furring strips attached to the concrete walls would allow some space for solid foam insulation between the strips and some type of wall covering to be attached to the strips. (OSB, plywood, sheetrock, tongue & grove boards, whatever) The furring strips & Styrofoam help prevent condensation and provide space for wiring.
Ventilation that doesn't compromise security (fire, flooding & breaching) is a good idea.
For the floor of a vault I would stick with epoxy type floor paint or maybe tile. Carpet or wood in a small, closed, below grade space may be asking for moisture issues. The rest of the library/trophy room can be more plush if you wish.

[Petrol & Powder]

I posted my last comments before I read your last post but it seems like we're on the same frequency. I've seen some clever ways to make a false end wall for a room and I think you're on the right track with the long wall idea.

[Duckiller]

A ceiling on a 20 x 24 concrete room is no big deal. Have your builder's engineer design a two way slab for a ceiling. Let him know if you want to park your car on it. If you are concerned about security then use thick strong concrete with double or triple curtains of thick rebar. Find some one building a small branch bank to see how they make small walk in safes. Really talk to your builder and or his engineer. They can take care of all your concerns, provided you have the money. Get an approximate price for a top of the line walk in safe from your builder. If you want to spend that amount of money go for it. If the price is too much, negoiate. Make sure you know what every feature costs and you can decide if you want it or a lesser version. Assuming you have a reasonable builder, make sure he knows exactly what you want and you understand what it is going to cost. biggest problem with these projects is both parties thinking there is a meeting of the minds when there isn't. Builder must know what he is to build and owner must know what it is going to cost him. You must also realize problems develop during construction. Make sure you understand why the plans are being changed, how they are changing and what it is going to cost. Do this and when your builder is done you will shake his hand and brag about the job he did. Leave stuff up in the air and you will mutter about what he did for the rest of your life. Good luck and enjoy your remodeled house.

[shooter93]

Waterproof the exterior with a product called....Seal-Wall and nothing else. It comes in one gallon jugs avaiable at a masonry supply store. You mix each gallon with a 90 pound bag of Portland cement and water to a thick cream and paint the walls twice. To give you an idea of how well it works I built a huge house for a customer that was mostly crawl space and a partial basement. We un-earthed 5 springs inside the crawl space. The basement once treated has never had a damp spot on it let alone water. Also a perimeter french drain run to daylight should be installed. I would stud the interior walls and insulate them, vapior barrior etc. wire for heat etc ofcourse.
It is not all that hard to have a dry finished basement but forget old technologies like the tar paint etc. You can allow for a de-humidifier with the pipe to the french drain also for an added safety measure. We have built room like this for some very wealthy customers with collections that are worth millions. there are also a couple of very clever ways of "hiding" the entrance to them which makes them very difficult to find. If you go this route I can give you some suggestions.
Trust me on the waterproofing....I have never had a mason who used this stuff that did not change to it once he saw it work. I've built many additions and homes that we got caught in the wet season and outside the foundation would have 4 to 7 feet of water on the outside and not even a damp mark inside.

[Artful]

http://www.smithsecuritysafes.com/pages/StandVaultDoorPrice.html

[beagle]

Just a thought on safe doors. With all the banks closing and bank buildings being renovated, there are bank vault doors that should be cheap. There are two that I know of in my small town. Might be worth looking into./beagle

[canyon-ghost]

I'm not a contractor but, I drove a concrete mixer truck during the rebuild after the tornadoes went through. I can tell you this, the best waterproofing used in pouring basements is the black plastic that they line the exterior walls with. I think they called it vis-queen or some such thing. It came in different thicknesses meaused in mills (millimeters?). When you purchase the concrete you might ask if the contractor can line it with plastic. Some they had here in Texas was pretty thick and took some work to lay in.

That is the best I've seen.
Good Luck,
Ron

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I was able to get a walk in vault door from a building that was to be torn down. I got the door as well as the frame it was mounted in. It was half inch thick steel with six one inch locking bolts. I intended to make a gun safe using the door but when I checked on quarter inch steel plate for the walls plus welding I found I could buy a gun safe cheaper so I sold the door. I have since seen several old safe doors just like in abandoned buildings. One such door was proped against the clubhouse wall for several years at the old Brea Range I belonged to in Brea Ca. Some of the LA County members on this site may have been members. Boy I hated it when that range closed. Members carried cards to open the gate and if you felt like shooting late at night you could go to the range, turn on the lights, put up your target and fire away. It was on union oil property.

[dbosman]

The university I work at, is in the second year of a three year project to replace 100+ year old steam and utility tunnels. New vaults are going in. Big, thick vaults as they are under a road bed. The contractor is using a multi product system - Bituthene® and Bituthene® Liquid Membrane.
Before they could bury the vault near the library, we had a lot of rain which filled the vault hole three feet over the vault roof. It sat there for a couple of days with nothing getting into the vault. Time is the real test of course.

[Mk42gunner]

If you rack your guns vertically; you will need most of a foot for your gun rack, by the time you allow clearance for a varmint rifle with a large objective scope or an AR-15.

If you can find them, there are a few military instructions and manuals describing what the gov't considers adequate for small arms stowage. There were several options for either poured or block construction. Personally, I would go with poured.

Go with a good vault door, why cheapen out at the last minute?

Robert

[winelover]

Look into ICF (Insulated Concrete Forms) Construction. I did a whole house but you can do a foundation. Had a thread going during the build.

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?121593-New-home-build-in-North-Central-Arkansas/page3&highlight=winelover

Some of the earlier pictures are gone due to capacity issues but the vault door install starts on page 3 and is still there. We used the Brown Safe Door that was mentioned earlier. Pricy (6K) but has all the features I wanted (dual mechanical and electrical locks) and sturdy. Door and frame alone weighs almost 1700 pounds. Twenty-five percent of my basement is a Safe-room / Vault. Poured concrete ceiling wasn't an issue for my cement contractor.

Winelover

[375RUGER]

Vault doors are nice but I'd suggest taking a look at blast doors so you can operate them from either side. Any sealed door will cost $$$ though.
You might do a search for commercial fiberglass doors, it might be an option.
A good way to seal an enclosure from moisture is with truck bed liner. As I recall the Line-X coating is good for this.
I would consider making the floor of the room a few inches higher than the rest of the basement.
Place a value on your gun collection, then get a quote from you home owners insurance agent on what it would cost to insure the collection. Use that figure and some time interval (10 years, 20 years, etc) to justify how much you really want to spend on protection or just take a chance.

[MtGun44]

ALL waterproofing WILL eventually fail. The only way to keep it dry over the long term is proper
drainage on the outside. The best possible, if the lot has the elevation change, or a storm sewer
system available, is to set it up so that the perimeter drain field (gravel in a ditch, drain pipe, more
gravel, topped by geocloth to keep the dirt from filtering in and clogging the gravel bed over time)
will gravity drain to a ditch or to a storm sewer. Far less desirable is a system with a sump and
a sump pump. If you have this, you MUST have a battery backup pump and a generator so that
if you are without power for a few hours & away from home or asleep, the battery system will
kick in and keep it dry. For a power outage of days in a big rain storm (hurricane!) you need
the genset so you don't have to stand by helplessly and watch the basement fill up.

Waterproofing is a nice idea, but you have to actually REMOVE the local groundwater to keep a
basement dry. Gravity systems can cost more for the ditching and pipe to "daylight" in the short
run, but are dead reliable and the basement will be dry forever.

Bill

[MtGun44]

Another point. On a wall that is exposed in the basement, it is not terribly hard to
hammer thru an unreiforced concrete wall of 6" thickness. Concrete (hadite)
blocks are FAR easier. The solution is to have a 12" gridwork (verticals and
horizontals) of 1/2" rebar cast into any wall that is exposed in the basement.
If they start beating on the wall, as soon as they find a few bars so they can see
the gridwork, they'll quit, unless they brought a torch. If they brought a torch,
the door is toast and you will lose. Remember, you CANNOT make it buglar
PROOF, just various levels of inconvenient.

$200 worth of rebar will make a wall a LOT more inconvenient. Exterior wall
below grade only need the normal structural rebar. The ceiling will need a
gridwork of rebar to hold it up, so no special addition should be required.

A friend has a room like this (smaller than yours) and the door is behind a
wall hanging. Steel fireproof door with 3 deadbolts and no handle.
Bill

[JRD]

Guys, thanks for all of the ideas and advice. I'll be meeting with my builder this week and have a bunch of notes to discuss with him. I'll see what we can put together for a plan.

Jason

[Win94ae]

I have a gun case and safe; but the guns I think more safe, are the ones hidden behind my fake wall.

[Gliden07]

What about putting a fireplace in new addition?? You could build a big base for fireplace and keep it hollow, contractor could pour concrete ceiling. There would be a reason to have the base in the cellar. Install a large steel firedoor and cover it with Peg board to conceal it?? This was an idea I was thinking to use if I ever built a house? Guess it really depends how big you want the room! Then put a cheapo gun safe in plan site.

[schutzen]

When I built mine I was too concerned with cost. I limited it to 4' X 8'. This is way too small. Yes, I can get my firearms in there, but it is not convientent. A better choice would be 8' wide buy whatever lenght you desire. My door is a used records vault door purchased from a bank vault door company. New the door was 4-5K, used and refurbished witht he combination reset to my numbers it was $1500. These doors are designed to install in 12" block walls, but work very well in a 12" poured wall. I advocate the poured wall with double
6"X6" re-bar mats. I too advocate the floor drain, but I also would add a condensate drain for your de-humidifier. I piped mine as a 3/4" PVC line tapped in above the P-trap for the floor drain. The P-trap stays full and seals even with the de-humidifier keeping the humidity low. When you design your gun racks consider a rack for display and several storage racks. We all have guns that we use and will not get rid of, but are not our prize posessions ie. the old .22 beater that rides the tractor while bush hogging.

[HeavyMetal]

just in case someone missed this idea, check local demolition yards, I had the oppertunity several years ago to buy a vault door from a demolished Post Office!

They had it on a 25 x 25 room they kept Money Orders and stamps in I didn't have a place to keep it at the time and it went for scrap steel price! many smaller banks deal with the same size door when they come down they don't save them.

Just a thought for the door.

[mroliver77]

My buddy used to weld for Smiths Security Safes (that artful mentions above) when he was laid off from bridge building. They are 20 minutes from me. $1200. was his personal quote to me. He sets up at a local show. Nice safes and he is a good guy!
Jay

[JRD]

Well guys, thanks for all the advice. My room (and the addition to the house) are going forward. The foundation walls are in place, and the builder has the forms for the roof slab up. All the concrete work should be done by next week and then the framers will go to work.

12" thick rebar reinforced poured concrete walls and the roof slab will be 5" thick with rebar. I decided to order a vault door from Smith Security based on recommendations on this forum and additional research I did. Doug Smith was very prompt in responding to my questions and gave me additional advice on my room construction. Based on the specs for his door, I believe I'm getting a more secure door from Smith for less money than the one my local safe dealer wanted to sell me off his showroom floor. I'll find out for certain in a couple months when my door is delivered.

The floor of my room will be 2" higher than the rest of the cellar floor so if there is ever a leak, water will pool outside my room first. Also, my builder sealed the exterior of the foundation and put a French drain under the floor.

My builder and I refer to my room as the "storm shelter". Only when work on the rest of house is complete will we install the door and finish the interior. Finishing the interior of my room will be a project for the winter. To that end, I need some ideas on gun rack layout. I had given some thought to hanging guns on pegs which is good for display eats a lof of wall space and I worry about accidently dropping a nice gun while putting it back on the hooks.
I'm leaning towards vertical racks along the walls. Ideas on gun rack layout would be appreciated. You guys have been a great help so far!

[mroliver77]

I do not think you will regret using Smith. He is a good guy and knowledgeable about his work.

Your design is basically what I decided on but have not got it done.
J

[country gent]

Pipe poured in place of a few rebar rods both horitontal and vertical with a piece of round stock that spins freely in it makes it imposible to cut thru with a sawzall, portable band saw or hack saw.Will cut thru wall of pipe the the rod spins with the saw blade rather than cutting.

[winelover]

http://www.gun-racks.com/all_rotary_gun_racks

Winelover

[Ramar]

Glad to hear you got it going. You won't have any regrets.

I display all my long guns and hand guns horizontally on the wall of my vault room. I've got a lazyboy and bed because the room doubles as a tornado shelter. When the guns are displayed out in the open, air can circulate and it's convenient to monitor any rust that may come along.

A good hygrometer is recommended and a dehumidifier with a condensation pump to the out side.
Ramar

[BD]

It sounds like you have it pretty well under control. Unless you have some well known valuables in there it's very unlikely you'll attract someone willing to saw through that wall. They'll be more likely to attack the door.
There has been quite a mix of information in this thread, some sound, some BS. With planning, anyone willing to buy the tools can get through any common wall construction pretty readily. We cut through 10" reinforced concrete walls everyday for doors, or duct chases, and we don't dick around doing it. There are companies that specialize in this work in every major city in the country.

It comes down to a question of time, and noise. I can get through Ric's dozen layers of drywall in 10 minutes with any of 5 $200 tools making no noise that would be heard outside of your basement. Hide a layer of sheet metal in the middle and it might get tougher. I can get through a single curtain 6" concrete wall in 30 minutes with a tool costing $1,200, but I'll make enough noise doing it to hear outside in your yard. In 45 minutes I could go through that same 6" wall with 3 guys swinging sledge hammers and a torch to cut the rebar. 1/2" mild steel plate is just as easy. I'm not as young and strong as I once was, but back in the day 10 minutes with a sledge was more than enough time to break out a door in a CMU wall working alone. When I say "get through". I mean cut a 3'0" x 6'8" door and walk through. If you are serious about slowing down professionals, multiple layers of different materials is the way to go as alternating materials can be chosen which will dramatically slow down the cutting action of the commonly used tools for the other materials involved. A 12 inch double offset 6" x 6" ss curtain 5,000 psi concrete wall will stop most of the commonly available saws as the ss rebar will gaul the diamond blades pretty quickly even with a lot of water flowing. Add a layer of Kevlar and ballistic nylon FRP inside to gum the blade up and you really have something. I've never seen it done, but i always thought a 1" layer of roof cement troweled on in the center of things would be a nice touch. Veneer it with hard stone on the inside where you can't get at it with a hammer and you're in the realm of needing explosives which would wake the neighbors.

But all of that is way beyond what most of us will ever need. We need to be able to stop the local snatch and grab guys, or five determined 20 something mopes who spent a couple evenings getting high and talking about how fat and happy they'd be if they could only make one "Big Score". Luckily, these guys are not doing B&E to pay their tuition to MIT, so some pretty basic solid construction will stop them cold.
BD

[rsilvers]

Just for other people who stop into this tread, I did many hours of research, and these are the doors I would look at:

Amsec - Can do anything, but generally 1/4 or 1/2 inch plate.
Smith - Does 3/16 to 1 inch door thickness.
Sturdy - uses 5/16 plate thickness.

I would not get anything that does not have at least 0.25 outer plate, and that is a very minimum. That means anything that speaks of a "composite" door (aside from obviously higher-end products) is using sheet metal over drywall, and not plate. 3/8 is better. 1/2, 1 inch, or 1.5 inch is better still, but the price goes up fast (including shipping and labor to install).

[seaboltm]

Saw a large bank vault being poured once. There was so much re-bar you almost couldn't see through the form. Several layers of 3/4" rebar, vertical and horizontal, staggered so that it was virtually impossible to drill into the finished vault without hitting a piece of re-bar. Re-bar is darn cheap. I think I would use a bunch of it.