Converting a Closet into a Safe

[Prepped and ready]

Thanks! I did not know there is a concrete additive to make it waterproof, and I thought we only have waterproofing coating. I take it the foundation floor itself would need Xypex added, right?

So a dedicated mini split for a safe room? Mini split system don't dehumidify much, do they?

Yeah, it works really well. I did a sub basement and a few other projects with Xypex and never a moisture problem, but it is an expensive additive. As for the mini split, the ac dries out the air as any other ac system would.

One guy put a small dehumidifier in his.

[hermosabeach]

[CCrawford]

Your tax dollars at work.

Safe Room Plans

CMU (concrete block), ICF (insulated concrete forms), and stick (wood) framing plans are included in the P-320 PDF at the end of the doc. First two are really inconvenient to do after the building is built.

[Nvberinger]

Add a bookcase door that conceals the closet space. Look up Murphy Doors.

[axhoaxho]

I have done it before.... to turn a closet into a gun room.

I didn't want to spend a ton of money, and I wanted it to be (easily) reversible back to a closet. So, what I did was.....

I did the measurements, and I bought a few of those Stack-On 10-gun cabinets (CA DOJ approved.)

I lined them up side-by-side, and I used heavy nuts-and-bolts to bolt them together. They became one-piece of cabinet system -- so big that it practically couldn't be moved out of the house unless they were dissembled (from inside the cabinets.)

I also added deadbolt lock on the closet door, just as another layer of security.

To me, they got the job done, and they looked pretty neat.

[unusedusername]

Be careful not to overload your foundation. Most residential homes can’t take that much weight so in the same place without problems.

Bolting thousands of pounds of heavy steel to your walls can cause the building to sink or cracking in the foundation.

[highpower]

I am not going to show any pictures of the construction, but I did the very thing the OP was asking about in my home a few years ago.

The process:

Take everything out and over the existing sheet rock, line the walls and ceiling with 18ga steel sheeting, screwing it into the studs with 2 1/2" screws.

Because I didn't want to totally disassemble my house, I built the door frame in sections and assembled it into the existing door frame. I used 1/4" steel inside of the door jamb and bolted it through the jamb and into king studs with 5/16"x3" lag bolts. I made the door stops out of 3/8"x1" steel bar and screwed them every six inches through the steel frame into the king studs.

Mounted a exterior, 8 hour steel fire door to the jamb using heavy-duty hinges. I mounted it to swing outward so the steel door fit up against the steel door stops. You could either weld the hinge pins in place or make steel covers for the hinges so the pins cannot be pulled out.

Make steel support plates for the door handle and dead bolt and mount them so they overlap the steel door frame.

This cost me about $1000 all in including the materials for the gun racks and paint. Will this keep a determined thief out for hours? Probably not, but it is very stout and it will take a determined effort to get in there. I have it built into an interior closet that has no easy access except through the entire house. Thieves can, and do, break into vaults that are way tougher to get into than mine, but I think I have made it at least as hard to get into as any average gun safe. Plus it could also double as a panic room if need be.

[SharedShots]

^ Hopefully you have a way to get out of there if you use it as a panic room and get locked inside - and have oxygen too. You run in there and someone piles up a table or something against the door and that is where they'll find you the next day or next week depending on the smell.

[Harry Ono]

Add a bookcase door that conceals the closet space. Look up Murphy Doors.

Not bad, I like!

Murphydoor.jpg

[CheapBloke]

Found this link.

https://hiddenpassageway.com/walk-in-gun-safe-doors/

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[sigstroker]

I am not going to show any pictures of the construction, but I did the very thing the OP was asking about in my home a few years ago.

The process:

Take everything out and over the existing sheet rock, line the walls and ceiling with 18ga steel sheeting, screwing it into the studs with 2 1/2" screws.

Because I didn't want to totally disassemble my house, I built the door frame in sections and assembled it into the existing door frame. I used 1/4" steel inside of the door jamb and bolted it through the jamb and into king studs with 5/16"x3" lag bolts. I made the door stops out of 3/8"x1" steel bar and screwed them every six inches through the steel frame into the king studs.

Mounted a exterior, 8 hour steel fire door to the jamb using heavy-duty hinges. I mounted it to swing outward so the steel door fit up against the steel door stops. You could either weld the hinge pins in place or make steel covers for the hinges so the pins cannot be pulled out.

Make steel support plates for the door handle and dead bolt and mount them so they overlap the steel door frame.

This cost me about $1000 all in including the materials for the gun racks and paint. Will this keep a determined thief out for hours? Probably not, but it is very stout and it will take a determined effort to get in there. I have it built into an interior closet that has no easy access except through the entire house. Thieves can, and do, break into vaults that are way tougher to get into than mine, but I think I have made it at least as hard to get into as any average gun safe. Plus it could also double as a panic room if need be.

18 gauge is pretty thin, right? Even so, all that steel must have been expensive.

[Prepped and ready]

I dont think Ive ever heard of an 8hr fire rated door. 3hr, yes but not 8hr. Gonna look that one up.

I spend around $11k on raw materials, door excluded, for a 5x8 room. Then rent the the spray machine for foam for the walls. Then its hours and hours of installation. As mentioned before, some jobs do require floor support for raised foundations, but thats easy when your pulling up the sub floor anyway.

Every job is different, so no job will cost the same as the next. Some people like to go the DYI route and others would rather pay someone to to do all of the work and just enjoy the finish product.

[highpower]

18 gauge is pretty thin, right? Even so, all that steel must have been expensive.

I know that given enough time and effort someone could break in, but it is not going to be a quick or easy process. Any tool that would make short work of 18ga, will also go through 1/4". Try dragging several pieces of steel 9'x4' from outside through your house into a confined space and you will see that 18ga is quite heavy enough to deal with. Those sheets are screwed to the studs with a ton of screws on top of the existing drywall, so even if someone penetrated the outer layer of drywall they will still have to work very hard to make a useable opening.

As for the door, I may be wrong about the 8 hour rating, but it is a steel door filled with concrete. The house can burn down and the door will still be intact. It was a beotch drilling the holes for the deadbolt and latch.

To address another point, I wasn't trying to build Fort Knox. All I was doing was building a larger area for my collection and make it as secure as I could within the parameters that my budget and available space within my house would allow.

If you want to spend thousands of dollars on bulky safes and/or build a block vault in your garage or whatever else will make you happy, then more power to you. My point was that with some effort and not a ton of money, a person could build a secure space inside a closet if they are willing to think outside of the box. Unfortunately it seems that not too many are able to do that anymore.

I'm not telling anyone what to do nor do I expect anyone to follow my example. I do however, find it interesting that there are people that are reluctant to consider a less costly alterative to multi thousand dollar super secure vaults.


One more point: I know better than to trap myself in a room, of course I have an escape hatch.

[sigstroker]

One more point: I know better than to trap myself in a room, of course I have an escape hatch.

Storm shelters, safe rooms, etc usually have in-swinging doors. Not hard to solve if planned for from the start.

Here's an idea for a semi-poor that doesn't want to spend $20k+.



I'd rather have it in the house itself, but it would be much less disruptive to install it in the garage. I think it might be easier to secure the camoflaging than the door itself, but this would be using stealth for security rather than hardening the box itself.

[dozer wright]

My old house was cement filled Rebar enforceed Cinderblock. The old man who built it put in a crude home made safe door. Outside looked great but the concealed hinges and lock mech was pretty janky but worked.
Ended up cleaning up the hinges and lock and used it 10 years.