There may or may not be a cold war era bunker under my house

[ojisan]

One of my friends lived in a house with one of these under the driveway.
The entrance hatch was in the garage.

[SonofWWIIDI]

GP radar. Probably the easiest way to find out.

It doesn't say how much, but a quick email might let you find out.

Keep us updated!!!

don't you guys watch Indiana Jones or the Discovery Channel ?

all you have to do is make a small hole or find a crack and pour water into the crack or into the hole (I've seen this done once for real, looking for and finding a hollow underneath an altar on a documentary and the other time I saw Indiana Jones do it, they both only used about a bottle of water.) if it keeps taking the water in at a pretty good rate you know it's not just dirt and possibly there is a hollow underneath the top flooring. would Indiana Jones lie?

They also did it in stalag 13. That's how the Germans accidentally found one of the tunnels.

[El Gato]

we had a large bunker when I was a kid... the stairwell was deep... the inside roof of the bunker was about 7 feet below the outside grade...
I don't think your drill will work...

check the planning dept...
talk someone into doing gpr...
look for a pipe or two that might be buried pointing straight down (air vent) but was covered over to put in petunias or some such...

seriously .. look for pipes
maybe borrow a metal detector that will go down a few feet and look for pipes about 5-15 feet out from about where you think it might be...
they almost always had air vents....

there were several built in Bako...
went by our old house recently and they had covered over the access door and made it part of the patio...
so maybe look for a raised area... ours was about 8ft by 5 ft...and raised about 10 in above grade to keep flooding out of the bunker...

slept about 15 people

[MarinRange42]

Or you could also check with the company that did the first remodel. There's a chance the copy is there as well as at the county planning department.

I'm guessing though that you could place an advertisement for a need of El Chapo's men for a few weeks. Tunnel from well off your mothers property and get it and out quick with one of those cool motorbikes!

Prob sleeping on the first atomic bomb every night, sure you want to open the door?

[odysseus]

My question is, HOW CAN I GET MY ORIGINAL BLUEPRINTS? I live in San Mateo County.

Go to your local building/planning/permit department and request to have them pull and copy all the docs of all the years on record for the home. There might be a small admin fee of course, but it's simple to do. That will take a few weeks probably to get done.

Of course, if you find nothing there - it still won't quell your curiosity. My only consideration is why someone would go to all the expense and trouble to build one or buy a place with one, and seal it all up in concrete? Kind of useless and more of a problem then not, but I guess you never know....

[TheChief]

Any updates?

[Doheny]

Any updates?

He hasn't posted for ten days. He likely found it and it collapsed on him.

[Bobshouse]

He hasn't posted for ten days. He likely found it and it collapsed on him.

Either that or mom has him on restriction from using the computer cause he ruined her floors.

[freonr22]

If you were tfh enough to build a bunker, why would you list it on the blueprints?

[sixoclockhold]

This cat was a nuclear physicist so he knows a direct hit is taking out his bunker. Other than that all he needs is shielding. There is no reason in my mind why he couldn't line the ceiling with lead and support the ceiling, having it the slab of a room. No structural weight, so re-bar and some support is all he would need in the tomb.

Get the drill baby, drill.

[k1dude]

IIRC, it takes at least 1 foot of earth over your shelter to filter out most of the harmful radiation. I would think a nuclear physicist would want several factors of safety above and beyond. So that means there'll be a least a few feet of dirt over the bunker.

Most of those old residential fallout shelters were abandoned and filled-in because they flooded. Keeping a concrete bunker waterproof is not easy or cheap. Wall cracks and seepage were commonplace. Even if it didn't flood, they were dark, dank, musty, moldy, and flat out disgusting. Everything deteriorated in them quickly.

[dustoff31]

If you were tfh enough to build a bunker, why would you list it on the blueprints?

Back in the day, home bomb (fallout) shelters were not uncommon. The government even encouraged them. One could send away to the Office of Civil Defense and they would send you complete plans, bill of materials, pamphlets on what to stock in it, the whole thing.

[Jongage]

IIRC, it takes at least 1 foot of earth over your shelter to filter out most of the harmful radiation. I would think a nuclear physicist would want several factors of safety above and beyond. So that means there'll be a least a few feet of dirt over the bunker.

Most of those old residential fallout shelters were abandoned and filled-in because they flooded. Keeping a concrete bunker waterproof is not easy or cheap. Wall cracks and seepage were commonplace. Even if it didn't flood, they were dark, dank, musty, moldy, and flat out disgusting. Everything deteriorated in them quickly.

Speaking of waterproofing. Does anyone know any common ways to seal your shelter from seeping water.
Layer of tar???
Plastic?

[elx144]

Find the vent hole and plug it up. Who ever is inside will have to come out.

[Cokebottle]

If the concrete over the bunker is only 4-6" then it is a shoddy bunker or just a storage area. Most bunkers have a layer of fill over the recon.

There's a difference between a "bunker" and a fallout shelter.
Fallout shelters were VERY common in homes that were built prior to the 50s as homeowners would convert basements or cellars to fallout shelters.

They were never intended to protect from a blast or a zombie invasion.
Security was minimal, as nearly everyone in a neighborhood would have one, or the entire block would chip in to stock supplies and would share the shelter should we be attacked.

If you were tfh enough to build a bunker, why would you list it on the blueprints?

In the late 50s, nearly everyone had one, had access to one, or knew someone who had one.
It wasn't TFH... the threat from the Soviets was VERY real (as was our thread to them)