Fraggle Rock
Member
That is bad ass!! Thanks for posting some pics, I'd love to have something like this someday!!
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The CannaBunker Begins
- Thread starter CannaBunkerMan
- Start date
Hopefully it will be legalized, and you won't need it. Unless the nukes fly, in which case you won't be able to live without one.
I'll post a price list for everything involved, to give people an idea of what something like this would cost. I haven't put it together yet, but I'd guess I spent $40k by the time everything was/is done. $0 in labor is a nice number too, since I completed everything by myself.
Well, there was a few harvests of trimming labor, paid for in kind.
Actually, the electric company does most of the heavy lifting. From my wallet. When the room is lit, I can top $1000/month just there.
It's really hard to come up with a number, since I'm still working on things, and I've been collecting equipment for 15 years or so.
5 more.
#1 = Big pile of dirt of the same volume as the freshly concealed stairwell.
#2= Getting ready to dig
#3 = Whoa, that first step's a doozy.
#4 = Big hole where my patio used to be.
#5 = I could use an army of these little fuckers, and they're fun to drive drunk too! He has a bigger brother that came to visit, I'll see if I can find a shot of him. He only stayed for a couple of days though.
#1 = Big pile of dirt of the same volume as the freshly concealed stairwell.
#2= Getting ready to dig
#3 = Whoa, that first step's a doozy.
#4 = Big hole where my patio used to be.
#5 = I could use an army of these little fuckers, and they're fun to drive drunk too! He has a bigger brother that came to visit, I'll see if I can find a shot of him. He only stayed for a couple of days though.
As much as I love the skid steer, it did have a horrible tendency of ripping up my lawn.
You can see the stairwell that I built over the winter. I'll cut out the back of the bulkhead, and put it on hinges for the primary entrance.
I'm starting to pour the footer in the 3rd picture. Unfortunately, the soil in my area is all sandy loam, and I started having a problem with dirt avalanches. The result of one of these diravalanches can be seen in the middle.
My concrete mixer will show up somewhere in here. I swear, that thing is a tool of the devil. When I bought it, it was already 3rd hand, and had been used commercially. It's a 3 cu/ft mixer, and I never thought it would finish the job. 550 batches later (one 5 gal bucket sand, one gravel, .5 cement), it was still turning. It had no bearings when I got it, so it made a horrible noise. Anyway...
In the last two pictures you can see the 1st course of blocks being laid.
You can see the stairwell that I built over the winter. I'll cut out the back of the bulkhead, and put it on hinges for the primary entrance.
I'm starting to pour the footer in the 3rd picture. Unfortunately, the soil in my area is all sandy loam, and I started having a problem with dirt avalanches. The result of one of these diravalanches can be seen in the middle.
My concrete mixer will show up somewhere in here. I swear, that thing is a tool of the devil. When I bought it, it was already 3rd hand, and had been used commercially. It's a 3 cu/ft mixer, and I never thought it would finish the job. 550 batches later (one 5 gal bucket sand, one gravel, .5 cement), it was still turning. It had no bearings when I got it, so it made a horrible noise. Anyway...
In the last two pictures you can see the 1st course of blocks being laid.
Now it's just playing with blocks. Very heavy blocks that scrape up your knuckles. Soooooooooo much digging! I actually backfilled all of this by hand to save money and scrutiny by renting another excavator. Mistake. Oh, now that I'm mentioning mistakes, I'd never build something like this again out of blocks. Actually, I'd NEVER EVER mix any more concrete by hand. That's what those huge trucks are for. It's actually cheaper to have it delivered, and you don't have to shovel any gravel. Shoveling gravel sucks. It's just as heavy as sand, but each time you hit the gravel with the shovel, you get a nice shockwave through the arms that really hurts after a while.
Ok, back to the pictures. Inbetween the 2nd and 3rd pictures, I removed the collapsed dirt, and used it to partially backfill the foundation. You can't really see it all that well, but I used a sealant on the outside of the walls to keep the water out.
The fourth picture shows some of the staging that I built. Everything in this project is heavy. Either heavy, or REALLY heavy. The staging is no exception.
The last couple of pictures show the wall under the house's foundation being finished. I designed the placement of the bunker to maximize the use of existing foundation walls to save in costs and time.
Speaking of time and money, I wanted to make the structure as strong as possible, so again, like with the stairwell, filled all of the hollow cores in the blocks, and used rebar to tie everything together. I wanted to lay some horizontal rebar, but I forgot to buy the special notched blocks to do that with. Two years later, there are no cracks so I think that decission turned out okay.
Ok, back to the pictures. Inbetween the 2nd and 3rd pictures, I removed the collapsed dirt, and used it to partially backfill the foundation. You can't really see it all that well, but I used a sealant on the outside of the walls to keep the water out.
The fourth picture shows some of the staging that I built. Everything in this project is heavy. Either heavy, or REALLY heavy. The staging is no exception.
The last couple of pictures show the wall under the house's foundation being finished. I designed the placement of the bunker to maximize the use of existing foundation walls to save in costs and time.
Speaking of time and money, I wanted to make the structure as strong as possible, so again, like with the stairwell, filled all of the hollow cores in the blocks, and used rebar to tie everything together. I wanted to lay some horizontal rebar, but I forgot to buy the special notched blocks to do that with. Two years later, there are no cracks so I think that decission turned out okay.
This is fucking awesome!!!
Just don't lock your daughter in there for 15 years
It's funny that you mention that. A close friend of mine wondered where all of the vietnamese children were. Then I told him how inappropriate that comment was.
G
gdawg
Rep from gdawg
Tuhder
Member
Hahaha. Thats so messed up! Hahaha.
I spent about a year planning, taking measurements of the foundations, and building my virtual house in Google's Sketchup. I built several "virtual" bunkers board by board, so I could assemble a materials list to price out different configurations.
I went underground, since the last indoor garden was in the attic, and had uncontrolable temperature flux. I lost a crop to heat and got to thinking... I went underground for stealth and temperature regulation. That, and I've always dreamt of burying a few cargo containers in my back yard, like every other grower on the planet.
I had a job that I hated, but it paid okay, so I started saving. As soon as my "fundraising" was over, I asked my boss for a 100% raise. This was at a time that we had a pay freeze at company X. They refused, but not after offering me a 25% raise. Pay-freeze, huh? So, I told them that they were fired, and left.
I had originally hired a friend to help with the construction, but he was worthless, so I fired him too. Let's call this guy the King of Rust. Everything he touched would just rust away. The moral of that story was that, "professionals" usually talk mostly out of their asses. In other words, if you research it well enough, you can do anything yourself, and usually save yourself a headache, as well as one more person to know your business.
If I had the whole thing to do over again, I'd use forms, and a concrete truck. The king of rust convinced me that mixing my own concrete would be safer. To tell you the truth, I'd rather 10 concrete companies know about my bunker, than to have this putz know about it. At least I have leverage on TKOR.
I lost 50 pounds mixing concrete, and I got pretty sick/depressed by the time I was done. Did I mention shoveling gravel sucks? I can't believe that's one way the Nazis killed the Jews, just to put them to work in the gravel pits. Horrible. Anyway, leave the concrete mixing to the pros, unless you're a sadist like me.
Another negative was that the summer of 2009 was super rainy, and the mosquitos were AWFUL. At least now that I have that whole malaria thing over with... (jk) I think you'll see a few of those giant power fans in the pictures. I called them my "no-squito cone of silence" fans. Mixing concrete in the rain sucks too.
Concrete is one of the coolest things that I know of. Mix some shit together, and make rock? COOL! That being said, I HATE concrete with a passion. I hope to never need to mix concrete ever ever again.
Tuhder
Member
Thats funny, This is EXACTLY what im up to right now. Im going into the lions den with my life raft already inflated and asking for a 105% raise. Funny thing is, I want them to say no and their probably going to say yes.
I love the thread, But I think it would be better suited in grow room designs & equipment.
could not have said it better myself.
Dr. Penguin
New member
I used to do this for a living and I know it is damn hard work. Then I realized you did it alone.....
Now that I've shoveled my jaw back off the floor, awesome fucking job so far! I'm excited to see the rest of the progress and hopefully some of the fruits of the project!
Now that I've shoveled my jaw back off the floor, awesome fucking job so far! I'm excited to see the rest of the progress and hopefully some of the fruits of the project!
I used to do this for a living and I know it is damn hard work. Then I realized you did it alone.....
Now that I've shoveled my jaw back off the floor, awesome fucking job so far! I'm excited to see the rest of the progress and hopefully some of the fruits of the project!
The fruits are currently being enjoyed. I stumbled across a random clone of some Green Crack about a year and a half back. Fucking awesome buds, man!
To give some more scale to the project, I used 150 x 90lb bags of cement. Each bag would get me about 6 cu/ft (I mixed it strong). That's 33.3 yards, or roughly 3 cement trucks worth of mixing. A standard bag of concrete will get you about 1/3 cu/ft. If I bought bags of concrete instead, I'd need... damn, my mental calculator broke. A friggin' frig ton of them, that's what I'd guess.
These next 6 are from finishing off the top course of blocks.
Do you like my house jack? It looks just like a car jack, but it's used for houses.
One of my main concerns was to get everything finished and backfilled as soon as possible. This is my pants down moment, don't giggle. From breaking ground with the excavator, this point is about 10 days in, and I was busting my ass like I never thought possible. I took a little bit of a break and slowed down some after pouring all of the concrete and backfilling. There's still a lot ahead, since I still haven't poured the floor and celing slab yet...
Do you like my house jack? It looks just like a car jack, but it's used for houses.
One of my main concerns was to get everything finished and backfilled as soon as possible. This is my pants down moment, don't giggle. From breaking ground with the excavator, this point is about 10 days in, and I was busting my ass like I never thought possible. I took a little bit of a break and slowed down some after pouring all of the concrete and backfilling. There's still a lot ahead, since I still haven't poured the floor and celing slab yet...
