Can’t find any reference to it on the net so probably not possible.

I haven’t listened to the podcast yet, but how do these compare with mobile homes? I know that in my neck of the woods you can often find mobiles for free – all you have to do is tow them away. It would seem to me that mobiles are more habitable and more frugal.

Guess I better listen to the podcast and find out 🙂
—
J

&SteveD
I thought about burring it upside down as well since from what I heard the floor is very strong. Seems putting in a new floor on what was the roof would be a whole lot cheeper and easier than reinforcing the roof to support the load.

What would be the best way to make these giant double doors accessible while still keeping it hidden? You obviously don’t want to be digging it up each time you need to use it.

Jack,

Great show.

I thought it worth mentioning that if you bury one, it would probably be a good idea to bury below the container a sandbag full of zinc connected to the container by a thick copper wire ( a use for those post 1982 pennies). 😉
The zinc will act as a “sacrificial anode” (see wiki) and greatly help protect the container from corrosion.

I’d like to know how effective a container is as a defensive shelter if built to its strongest. The steel frame should be able to stop handguns and most rifle bullets, don’t you think Jack? I doubt the weak roof could protect you against a direct mortar strike or the new XM-25 grenade rifle.

I’ll never be able to afford one of these containers but I sure would like to know the answer as a matter of interest.

So what you are saying is that the steel acts as a catalyst.
Then putting it next to a “steel container”,period, might not be a good idea??

Here’s an idea I had to use the container as sort of a “garage”.
If you had the 9′ tall container, the you might be able to use it to store your Bug Out RV/camper. You could keep it in there, protected, ready to hook it up or just pull out when your ready to go.
If you reverse the process, you can pull into your hidden “Bat Cave” and park your vehicle inside it and just disappear from sight when you get to your Bug Out location.
Just think about it and the possibilities are endless!

I am the Mike in Jack’s interview. I want to apologize for the poor audio quality on my end, apparently my house phone wasn’t up to the job. Hopefully it wasn’t too much of an annoyance to everyone.
As much prep as you do for an interview like this, you always look back and listen to what you said and wish you had a do-over. I want to clarify a couple of things that I honestly figured someone would make a comment on. My load calculations are correct, I left out a couple of important details which made it sound like I was incorrect. The load per foot of earth over a 40′ container would be 32000 pounds. I am using 2 feet of dirt which makes the load 64000 pounds and I am adding in a 50% safety factor which is why I used the 96000 pound number. That has bugged me since I listened to the show and wanted to clarify things.
I want to thank all of those who have made comments and suggestions so far in response to the show. My choice to use the EDPM material as my waterproofing comes from an engineer who does work for the USAF in construction on military bases. He has used it in green roof construction where he had to irrigate and drain the water from a roof structure as well as protect the building from water damage. Still, if anyone has any evidence that EDPM will break down is used in this way, I would like to see any documentation you can provide on that. We are still a couple months away from that part of my project and of course I want to use the best material for the job.
I am very interested in Donald’s comments on the use of recycled rubber products. I will definitely touch base with the person who made this recommendation to me and pass on this information to him, it is clear he should clarify what he was recommending for me to use. Thanks
Donald.
I wish I could go into more details, I would start a thread in the forum on Jacks site, but my
name that I registered under would give up my location. Maybe if Jack could do some of his magic and come up with a way to remedy this, I would be glad to share more information on this subject.

First of all I would like to say that by posting this I am not making recommendations to anyone on the design of below grade structures. I don’t want anyone burring a container, have it collapse and come after me (it is a sad world we live in when I have to say this). I am just providing information on things that people might want to research. One thing that I think that people planning to explore buried structures such as this could benefit in researching is light weight fill applications. In an attempt to keep this as non technical as possible, standard soils can very in unit weight (the weight of one cubic foot of soil) from 100 pounds per cubic foot (pcf) to 150 pcf (more with a lot of rocks in the soil) depending on soil gradation, compaction level and moisture content. As the guest indicated, over a large area this results in some large forces on top of proposed structures. There are several types of non-conventional fill that can be acquired for varying costs and from various sources that can reduce the applied load on top of a structure due to a reduce unit weight of the material. Some of these material include shredded tires (as we talked about have there problems but weights between 22 and 33 pcf), glass cutlet (recycled glass weighing between 70 and 120 pcf), bottom ash (an ash byproduct from combustion related electrical generation weights between 45 and 75 pcf), expanded shale (natural material in some regions of the country weights between 40 to 60 pcf), and volcanic glass (weights between 45 and 60 pcf). There are also the specialty grouts and other products that are manufactured specifically to be light weight; elastizel (a proprietary lightweight grout that can be specified to weight between 20 and 120 pcf), expanded polystyrene (an stirophom product that can be manufactured at various weights as low as 17 pcf (has problems if it comes in contact with petroleum based products also called geofoam). In short there are a lot of different options for placing light weight fill over a structure and capping it with a thin layer of topsoil or equivalent that would result in less load than standard soil. Ultimately these weights are approximate and should be verified by testing on a project specific bases but they get the point across. I would strongly suggest that anyone planning to burry a structure that will be occupied at any time consult an engineer to make sure that their specific project is designed and constructed safely. Given the large loads that we are talking about failure to design a system properly could be catastrophic. As inferred by the guest’s attention to reinforcing in his interview, burring a structure like this is not something to be taken lightly! Countless basement structures have collapse and killed people due to small details that were overlooked by the occupant. In this case…what you don’t know can kill you.

This guy is in the middle of a large home construction project with these things. Progress documented here: http://www.glennonseacanhome.ca/index.html