mobilehomerepair.com

This is my first post, and I'd like to say hi to everybody.

We bought a really nice, clean double-wide in a small Nebraska town. There's a pretty good-sized crawlspace underneath...not quite tall enough to stand in, but just about.

There's a tornado shelter in town, but in the event of severe weather, it's kind of risky going out of the house to drive up there...after all, lightning kills more people than tornadoes.

So my question is, would it be possible to turn that crawlspace (or even just part of it) into an unfinished basement, solely for use during a tornado warning? Would this be a dangerous thing to do? And--if such a thing is even feasible--what sort of ballpark $$ figure would we be talking about here?

Any other ideas of how we could make an underground shelter?

Thanks in advance!

Hi & welcome. I would say yes it is possible. It will take some engineering and research on you part to come up with a design that would be safe & effective in the event of a storm. Greg

You know there are companies that sell a shelter that they bring out to your house on a truck and bury in your yard. When I was a kid living in Missouri we had a full basement under the house but there was this shelter out in the yard. I kind of became a shed for us.

Two years ago today we started to add our basement. Today we have a beautiful master suite, a media room, guest room, a powder room and an additionally laundry room.

Cost of project = 35k The piece of mind to know we're safe in a tornado = priceless.

I think I have pictures uploaded here.

It was 9k for the digging the hole and 15 k. The main problem was that there wasn't a great place to put the stairs. We had to make the old master bedroom a dining room because there was no other place to put the stairs to go down.

WildIrish,

Ten years ago, we built a garage and put a basement underneath it. Like Sylvia said, the peace of mind knowing that we have a safe place in the event of a tornado is priceless.

Since we are in tornado alley, there are several companies in our town that sell underground tornado shelters. Here are a couple of links for you to look at: www.stormsheltersforlife.com and www.stormsheltersplus.com.

I personally think that the underground tornado shelters are a viable option to spending $30,000.00 - $40,000.00 to build a basement.

Diane

texasprairierose wrote:WildIrish,

Ten years ago, we built a garage and put a basement underneath it. Like Sylvia said, the peace of mind knowing that we have a safe place in the event of a tornado is priceless.

Since we are in tornado alley, there are several companies in our town that sell underground tornado shelters. Here are a couple of links for you to look at: www.stormsheltersforlife.com and www.stormsheltersplus.com.

I personally think that the underground tornado shelters are a viable option to spending $30,000.00 - $40,000.00 to build a basement.

Diane

I agree...we don't have $30-40K to spare.

Plus, we're not looking for more living area, just a hidey-hole. Thanks so much for the links for those storm shelter manufacturers' sites.

I appreciate everybody's input...sounds like some of you have made additional living space to be envied.

Our homes value went from 28k when we bought it with the land 5 years ago to 128k now. It was a good investment. :~) We couldn't have gotten a home this size or this nice for the price. Our home is now on par with value, if not higher, with our regular stick neighbors.

We didn't put it in just for the tornado shelter. We put it in because even though our kids were leaving home, our family has been growing. They leave home single and come back with more. We finally have places to put (almost) everything too!

Hi folks,

This topic has veered "off topic", please go there to discuss tornado shelters. I will lock this topic now.

Yanita