Turnkey shelters
There is a small but serious market for the construction of special bomb shelters in Russia. After February 2022, interest in such shelters increased due to the conflict in Ukraine and the bombing of Russian territory by the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Many companies offer bomb shelter construction services, and most often we are talking about a modular shelter – a steel “barrel” buried in the ground. In other cases, a contractor is willing to build a reinforced concrete shelter from scratch or simply replace a home’s existing basement.
A socialbites.ca correspondent turned to one of the companies providing such services, Akademik Stroy, as a client for advice. His representative explained how construction is going and what will be inside the basic modular shelter.
The steel shelter is produced to order in the factory. It always has the form of a long pencil case, about three meters wide and six to several tens of meters long. Their walls are 3-6 mm thick, but they do not play the main role in protection from shock waves and radiation. The shelter was buried to a depth of several meters and filled with concrete at the request of the customer. A layer of soil is poured on top, leaving only a narrow tunnel with a closed door for exit; the hole can be masked with an outbuilding on top. The deeper the shelter, the better the protection, but also the wider the foundation pit during construction.
Inside the steel box there is an isolated room for living space, a shower, a toilet and an electric generator. The kit includes furniture, refrigerator, shower, plumbing, water heater, pump, water tanks, generator and batteries.
The ventilation system includes filters, a device to protect against blast waves and a valve to ensure complete temporary isolation of the room. The shelter is connected to the power grid, water supply and sewer and only goes offline in emergencies. The situation outside can be monitored using cameras.
For additional money, the contractor will install gas analyzers and devices to monitor the radiation situation – these are located on the surface and display the data on a screen inside the shelter. You can also dig a fuel tank and arrange its automatic supply to the generator, install a radio station, an air regeneration device in case of ventilation blockage, a septic tank and a protected well for water supply.
Some companies claim that such shelters can be used to protect against attacks similar to those that occurred in the Belgorod, Kursk and Bryansk regions. However, it is unpredictable that a random bullet will land near a house, and if there is active hostilities in the area, it is much easier and cheaper to evacuate to a safe area. It should also be noted that no shelter in this class guarantees absolute protection.
A steel “barrel” dug to a depth of several meters can withstand the explosion of a surface artillery shell, but not massive concrete-piercing bombs or a cumulative bunker-exploding warhead.
For example, the BROACH warhead of the Storm Shadow cruise missile is capable of launching a landmine into six meters of concrete, clearly greater than the thickness of the floor of any private bunker. Of course, no shelter can withstand a nuclear explosion a few meters away, but the probability of such an event occurring is almost zero.
Installation of a modular shelter takes at least three months, but a cast reinforced concrete shelter takes much longer. The cost of any shelter will start from two million and can reach tens of millions of rubles.
How should the bunker be?
The world’s gold standards for bunker construction were developed in Switzerland. The legislation of this country guarantees shelter to every citizen. A large number of bunkers have been built in Switzerland, and the country also supplies equipment for these bunkers to other Western countries. Swiss norms and practices can be used as a guide. According to them, with rare exceptions, a bomb shelter should primarily be located underground. A thick layer of compacted soil provides good protection from both radiation and blast waves. At the same time, depths below three meters can also be harmful: if a blast wave blocks the outlets, it will be difficult to dig from under tens of meters of rock.
Underground buildings must be surrounded by a durable protective shell, for example, reinforced concrete. Its thickness can vary from 30 to 70 centimeters. According to Swiss standards, at least one square meter of space is allocated to each person. Life in such conditions will not be comfortable, but it should be remembered that the greater the distance between the load-bearing walls or columns, the less durable the structure. Entrances must be hermetically sealed with thick steel doors opening to the outside to prevent the blast wave from opening the doors.
In a nuclear explosion, fires and blast waves are not as dangerous as radioactive contamination in the area. A layer of soil reliably protects from gamma rays, but after the explosion many radioactive materials resemble dust or sand. Prolonged contact with them, and even more so inhalation or swallowing, threatens the most serious consequences, so the ventilation of the shelter is equipped with filters.
It is important that the fan (or a similar device for forced air supply) has a manual drive – in this case it can be used even if the generator or electric motor fails. Since the Cold War, the radio was considered a mandatory device in shelters. It is necessary to receive signals from civil defense services, but in modern conditions power banks or a hand-held generator are also needed to charge devices.
The shelter also needs to create a food and water supply and equip a toilet. The most dangerous time in terms of radioactive contamination is the first day. To roughly assess the threat, scientists use the 7:10 rule; Every seven-fold increase after the explosion leads to a ten-fold decrease in radiation levels. Some Swiss shelters have everything you need to survive for 14 days, but most are designed for just two days. It is still unlikely that unprepared people will spend much time in a closed, cramped room.
According to Swiss law, a bomb shelter must be at least a 30-minute walk from the house, but this problem will not arise in private shelters on private land.