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Serious Considerations When Building a Panic Room

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A “fortified environment” is what it is known as. A safe haven or “safe room” buys you time in the event of brutal home invasion where people are tied up, raped and murdered. Like this one.  A safe room is also a layer of protection in the event of manmade or natural disasters.

Envision you are home and the home security alarm goes off because some drug crazed axe, knife and gun wielding bunch of lunatics smash down your door with the intent of doing very bad things to your family. This is when a fortified environment would help you survive.

Features of a safe room include:

Reinforced doors. These may be steal fire rated doors or ones lined with steel plate. The frames are also beefed up with door brace technology.

Reinforced walls, ceiling, floors. This can be anything from extra layers of plywood, sheet metal, steel plate, concrete or bullet resistant acrylic (plastic) or Lexan sheet.

Electronics. What safe room wouldn’t be complete without wireless internet and mobile communications?

Security systems. A monitored home security system complete with security cameras and back up batteries. All of which are in some way protected from intruders.

Self defense equipment. This can be anything from non-lethal to lethal.

Nourishment. You may be in your safe room for hours to days. Non perishable canned foods, and water is a must.

Gas masks. In the event your home invaders (or nuclear fallout) try to smoke you out, a gas mask is a nice touch.

Emergency first-aid kit. And assortment of bandages, ointments etc. Put some trash bags in there too. Trust me.

A simple enough strategy when installing a safe room in an existing home is to either install in your bedroom, basement or retrofit a walk-in closet.

Robert Siciliano personal and home security specialist toHome Security Source discussingADT Pulse on Fox News. Disclosures

Thinking About Building a Safe Room?

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A safe room also known as a panic room is designed to keep bad out and extend your lifetime. Bad could be in the form of Mother Nature’s wrath, manmade disaster or a human predator.

There are varying levels of options and financial investments based on what exactly you want to protect yourself from.  For example if you live in a part of the world where tornados are a problem then you may build your safe room with similar security features as you would when trying to protect from a predator. But may not as extreme as protecting yourself from manmade disaster, like nuclear fallout.

FEMA has a guide that begins the process of building a safe room and asks you to consider: When extreme weather threatens, individuals and families need advance warning and protection from the dangerous forces of extreme winds. Individuals and communities in tornado and hurricane areas need structurally sound safe rooms and early alert systems.

What is the cost of installing a safe room?

Can I install a safe room in an existing home?

Can I build the safe room myself?

Where is the best location for the safe room?

Where can I find plans for safe room construction?

FEMAs guide discusses having a safe room in your home or small business that can help provide “near-absolute protection” for you and your family or your employees from injury or death caused by the dangerous forces of extreme winds.

This is a good start for anyone considering a safe room of any kind. In the next post we’ll get into detail about what designs may be considered when building one to protect for predators and even manmade disasters.

Robert Siciliano personal and home security specialist toHome Security Source discussingADT Pulse on Fox News Live. Disclosures