This home under construction. It was built in 1987 and is truly a nuclear fallout shelter. The earth cover goes to the top of the pipes. For more information see the John Ayers article.
Monolithic Bomb Shelters and Fallout Shelters
A need?
I keep hoping a day will come when we’re no longer thinking that we may need a bomb or fallout shelter. But it seems more and more likely that the need will occur before that day does.
The Monolithic Dome is the basis for the best possible bomb and fallout shelter. It’s stronger, it’s insulated, and it’s designed to be buried to prevent nuclear radiation from entering its interior.
The Monolithic Dome is super, super strong. We have built them and covered them with as much as 30 feet of earth.
The standard nuclear fallout shelter is a serious step-up from a tornado shelter. It needs a minimum 5 feet of earth cover.
A standard Monolithic Dome surface will withstand a tornado provided the windows and doors are protected. But for nuclear bombs, the dome needs that 5 feet of earth cover.
An interesting encounter
Twenty years ago I met a man who was designing bomb shelters for the Swiss government. We talked about them at length.
He was enamored with Monolithic construction. He said that their very best bomb shelters were torus-shaped. That meant the shelters were shaped like a half doughnut or a bagel sliced flat. And they were completely covered with 5 feet of earth. If one side of the torus got breached, the occupants could move to the other side.
Important considerations
People who want bomb/fallout/nuclear shelters must consider location and the type of nuclear radiation emitted. It would take one heck of a bomb shelter to survive a direct hit from a nuclear bomb – maybe none could.
For survivors, the big problem probably will be fallout from the nuclear cloud such a bomb would give off as it tours across the country. If you were downwind from a major city or other possible target, you would have to worry about that nuclear fallout.
If the fallout was just a one- or two-day affair, nuclear waste would land on your roof and remain on the surface. The size of the particles would be much of the problem. If the fallout continued every day for many days, the shelter would need a serious air filter system to extract the nuclear waste and provide breathable air.
People in the shelter would also need a water filtering and a waste disposal system. Obviously human waste can be handled in a composting toilet. A small generator could provide power for the facility, but water must be filtered to protect the occupants. For the occupants, the length of their confinement would also seriously impact their needs.
Lately, we have been getting more and more inquires about nuclear fallout shelters. We don’t pretend to have all the answers. I don’t think anybody does. But if someone wants to seriously look at it, we certainly have the structures. They will be complex and not cheap. But they are by far the best we know of.
Please contact us at www.monolithic.com or [email protected]