Category: Retreat Architecture

A Trip to the Yucatan–Observations of Mayan Primitive Living, by Michael G.

First, a preface on my background: I can’t decide if I should be a Cassandra (Sunspot cycle, Peak Oil, suitcase Nukes, Mayan Calendar mythology) or a Pollyanna (Y2K Flop, Heaven’s Gate, 2003 Hindu prediction Flop, and the 6-6-06 Flop; not to mention all of the countless predictions of the beginning of the “Time of Jacob’s Trouble,” rapture, et cetera, that hucksters and zealots have hawked for thousands of years). I believe whatever happens will happen and be over very shortly, and it will either leave us relatively unharmed or (given that I live in a city and work at an …


Two Letters Re: Advice on Construction a Hiding Place for Precious Metals in a Home

James Before building a house with a walk-in vault, for years I stored firearms and ammo in an old soft drink vending machine. Bought the non-working machine for next to nothing, removed the guts, and had a cheap gun safe (if necessary, a locksmith could re-key an old machine for a few bucks). It held a lot, had an excellent locking system, would be hard to break into, but best of all was invisible. Placed in my garage and later a barn, with a few tools and old boxes stacked on top, no one ever gave it a second look. …


Letter Re: Advice on Construction a Hiding Place for Precious Metals in a Home

Jim, After being scared Schumerless by the potential US economy meltdown and reading various related posts on SurvivalBlog, I finally took the plunge and purchased some junk silver coins. Since I plan to store these at home rather than a bank safe deposit box (because of potential accessibility problems), would you please recommend a strategy for storage. I’m assuming a small, somewhat hidden, safe bolted to the floor/wall would be reasonable. Any recommendations? Thanks, – Russ S. JWR Replies: Unless you already own a large home vault–such as a gun vault–I recommend that you construct one or more secret caches …


Letter Re: A-Frame Houses for Retreats?

Dear Mr. Rawles, Do you have any thoughts on the use of A-frame homes as a retreat? I can see the positive negative points, and would appreciate your thoughts (and those of your readers). For: They are economical to build and maintain. The extensive roofs offer lots of space for PV panels or solar water heaters. The steep roofs are good for distributing heavy loads (whether from heavy snow falls or volcanic ash). They look like most people’s stereotype of a vacation home, and not like a survival retreat (good for hiding in plain sight). Against: More difficult to harden …


Letter Re: Food Reserves and Summer Kitchens

Hello James, Not long ago, our friends at FEMA destroyed six million MREs, (which we taxpayers had purchased at a cost of $40 million). Why? Because of storage conditions. Now this is an extreme example: FEMA placing food products in unrefrigerated containers under the Gulf Coast summer sun. But it does serve to illustrate that no matter how large one’s pantry may be, to avoid turning that food into so much garbage, you have to monitor storage conditions. Our “summer kitchen” at our home/retreat occupies a 200 square foot area in one of the outbuildings. This room is double insulated …


Letter Re: A New Lock Bumping Threat–Medeco M3s at Risk!

Hi Jim, Regarding a previous thread in the SurvivalBlog archives, some news has come to light about picking [some varieties of] “high security” Medeco locks.The article begins: “A group of researchers has cracked the security features in what are supposed to be some of the world’s most secure locks — locks that are used at the White House, the Pentagon, embassies and other critical locations. The researchers presented their findings for the first time at the DefCon hacker conference this weekend and showed how they could easily bump and pick the newest high-security M3 locks made by Medeco, a company …


Letter Re: Garage/Shelter for RVs as a Retreat Option?

Jim- A few days back a contributor asked about hardening up her mobile home. That reminded me of a plan I have been considering over the last couple of years. This might work for those who can’t relocate now to their retreat. I was motivated to write because I just saw a news report of a family offering a considerable reward for the recovery of their ATVs which had been stolen from their vacation cabin.[My idea is to] develop a retreat location with: 1. A water supply and septic tank and [leach] field (all disguised, to discourage squatters.) 2. Underground …


Four Letters Re: Advice on Protecting My Home from Gunfire

Sir: Regarding the question you received from a reader regarding protection from gunfire. Might I suggest a decorative planter made from poured concrete or concrete block? Brick would do in a pinch, assuming it was face brick (which has holes in them) with rebar and mortar or cement in the holes, although brick shatters easily. (Concrete block should have the cavities filled, with vertical rebar in the cavities and horizontal strengthening rectangular wire loops in the mortar every other layer). An inexpensive and attractive one or two tiered planter 16-24 feet long and 4 feet high can easily be built …


Letter Re: Advice on Protecting My Home from Gunfire

Jim, I am currently in the position of not being able to leave in the event of collapse or epidemic or whatever God may throw our way. I do, however, have the opportunity to build a “storage” area that may also be able to severe as a safe haven for my family when the hordes come out of Atlanta. Thanks to your blog we are way better prepared to survive than we were five months ago. However I feel we have virtually no gunfire protection in the mobile home we currently live in. I am going to be extremely irritated …


Letter Re: Advice on Under-Slab Underground Shelters

Mr Rawles, I was looking at the construction of different areas of my home and trying to think of the best area for a fallout shelter or bunker. I have a basement with access to the area under my garage and under a slab addition. I figure that it would be too dangerous to tunnel under the garage but was wondering if it would be feasible to tunnel under the addition slab. If this were an option I could really have a large bunker area, especially if there is a way to use the garage slab. Thanks, – ART JWR …


Letter Re: Dick Proenneke–A Modern Day Pioneer in Alaska’s Bush Country

Mr Rawles, I saw the link to the anchorage daily news about alaska and I thought that you or your readers might be interested in a man named Dick Proenneke who basically left his life behind in the {Lower 48] states and lived alone in the Alaskan bush for about 30 years. Yes, he did have some outside support, and a few visitors a year but the man was amazingly resourceful. There is a documentary he filmed himself that actually shows how he made his own cabin by hand with no power tools, he makes not only the table and …


Letter Re: Solar Power, Wind Power, 4WD Electric Vehicle, Wood Fired Brick Ovens

James, I am new to SurvivalBlog but I thought that I would share my experience and thoughts with everyone. I have a totally off the grid ranch that is powered by wind and solar. We have more electricity than we can use with a 40 kilowatt (KW) battery bank, 2 KW of photovoltaics and 1.4 KW of wind power. First I highly recommend a hybrid system, solar and wind. Usually when the sun isn’t shinning, the wind is blowing, especially when a storm is blowing in. My batteries are usually full by 1100 hours in the summer and 1200 hours …


Letter Re: Masonry Stoves / Brick Ovens

Jim I have been reading the SurvivalBlog for some time now and thought I would share some information about a retreat technology that I have not seen mentioned. I am referring to a brick oven for baking bread, pizza and a large variety of other foods. Brick ovens have been around for thousands of years, they were very common in Roman times. They are having a revival in the artisan baking community and can also be found in many authentic pizza restaurants. They do take a little work to construct, however it is very simple to operate (decidedly low tech) …


Letter Re: Consider The Downside of HOAs and CC&Rs Before Making a Land Purchase

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Rawles; I live in so-called “rural” western Oregon. Last month I sold my home that was in a Homeowner’s Association (HOA) and moved to a slightly bigger place (3.5 acres, versus 2 )[that is] a few miles farther out into the country, outside of any HOA. Living there [inside the HOA] was worse than living inside city limits. I was forced to move [because] they had some CC&Rs that made it very diffiicult–if not downright impossible–to prepare for a disaster. Under the [“covenants, conditions, and restrictions”] CC&Rs, my storage space for all my survival goodies was …


Letter Re: Hidden Retreats Versus Open Fields of Fire/Visibility

Hello; Thanks for your efforts and the structure of your blog. I appreciate the lack of flaming and demeaning commentary. Wanted to get more input on this subject ” Hiding retreat versus open fields of fire/visibility”. We are leaning towards camouflaging, as much as possible views of our home from the road. However, this conflicts with my Army provided training, where on fire bases, we have open fields of fire and high visibility. I believe we need a compromise. As a less than visible retreat will avoid [confrontation with those who are] the less observant. But open fields of fire/ …