Underground coating

[Bijela]

I've drawn up plans to build an underground bunker. Making it is the easy part. But, don't know what to coat the outside in. I'm guessing some sort of marine paint would be best ?

[xplosiv1]

really depends on the construction and materials used, have you run your plan past a structural engineer ?

[Deeps]

Is this bunker in a back garden or do you have somewhere more discreet for it ? I can see the curtains twitching if its in the back garden.

[Wood cutter]

As above, it depends what you are using to build it. I'd have thought using waterproofing additives for the concrete, and then tanking it would be best.

[metatron]

Autocad for the technical drawings, this will allow you to calculate soil tonnage (for disposal), plus all needed materials. Dig a hole, construct the shuttering from ply, insert steel reinforcing mesh, hire a concrete pump and use water proof concrete. You will still likely need a sump pump, water has a way of getting in. Using shipping containers is kind of a losing game, as you have to reinforce them a lot, which eats in hugely to the amount of space, among many, many other problems, which are easy to discover as lots of people have tried it.

Realistically its quite expensive and there are far better ways to use that money, but if I were to do it on the cheap, I'd probably use large diameter concrete drainage pipe, like



but underground.

[Bijela]

3mm mild steel sheet with channel frame. It's going in the garden. Will assemble in the ground.

[unsure]

3mm mild steel sheet with channel frame. It's going in the garden. Will assemble in the ground.

a couple of coats of cold galv paint . then may be a good coat of bitumin [sp] should be enough .

[xplosiv1]

3mm mild steel sounds like a bit of a bodge to me. Surely it will be a bugger to insulate, and condensation will be difficult to manage. There's also going to need to be an awful lot of framing and bracing to stop it falling victim to the pressures the ground will exert on it.

I was thinking the same, 3mm steel will behave like paper under load assuming the structure is tall enough for a person to stand upright and completely buried.

3mm mild steel sounds like a shipping container to me ..... they need hundreds of pounds worth of steel bracing to go in the ground + more for someone to weld it if you cant do it yourself and in this country with our climate mild steel will last no length of time in the ground, outer coating or not.

I hope the OP has done all the necessary checks on this structure.

[omega man]

Hi,
All this negative conjecture when the OP has only given us a handful of words to describe his intended plans.

Having spent my whole life around metal working and engineering I'm going state that with the correct structural design 3mm mild steel with the correct channel frame can indeed withstand immense force and pressure, maybe a surplus of these materials is available? he states "making it is the easy part"

Should we not go on the assumption the original poster 'knows his onions' until the opposite is displayed. His question is about the coating, he's asking for advice on that, not what we are guessing he's overlooked with his metal structure and overall plan.

OM

[Deeps]

Hi,
All this negative conjecture when the OP has only given us a handful of words to describe his intended plans.

Having spent my whole life around metal working and engineering I'm going state that with the correct structural design 3mm mild steel with the correct channel frame can indeed withstand immense force and pressure, maybe a surplus of these materials is available? he states "making it is the easy part"

Should we not go on the assumption the original poster 'knows his onions' until the opposite is displayed. His question is about the coating, he's asking for advice on that, not what we are guessing he's overlooked with his metal structure and overall plan.

OM

A fair point, well put.